The Gap

Chapter 2 - The Gap

How do you identify the day your life changes forever? Does it arrive with bang and confetti flying in the air, or does it slide past and you only recognize in hindsight? For me, hindsight has always been 20/20.

My day began with a game of 'hide and seek' with an antique percolator in my childhood home, but seeing as my Gram's kitchen was stocked in preparation for a zombie apocalypse, I had no choice. Her coffee maker 'gave up the ghost,' her words not mine, and since she didn't drink coffee, she hadn't gotten around to buying a new one.

Gramps was the coffee drinker in the family, and I still remember thinking the stuff was vile. Now it was, as it was on that day, a necessity to remove the sleep covered fog from my brain.

"Ok, so, no coffee maker," I muttered to myself, because really, who else was here. "Oh, but she does, however, have two packages of unopened coffee and a jar of freeze-dried." I quickly placed the jar on a lower shelf in case I ever get that desperate for coffee – thinking that maybe that would come in another twenty minutes.

If I knew she would have bought freeze-dried coffee, I would have brought her some back from my last trip to England. At least that country knows how to make instant coffee that actually tastes like coffee.

I spent time stacking ancient Tupperware and consolidating her collection of Cool Whip containers in my fruitless search for the elusive percolator.

All the contents of the walk-in pantry and the canning kitchen were neatly stacked or boxed. Thankfully, the well-marked boxes rested on the floor below the lowest shelf, but it didn't make the percolator magically appear.

Frustrated that I was wasting time instead of getting ready to head back to the hospital, I slunk back to the kitchen, snagging my nightshirt on a wall hook as I did.

"And you were one of my favorites," I told my shirt with a little sigh as I examined the damage. My soft, comfy black 'Nap Ninja' shirt had a hole the size of an open hand just above my hip. Resigned, I reminisced about all the late mornings we'd had, and I had thoughts of tearing a ragged hem, and maybe cutting off the sleeves for use on hot summer nights when I stopped in my tracks.

Turning face-to-face with an intruder, scared me enough to dislodge a scream that would make an average person's ears bleed. But, since it's Becky, being a mother of four not-so-quiet children, all she asked was, "You through?" with a whimsical sneer. "I brought you some coffee. I wasn't sure if you would have been able to make any with," as she motioned to where a coffee maker would sit, "no machine."

She motioned to my attire, "That's kind of a different look. Personally, I wouldn't have gone with one with that big of a hole, but to each her own." She smiled at me, handed over the coffee. "Don't let Alyssa see that. She fancies herself a designer, and she'll have your shirt 'fashioned' before you can stop her."

She turned her head to examine the state of the kitchen. I also looked around, making sure I hid the evidence of percolator search. Thankfully, all was hidden.

"Elizabeth has spent the last few mornings at my house for breakfast. Well, mine twice, Curtis once before that, and she ate with Jack day before yesterday," she says without elaborating why Gram is making the rounds for breakfast company. "I figured you'd be heading out the door by now. Honestly, I was shocked to see your vehicle still here. I was just taking a chance that you might still be here."

She took a breath and looked at me expectedly. Seeing my chance to enter this one-woman conversation I asked her, "Oh, it's my turn?" She gave me a 'don't get smart with me' look.