“Lying on my patio!” Edith said into the phone, shaking at the memory. “I made my coffee like usual and it was raining so hard I thought about not driving to church.”
“Not go to church?” her mother asked suspiciously.
"Mother," she paused, "I said, not drive to church. I thought Howard could pick me up so I wouldn’t have to drive in the rain. But church isn’t important right now. What’s important is a big black man knocked over my flowers and was lying face down in the rain on my patio. I thought he was dead.”
“Church isn’t important?”
“Well of course church is important. I went to church right after the policeman left. He was a very nice Christian man too, he said he was taking the black man to church with him and buckled his hands together so he could pray.”
“That was nice of him,” Hattie said, picturing a very wet man singing from the Hymnal. “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? sounding injured.
“Mom, you just got out of the hospital yesterday. Howard and I drove you home and I told you I'd call you today. I wrote Call Mom in big red letters on the calendar so I wouldn't forget; my memory is getting so terrible bad if i don't write things down I forget about them. I would have called sooner but I got up late," making her way across the tiny kitchen, clock reading 5:12.
The shame of being in the hospital on the Sabbath wounded the old women. “Please don't miss church again. If you need a ride call Howard. He'll drive you.”
“Did Howard get his license back?"
“Well no. They won't give it back because of his stroke but he only drives to church so it’s OK. And he stops at Meijer’s now and then when he visits me. And he drives to his exercise class on Tuesday. “I think it's on Tuesday. I’ll ask him.” The phone went dead.
Edith looked at the silent phone in her hand then gently tapped it on the counter trying to jump-start it back to life.
It rang.
“Hello?” she answered cautiously.
“Oh, that’s right,” Hattie continued in mid sentence, “today’s Friday, he drives Sheila to lunch on Friday, so he didn’t answer the phone because he's at lunch” Hattie said, oblivious to the time.
“Who?” Edith asked, as if recognizing her mother’s voice for the first time.
“Howard drives Sheila to lunch every Friday. That's why he didn't answer the phone.”
“That’s nice,” Edith affirmed, opening the blinds to her tiny porch. "It’s nice to hear he got his license back,” Edith said nonchalantly, looking across the tiny deck towards the missing flowers box.
“I am too,” Hattie agreed, sounding suddenly very sad. “I wish I could drive you when you need a ride but I can't even drive myself. I want so badly to die but then who would take care of you and Howard? What is God thinking letting me live to 98? Why won't he just let me die?”
Edith ignored her mother as the image of the missing flowers began to emboss itself onto the melting wax of her 79 year old mind. “Mom, I think something happened to the flowers. You know those nice flowers Sheila and Howard brought over? We planted them in the flower box on the porch then sang hymns at the organ. She plays the organ so nice. They’re gone.”
“Sheila and Howard are gone?” terror sprang from Hattie.
“Where are they?” Edith echoed her fear.
“I don’t know,” on the verge of tears. “I hope they’re OK! They’re probably driving somewhere. It’s Friday and I have no idea where they could be. I told Howard a thousand times to never drive that car. He’ll go to jail if they catch him, but he never listens to me. He drives his daughter all over town at a drop of a hat but he never visits his mother...”
“Mom, I think something happened to the flowers” Edith told her mom, searching the thicket of her mind for a trail to the missing flowers. “I could have sworn I watered them yesterday,” struggling to remember. But the flower box demanded concentration beyond her shrinking capacity and in moments she called off the search, turning away from the window, closing the blinds to the patio behind her.
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