Keeping Things Whole [ON HOLD]

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The rooster wakes me up, and I wonder where I am for a moment, but I remember after a little while. This was my mom’s room when she was young: there are still pink curtains and pink lamps everywhere, and I plan on trying to convince Gran to replace them. At least she got normal colored sheets and blankets for me. But it just feels weird, sleeping in the same room that my dead mom did more than twenty-five years ago. It’s just… yeah, weird. All the shutters are drawn to keep the light out; it hurts especially bad this morning. I feel like a freaking vampire or something, like I’ll turn to dust and disintegrate if I set foot in the sun. Maybe I will, who knows. I’ve gotten so damn pale from all this, and the dark circles will not go away no matter how much I sleep (which is a lot). I’m face down on the bed, my head buried into the pillow when Gran starts knocking on my door.

“Shiloh? Shiloh, I need you to go out to the barn and milk Ms. Adelaide, and I’m making omelets this morning, so I need you to get some eggs from the coup.”

I sink my face back into the pillow; there is no way I’m going to go all ‘farmer Dale’. No way in hell.

She calls for me a few more times, and then I am left with blessed quiet. I sleep for four more hours; sweet, black, dreamless sleep, and when I awake I’m ready for breakfast. I shuffle out into the kitchen, and I see that Gran is gone. I walk up to the pan on the stove; it is scraped clean. I glance over at the dining table, which was covered in an old red and white-checkered tablecloth, and there is no food to be seen. I check the pantry, the cupboards, but all I find is flour, spices, and sugar. Finally, I open the refrigerator, and there is a note taped to an empty milk jug:

Dear Shiloh;

Unfortunately, I only had the energy to fetch enough eggs for my own breakfast. If you want milk, then I’m afraid you’ll have to get it from Ms. Adelaide yourself. There are turnips and collard greens in the cellar if you get hungry.

Much Love,

      Gran

I almost break my teeth off trying to bite a beet, and the collard green tastes like crap. In the end I put a square of butter on top of a potato and stick it in the microwave.

* * *

            I wake up at seven after two days of starving to death. It almost kills me. I just want to collapse back onto the bed and just pass out, but the snarling in my stomach reminds me that the only thing I ate yesterday was another fried potato and a turnip, since Gran conveniently made only enough soup for herself at lunch after I refused to help her cut tomatoes, and at dinner she went to her friend’s. I had no idea old people could be so busy, but evidently she really keeps herself moving. She’s on the town council, she sells home-made needlepoint pictures, butter, eggs and milk at the local market, and holds weekly book-clubs in the living room with half-a-dozen other old ladies. It’s like I’m swimming in the estrogen ocean.

            “Good morning, dear,” Gran calls from the den. “See, I told you he’d be up, Opal.”

            And so I walk into a living room filled with elderly women, I clad only in my boxers and socks. I feel my face redden and I look about for something to cover my chest.

            The woman called Opal looks at me with an expression that can only be described as prim distaste. She is long and willowy, as is her face, her black button eyes peering out at me from behind red cat-eyed glasses. “It looks as if we caught him off guard; couldn’t even bother to put on a shirt.”

            “Aw, look at him blushing! Isn’t he a doll?”

            “Oh Harriet, you old biddy, you’ll scare him off.”