Mary #8

If anyone does Saturday Centus you might somewhat remember this story started as a centus.  In  June of 2010, I wrote a few chapters on Mary and then stopped.  I had so much to write about her, writing weekly for centus wasn't enough.  I then wrote and wrote until I had over 30,000 words so far.  In writing it though as I got further and further my original premise somehow got blown out of the water, ha, ha. I stopped writing her story in March of 2011.   I still haven't quite figured out how I'm going to work this out but I thought I would put out what I have so far.   Please remember this is a really rough draft and when I wrote it, I had no chapters.  Before I decided to put this on the blog I had to go back and figure out where I could make them.  I would suggest this is a terrible way of doing it lol.  The first chapter started on March 23rd, 2012.

8

Mary got back to cleaning.  Lulu was sitting on the couch watching Mary. 

"I just don't know what comes over me sometimes.  My mouth just works faster than my brain.  I love Jimmy, he's my brother and what happened wasn't his fault.  I have to stop thinking he could have done something and grow up already.  It wasn't the end of the world.  I survived.  I'm the manager of a big hotel in New York City.  My life is pretty darn good.” 

 Lulu jumped from the couch and rubbed up against Mary's leg. 

Mary went back to work, polishing all the furniture and dusting all the knick knacks in the dining room and living room.  She vacuumed the old rug that was there since she was a child.  She thought before we sell we should really pull this rug up; I bet there are beautiful hard wood floors under it.  People love that nowadays. 

When she was done, she looked at the roses on the table and they still looked fresh and beautiful with the white linen tablecloth.  

She chuckled and said to Lulu, "I'm really going to freak Johnny out and set the table with Ma's good china.  It will be beautiful.  I'm even going to get the candlestick holders out of the buffet and put candles in them and light them.  I remember Pa buying Ma those candlesticks one Christmas.  Every year we kids would buy her candles for them but she would never light them.  She was always waiting for a special occasion that she thought worthy but one never came I guess.”  

Mary looked at the time and thought she better get going, she wanted to do the kitchen yet, get a bath and change clothes before Johnny came. 

Mary went in the kitchen and she could smell the aroma from the crock-pot it was intoxicating.  She went and got a glass of wine or two and started cleaning.   She washed the stove, refrigerator, shined up the sink, wiped down the counters and swept the floor.  She even got the old mop and scrub bucket out and washed the floor.

When she was done in the kitchen, she surveyed all the cleaning she had done and was happy with how clean and sparkly everything looked.  She looked at the time and it was only 7:00.  She still had time before she needed to get in the tub so she lay down on the couch and turned the TV on.  The local news was on and she wanted to see what they were saying about the weather.  From the sounds of it outside it was still raining hard and now there was much more thunder and lightning.  It was pretty dark in the living room too but the glow from the still going fire and the TV were all she needed for now.   Mary could barely keep her eyes open.  She thought I'll take a power nap and be up in about a half hour then I'll take my bath and get ready.

Mary heard a banging on the back door.  She got up groggily, went to the door and she saw Johnny standing all wet.  She opened the door and he came in.  

"Aren't you early?” 

"I don't think so.  In fact, I'm my usual prompt self" as he shivered from the cold and rain.  

Mary looked at the clock it was 9 o'clock he was right.  Her power nap had turned into two hours.  

"All that cleaning I did today had me exhausted.  I was going to take a nap and then get cleaned up.  I must have been more tired than I thought.' 

"You don't have to worry about cleaning up for me Mar.  You look fine.  I'm surprised you still have one of our old high school sweatshirts.  When's supper going to be ready, I'm starving?”

 "I'll just put the biscuits in the oven and then we'll be ready" Mary said. 

"I'm going to go up to my old room and see if Ma has any of my old clothes in there so I can change.  I got soaked just from coming from the car.” 

"Okay, I think I'm going to throw a salad together too so take your time.”

"I'll be back.”  

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.