Wildflowers | S.Jy

| 1 |

June, 1896

My grandmother's fork scraped against her plate of food, cleaning up the last of her breakfast, while she stayed in silence. She had her usual look of holyness on her face, mouth dragging down long vertical lines from the corners of her nose, down past the corners of her lips and down over her chin. Always looking like she had smelled something terrible.

My grandfather didn't have those lines. Instead he had the habitual lines going from the nose corners and out across his round cheeks. Cheeks that could be chalked up to his usual servings of food and their sizes.

"I hear mrs. and mr. Lee has their nephew visiting for the summer," my grandmother eventually spoke up, elegantly placing down her fork and knife, indicating she had finished eating her breakfast.

"Is that so?" my grandfather grunted, shoving another mouthful of food into his mouth, barely able to close his mouth while he chewed.

"I believe he is the same age as Millie," my grandmother nodded and I raised my eyes from my cup of tea, in which I had just dumped two sugar cubes.

"Is that so?" I questioned and my grandmother nodded again.

"As far as I understand he is studying at the university down by Cambridge. He'll be visiting his aunt and uncle for the summer, just like your cousin," my grandmother nodded.

"When will Mira be arriving?" I questioned and picked up my tea spoon, stirring it gently in my tea.

"Tomorrow noon," my grandfather replied and dapped his napkin around his lips.

"And when will mrs. Lee's nephew be arriving?" I questioned. Eager to have other younger people.

Since I had turned ten I had been living with my grandparents in the field of Ailea. The fields had big beautiful houses spread out across them, all in beautiful soft colors. My grandparents were the boring ones, with the white house, but the Lees were the ones with the soft green house down by the forrest, and down by the lake the Winchester's lived in the solar yellow house. The hill behind the forrest and from where you could see the bright yellow house by the lake, was where my grandparents lived. It was the first house you passed when passing by the Ailea fields. The Green hill. Anyone coming to and from Ailea fields would have to pass by out front of the house.

Of course there were more than three houses in the Ailea fields, but none quite lived up to the looks of the houses belonging to the Lee or Winchester Family. Each house was either inhabited by elderly couples, widows, or multiple generation families, that usually skipped over my age and had people in their late twenties and their young kids living with them. The lack of young people in their late teens and early twenties had caused for the school down in the valley to be closed when I was thirteen and my grandmother had insisted on homeschooling me ever since. Not that the homeschooling ever amounted to more than me being allowed to pick out whichever book I would like from the in-house library.

"He should be arriving today by lunch," my grandmother excused and I nodded quietly, sipping from my tea to hide my excited smile, "mr. Winchester proposed we hold a summer dinner together on Friday. Welcoming the people who would be staying in Ailea Fields for the summer."

"That sounds like a wonderful proposal to me," I nodded and placed my teacup down onto its undercup, a small and light cling echoing out in the dining room.

"We will have to wait and see what your cousin thinks about the idea. As far as I understand mrs. Lee loved the dinner proposal," my grandmother sighed heavily and folded her hands in front of her, "I believe your cousin should be making the decision for us, as she is the guest for the summer."