Lilac Avenue Read Free Page A

looked out the window next to the door but couldn’t make out who it was. Someone small, a child, maybe, holding something.
    “Who is it?” she shouted.
    “It’s Kevin, ma’am,” the boy said. “From the Mountain Laurel Depot.”
    Mamie recognized the voice of the dimwitted young man who cleaned tables at the Depot. He seemed harmless enough. She opened the door and scowled at him. He backed up a step.
    “What do you want?” she demanded.
    “Phyllis sent your lunch,” he said. “On account of you missed your breakfast.”
    “She did, did she?” Mamie said. “Well, I didn’t order it and I’m not paying for it.”
    “No charge,” he said. “Honest.”
    “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Mamie said. “Well, don’t just stand there, bring it in.”
    He broug ht in the pan of food and sat the dishes where Mamie directed him to, on the side table next to her reading chair in the north parlor. Mamie felt around in her change purse and came up with a quarter for the boy.
    “Thank you, Miss Rodefeffer,” he said.
    “You tell Phyllis whatever she wants the answer is no,” Mamie said.
    “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said.
    Mamie took her most important tote bag, the one with the thin straps that had the new books in it, into the parlor and sat in her favorite chair. Out of the tote bag she retrieved her mail and one of the new romance novels, and then sat back, savoring the softness of her chair and how it enveloped her, embraced her. She took off her walking glasses and put on her reading glasses.
    Mamie opened the first envelop e, only to find she couldn’t read what was written on the page inside. She used her page magnifier and tried again, but the words were still a blur on the page. Panicked, she dropped the mail on the floor and opened the new romance novel. Using the skirt of her dress, she cleaned the lenses in her glasses, and again held the page magnifier over the page.
    It was no use. She couldn’t read a thing.
    “Useless glasses,” she said.
    She took them off, and placed them on the side table. She put on her walking glasses and used her cane to balance herself as she pushed up and out of her chair. Her left leg gave way; she fell sideways, and landed on her side on the oriental carpet. The fall was so unexpected that she lay there for a moment, stunned, to try to gather her bearings. The telephone was over on the other side of her chair, out of her reach. There was no one expected to visit, no servants to whom she could call out.
    Luckily she had fallen in stages, almost in slow motion, down onto her knees, to her hip, then onto her hands and elbows, and finally onto her side. Nothing had snapped, or felt broken. The rug was a good one, thick and soft.
    “Well, fudge,” she said.
    That was something her last housekeeper used to say, for which Mamie would reprimand her. So lower-class, that chattering woman, always some family drama with all those children and grandchildren. She was constantly asking for time off. She had quit in a huff over something Mamie had done; what was that?
    ‘Oh, that,’ Mamie remembered.
    Not too long ago, on a particularly bad night of a trying week, Mamie had used her cane to strike her own great-great-granddaughter Grace, and had thoroughly enjoyed doing it. If certain nosy busybodies hadn’t intervened, she might have repeated the blow a few times.
    ‘Impertinent guttersnipe, ’ Mamie thought.
    Mamie tried to move the leg that had given way. It was a dead weight, with no strength left in it. She closed her eyes, relaxed, and almost fell asleep. That wouldn’t do.
    Mamie rolled onto her stomach and pulled her right leg up under he r body. She was able to get up on her one good knee and both hands, and then grasp the arm of her chair. She pivoted herself over to the chair so she could pull herself up with her weight on her right leg. She turned and collapsed in her chair, breathing heavily. Her heart fluttered in her chest, was silent and still,