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Lemonade and a Laugh
“Would you like to join me on the porch, Ella?”
“Okay.” I shrug my shoulders.
When we came in earlier, Mrs. Hallovich showed us around the downstairs a little more, and told us a couple of stories about when she was a kid here. Then, she put Tommy in a fresh shirt and a new bib from the diaper bag, and fed us an un-poisonous lunch. Just when I stopped noticing that basement-ish smell of the house, she brought a faded quilt into the study to lay him down for his nap. As she spread it out on the floor, the smell of old dirt rose up and invaded every corner of my nose. Since I didn’t know how to politely tell her the quilt stunk, and Tommy wasn’t complaining, I let it go. Poor Tommy. He’ll need an extra big scrub in the tub tonight.
We’ve survived eating her food twice today, but I’m thinking that if she offers me anything else to eat or drink, I’m going to say no. I don’t want to press my luck.
“Would you like me to bring out some fresh squeezed lemonade?”
“Uh . . . sure.”
Okay, that may seem like I caved pretty fast, but it’s fresh squeezed with lemons from that amazing greenhouse, and who would ruin fresh squeezed lemonade with poison? I watch her pour both glasses from the same pitcher. I’ll let her take the first swallow, just in case.
She hands me my glass and I follow her outside.
“I love to sit here after lunch,” she says as she holds the door open for me.
I take a seat in one of the two wicker chairs that are separated by a small table. The study window opens right out onto the porch, so I can hear Tommy if he needs me.
I expect Mrs. Hallovich to sit in the other wicker seat, but instead she sits in the rocking chair across from me. It makes me a bit uncomfortable because I can’t shake the feeling that she just sat in someone’s lap. My face must have a funny expression because she asks, “is something wrong, Dear?”
“Nope. Nothing’s wrong.”
She takes a swallow of the lemonade, and begins to rock. She closes her eyes and leans her head back.
I take a swallow of my drink. Delicious. Thank goodness it’s not poisoned. That would be such a waste. I lean back and close my eyes for a moment, like Mrs. Hallovich is doing. The shrubs around the porch rustle in the breeze. Birds chirp. I reach out farther with my ears, and take in more sounds from the first Monday of summer. Traffic goes by. Someone down the block is mowing their lawn. I hear the hum of the neighbor’s air conditioning.
Willow House has been nice and cool today with only the windows open. In my opinion, air conditioners kind of ruin the sounds of summer. My mom got mad at me a few times last year for opening my window at night when the air conditioner was running. How is a person supposed to hear the crickets? She finally agreed, but only if I kept my door closed, and laid a towel across the bottom to keep her money from “literally disappearing out the window,” (her words).
I realize I’m daydreaming, and open my eyes real fast. I swear I see Mrs. Hallovich’s eyes snap shut. She’s been watching me. What was she planning? Her glass is half empty. She opens her eyes again to take another sip.
“Nice out here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say. I’m noticing that there are little beams of sunlight dappling the porch floor here and there. The bushes surrounding us are not as thick as I thought they were this morning.
“I’ve seen you and your friend walk by here many times.”
Uh-oh. This is awkward. She’s also seen us cross to the other side of the street. She’s probably seen us run when she calls hello. She might have heard some of the things we’ve said about her being a witch.
“We pass here on our way to Roy’s,” I say.
“Ah, yes. The mini-mart on the corner.”
I nod.
“Many years ago, I would walk Gertrude and Henry to the very same place for candy, or popsicles in the summer. I’ve known the owner for a hundred years.”
This is a common thing people say to exaggerate, but since I think Mrs. Hallovich is one pepperoni short of a whole pizza, I wonder if she thinks it’s really been a hundred years.
“What’s your friend’s name?” she asks.
“Daleni,” I answer. But, to steer her away from the weirdness of explaining why we avoid her and this house, I change the subject. “Were you an only child?”
“Yes. Unfortunately. My parents always told me that I was more than enough, but I had the feeling they were sad there weren’t more children.”
“Were you sad too?”
