Is she talking to me?Thelma rubbed down the front of her shirt before approaching. “Just fine, thanks. They’ve got… well, the technology in this house is a bit beyond what I’m used to, so they’re showing me how to use things.”
“Oh? Where are you from? I’ve got a cousin who lives in rural Nebraska and can’t get any decent Wi-Fi. She says it’s like living in the ‘90s again.”
I’ll take your word on it.“Not from around here, that’s for sure.”
Megan shut the cat in the downstairs office before returning to the kitchen. “Think more like the ‘50s for Thelma.”
“Eh? Is that why she’s got the whole retro look going?”
Thelma’s head shot between them, wondering what Megan would say while wanting to entertain more of Gretchen’s questions.Her eyes are quite striking in the dark.Just enough light from the back porch torch to illuminate a docile sea of hazel.
“She’s got her own style going on, that’s for sure,” Megan said. “Thanks for bringing Fiddles back, Gretch. I’ll do my best to make sure he stays inside.”
“Oh, yeah, make sure you do. I’d hate to hear he disappeared because of a coyote.”
Gretchen disappeared, and Megan closed the door. She said a few things about the cat before going back to giving her grandmother the tour. By then, Thelma’s thoughts were not allowed to remain on Gretchen, whose beautiful hazel eyes haunted the back of her mind.
When she went to bed that night, surrounded by a silent house and the occasional rush of a car passing by on the street, Thelma closed her eyes and pretended she was back in the ‘50s, where everything made sense—and her son was eight and still loved her behind his boyishly grim demeanor.
“Boys are like that, though,”she heard Bill’s voice from that final morning in her familiar kitchen.“I used to lie about being sick all the time to get out of math and reading.”
Thelma was on her side, opening her eyes and staring at the sheer curtains as they waved in a passing night breeze. “I’m sorry,” she muttered from beneath her mother’s quilt. She pulled it closer, recalling how her mother’s dexterous hands sewed anything they could touch while a young and eager Thelma attempted to copy her mother’s movements. “I wish I had just let you stay home.”
The harder it was to sleep, the more inclined Thelma was to get up, grabbing the cloth bathrobe she stole from the FBI’s hotel rooms before popping into the hallway, where the vents made a low humming noise and she detected the riotous sounds of snoring coming from a few yards away.
She slowly pushed open Robbie’s bedroom door, gazing at the back of his silver head as he slept the night away. The whole room smelled of aftershave—just like Bill’s. Even in his adulthood, and despite whatever brands had come and gone over the decades, Robbie had gravitated toward his father’s scent for his own.
Thelma rubbed something away from her eye.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, this time at the back of Robbie’s head. “For everything. I hope you can forgive me.”
She closed the door with a soft click and returned to her room, where she stood in front of the window and gazed up at the full moon hanging heavy in the clear night sky. At least here, in the future, the moon was exactly the same.
Right now, it was her most constant friend.
Thelma’s hunger for her usual independence was at odds with her family and the government treating her like a small child who needed a parent’s gentle guidance. It didn’t matter how quickly she got used to the glass top stove or acclimated to the newer flavors of cooking oils—neither Robbie nor Megan allowed her to cook a basic breakfast of bacon and eggs. She could make all the toast she wanted. She could help herself to the produce and crackers in the cupboard, but throwing together a casserole? Out of the question.
Vacuuming? Was she kidding?
Using the credit card at the supermarket, when everyone took her for her first (sensory-overloaded) trip? Absolutely not.
Riding in the frontseatof Robbie’s stylish “sports utility vehicle?”They’d rather I die.
At least they let her set the table.Thelma continued to take in all the new colors of Fiestaware she hadn’t seen before, from baby yellows to pale peaches. Robbie grunted about “buying them out of habit” and “pastels were big twenty years ago” whenever Thelma got caught up pairing colors on the table in a way that made her granddaughter squeal in delight.“I didn’t know plates could look so good on the table!”
To add insult to injury, the one time Thelma attempted to change the television channel—the one thing she was allowed to do, she swore—she messed things up so badly that she had to call for Megan to come down from her room to fix it. Except Megan was aghast at howbadlyThelma did things and didn’t knowhowto fix it!
So, maybe it was for the best that Thelma wasn’t allowed to touch anything connected to the electricity. Everything was “digital” now, including the poor washing machine that had more dials andscreensthan it had any right to. Instead of subjecting her granddaughter to helping her clean her underwear, which was still a most sacred piece of clothing to someone like Thelma, she asked if they could take her recently-arrived debit card and get a few more pieces from the local Bullock’s. When Megan gave her a look that insinuated she had no idea what a Bullock’s was, Thelma tried Sears. That got her an awkward laugh.
“Let’s just go to Target,” Megan said. “It’s closer and cheaper than Macy’s.”
“Oh, thank God.Something’sstill around.”
“Target? They had those around back then?”
Thelma bristled as she grabbed the plain brown sweater Megan had bequeathed to her. “I meant Macy’s.”
“Oh, yeah, I think Macy’s bought everyone out. Everything is about online shopping these days.” Lest Thelma gave her the most bereft look in the world, Megan said, “But a lot of us prefer to buy certain things in person. Like shoes! And pants!”
