Page 91 of Devious Roses
In a town as small as Boulder, an hour outside of Houston, it doesn’t take me long to make it home.
I use the time to clear my head.
Jot down my thoughts in what I refer to as my Bible.
The small thick book serves as both my therapist and memory bank. Its pages are full of any and everything you’d want to know about me, but also the things I don’t know. The things I wish I knew myself…
You’d think in the technological time we live in, I’d use my phone or start a blog like most people.
But I stick with my little purple book.
Today’s entry is about the grease fire. I doodle flames and Freddie’s angry face with devil horns, releasing a petty cackle as I do.
The bus rolls to a stop where I’m supposed to get off. If not for the reminder from Wade, the bus driver on this route, I wouldn’t have even noticed.
Dust flits around me as the bus drives off and I stand at the front gate. Our mailbox leans off to the side, the little red flag pointed skyward.
I almost don’t check it. What’s the point when I already know what’s been delivered?
Junk mail. Utility bills. Mortgage. More junk mail. Credit card offers and letters from credit collectors. Evenmorejunk mail.
I scoff, tearing open an envelope and reading the threats about my student loan debt.
“Good luck collecting,” I mutter.
The only remotely different thing we’ve received is a letter addressed to Pop. Sent by a man named Harold Lautner and embossed with a metallic silver seal of what resembles a crown.
I study it walking up the dusty path leading home.
The tiny bungalow house was once a gem when Mom and Pop bought it decades ago. Throughout most of my childhood, it had a bright green lawn and flower bed. Frilly curtains in the window and a fresh paint of coat.
These days, nothing but weeds and dirt greet you. Pop stopped giving a damn the moment Mom passed. The property hasn’t been cared for since.
I creak open the screen door and step inside the humid, dark space.
The only light in the room comes the flashes of the TV. Pop lies passed out in his cracked leather recliner, snoring another afternoon away.
I flip on the ceiling fan to get some air circulation and open the curtains on the windows.
A routine I’m more than a little used to since I started caring for Pop. If I don’t… no one will.
He and Mom had no biological children.I’mwho they ended up with.
After collecting the crinkled candy wrappers and an empty bowl once filled with a chicken pot pie, I kneel beside the recliner.
“Pop,” I say gently. “Wake up. I’m off work.”
He grunts an unintelligible sound.
“I think I got fired today. I started a grease fire.”
Another grunt.
“You got this letter,” I say, presenting the envelope. “It’s from some guy named Harold Lautner.”
That does the trick waking him up. He tries to push himself up in the recliner, his eyes squinting and his body moving like a sloth. I lean over to help him and accidentally knock over his cane propped up against the chair.
“Did you get your steps in today? Remember what the doc said. Daily walks if you’re ever going to heal from your surgery.”