Mrs. Hallovich smiles at me. Her laser beam eyes have softened since this morning. “Yes. It was lonely. What’s it like for you to have a baby brother?”
“Pretty neat,” I say. It’s more than neat, but I don’t want her to feel worse.
“Tell me about the day you saw Tommy for the first time.”
It’s one of my best memories! So I tell her. “When my parents first brought him home he was so . . . so miniature! His fingers and toes were a hard-to-believe-they’re-real kind of miniature. And don’t get me started on his smell!”
Mrs. Hallovich laughs. “Yes. Babies can stink a little.”
“No! I mean yes, they can stink a little. But I’m talking about the good baby smell: baby wash, and baby lotion and clean diapers. It’s better than fresh cut grass, and strawberry chapstick, and baked bread.”
“You must love your brother very much.”
I nod.
She nods.
We sit with our own thoughts for a moment and finish our lemonade. I’m afraid to ask this next question, but by now, you know me, I’m gonna ask.
“What about your kids?”
She sighs. “They smelled good too. . . and sometimes they stunk.”
That cracks us both up.
I really want to know what happened to them, but I don’t want to bring up a sad subject after that nice laugh. Luckily, Mrs. Hallovich can read my mind.
“Gertrude died when she was seventeen,” Mrs. H. said. “She contracted tuberculosis. Do you know what that is, Ella?”
“Yes,” I say softly. “It’s a bad disease in the lungs.”
“That’s right. We sent her to a hospital that specialized in treating those patients, but she didn’t improve, so we ended up bringing her back home. My husband thought he could help her. He couldn’t.” She paused for a moment. I wasn’t sure if it was my turn to talk, but, thankfully, she went on. “Sam, my husband,” she explains, “never recovered from losing her. He was different after that. Eventually, his relationship with our son crumbled. Henry left home when he was eighteen, and he never came back.”
What does a person say after that? I can barely breathe. I want to give her a hug. I want to cry.
“I’m sorry.” I finally say. Sometimes, maybe, that’s all you can say.
Mrs. H. continues talking about her kids in happier times, which makes us both feel better. As she rocks and talks about them, I feel my eyes growing heavy.
“Would you like to go in and lie down with Tommy for awhile?”
I nod my head. “Just for a little while,” I say.
She lifts herself from the rocker and grabs my glass from the table.
“I’ll take the glasses to the kitchen. You can go on into the study with Tommy.”
I do as she says, and find Tommy on the quilt in the middle of the floor, exactly where we left him. I sit down next to him, and gently brush a lock of hair away from his sweet face. Mom and Dad say we look a lot alike. We both have light brown hair and hazel eyes but he doesn’t have freckles, like me, across his nose and cheeks yet. Plus, I don’t think I look like an angel the way Tommy does.
“He certainly is a heavy sleeper,” Mrs. H. says as she returns to the room. “Here’s another pillow so that you can lie down with him.”
Maybe not the best idea now that I think about it. I’ve been told I’m a heavy sleeper too, and with both of us in a deep sleep, anything could happen.
“Nah. I’m okay. I’m not as sleepy as I thought.”
She places the pillow on the sofa. “Would you like to pick out a book?”
There are about a million books in this study. Where the heck do I start? I look around for the narrow spines that might suggest kids’ books. Mrs. H. points to a group near the floor.
“My kids loved to read. This shelf belonged to them. Some were even mine when I was young. Help yourself to any of them, and make yourself comfortable while I go and get some chores done. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
I run my hand down the spines, and recognize a lot of the titles. I haven’t read them, but I’ve seen some of the movies: Winnie the Pooh, Bambi, Treasure Island. I pick out Anne of Green Gables. My teacher Mrs. Haines recommended it to me last year. She said I remind her of Anne. I grab up the pillow Mrs. H. left behind, and lay down beside Tommy. I open to the first page and begin reading, but after a few minutes my eyes feel like they’re being pressed shut. I hear the chair on the porch begin to rock. I want to stand up and look out the window, but the next thing I know, my mom is waking me up.
