Part 1

“At the Cabin” Part 1

Edith woke up on the Fourth of July at five-thirty, a little before the sun.  She got out of bed immediately and made it up after herself, pulling out the decorative pillows from the closet and folding the extra blanket with precision at the foot of the bed.  Then she went downstairs in her pajamas and bathrobe for her morning litany, a ritual as comfortable as catechism.  Boil the water and crack the eggs, feed the dog her dry food and yolk, make up the tray with the rest of her breakfast: omelet, toast and jam, cantaloupe, tea.  She took her breakfast and book out to the deck.  For the last few years, she had been asking the librarians for very long novels because she liked the feeling of being caught up amidst an indefinite process, the mundanity of paradise, the reassurance that things will just keep going on.  Now she was nearing the midway point of Gone with the Wind, but it would probably take her several more weeks to finish.

The deck was situated midway up a steep hill overlooking the majority of her property.  A well-trodden path zigzagged downhill where it would eventually meet a wide, slow, shallow river, but the foliage obscured the gravel trail after a few hundred feet.  The finches hidden in the trees chirped, Esmeralda lay across Edith’s slippers with a sigh, and Edith licked her finger and turned the page, licked her finger, turned the page.  The sun rose.

Inside, Edith washed up and put twenty-five potatoes in the oven.  She always made twice-baked potatoes and provided fruit and vegetables for snacking.  In the shower, Edith checked off the items in her head, a list she’d had memorized for many years.  Her son and daughter-in-law would do the hamburgers and hotdogs, and her daughter would bake dessert.  Everyone else would bring drinks or chips or napkins and paper plates, except her sister Angela, who always brought deviled eggs with pickle relish, which no one else liked.

She was slicing onions when Angela called at eight o’clock.  “I hope I didn’t wake you up,” Angela said when she heard Edith say hello.  It was the first time Edith had spoken all morning, and her voice sounded thick.  “I have a huge favor to ask you, well, not really ask you, but I wanted to let you know.”

“Oh?”

“Marcus is bringing a girl.”

Marcus was Angela’s only son’s only son, Edith’s great nephew.  He was in school for a master’s in architecture and had never failed to call Edith on her birthday.  Edith was glad that he had found someone he liked, but she had watched Angela resent her son’s marriage for thirteen years until the divorce and could only imagine the disaster she might wreak on her grandson’s.  She decided to play it mild.  “Well, that’ll be nice.  Tell them to bring whatever she likes to drink.”

“You don’t understand.”  Angela’s voice had dropped to a whisper, though she lived alone too.  “Suzan is Middle Eastern.”