Viki's Place: Mary #12

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.

Mary went back upstairs, went to the jewelry box closed it but left the envelopes out. She started looking in the dressers and closet. All of her Ma and Pa's clothes were still there and would need to be donated to charity. She wondered what were in the boxes on the shelf in the closet. She would need to look through those too. It looked like Johnny and Jimmy hadn’t done anything since her Ma and Pa were gone. Mary made the bed and felt a headache coming on. She decided she would get in the bath for a while and soak. Maybe that would help with the headache. Darn, she thought I never did get the bubble bath and then she noticed a little bottle on Ma's dresser. It was lavender scented bubble bath.

"Thanks, Ma" and she scooped it up.

She turned the water on and poured a little bubble bath in and she could smell the lavender immediately. She got in with the bubbles and then she remembered something she had forgotten, how her Ma always had little lavender sachets in her dresser drawers. She dozed off.

It was late afternoon by the time Mary got out of the tub. She went in her bedroom, put on brown Capri’s, a beige tank top, pulled her hair up in a ponytail and then went downstairs to the kitchen. She took a pizza out of the freezer, put it in the oven and set the timer.

Mary went into the living room and thought about calling Sadie but it was too early and she would still be at work. She decided to turn the TV on and mindlessly, flipped through the channels.

Ding, ding, ding. Mary put a couple of pieces of pizza on a plate. She headed for the fridge, pulled out wine and then put it back. She reached for some Coke instead. After filling her glass, she took it with her food to the rocker on the porch.

When she was almost finished eating, she saw a pickup truck pulling into the driveway.

"Who's this Lulu? Maybe someone is just turning around.” But no, she saw the truck coming closer and closer. It stopped right in front of the porch and someone starting getting out.

Mary said, "May I help you?”

"That's what I was going to ask you.” The man in a suspicious tone said "Who are you?”

"I'm Mary Jenkins and you?”

"Oh, you must be Hannah and Roy's daughter. I'm Eli Simmons. I bought the farm next door. For the last couple of years, I've been helping the Jenkins work theirs, getting practice so I could start my farm up. Since they passed, I've been coming and still mowing their lawn. Jimmy or Johnny never told me you were coming. Sorry, if I startled you. I thought you might have been a squatter.”

"Well, Mr. Simmons, I'm no squatter. Thank you very much for helping Ma and Pa with the farm.”

"Please call me Eli and no thanks are needed. I learned a lot from your Pa.”

"Would you like a coke, Eli?”

"That would be great.”

Mary went to the kitchen to get a coke. She found it very interesting that Eli had been helping her parents with the farm. Why hadn't she known that?

When she got back to the porch, Eli was sitting on the other rocker and she handed him the coke. He was petting Lulu with a tender touch.

"This is the first time Lulu's ever let me pet her. It must be because her owner's back" he said with a smile.

"So Eli, how long have you lived next door and where did you come from?”

"I came from California. My wife and I had always talked about getting a farm. When she died, I just picked up and moved out here about three years ago. I realized after moving, it wasn't going to be as easy as I thought to run a farm and then I met your parents. They were so neighborly to me when I first came. Since your brothers weren't interested in farming and he needed the help, your dad said he would show me how to run a farm and when I thought I knew enough I could quit and start working my farm. I really learned a lot in those couple of years. In fact, if you drive past my property you'll see what’s left of the corn I planted this year. I’ve had a really good harvest.”

"I’m sorry about your wife. Were you thinking about mowing today?”

"Nah, I was just being nosy when I saw you sitting on the porch. Like I said, I just wanted to make sure you belonged here. I'll probably be back in a day or so to do the mowing. How long are you planning to be here?”

"I'm not really sure but for a while. The reason Jimmy and Johnny didn't tell you I was going to be here is because they didn't know. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. We are probably going to sell the property and I wanted to start going through things.”

"That's a shame" Eli said. "Too bad no one in the family wants this place. I know your dad always talked about hoping one of the kids would want it after they were gone. I know they were very proud of you working in New York. Well, Mary, it was nice to meet you but I better head on home. There's stuff I got to do before I'm done for the night. Maybe I'll see you when I come to mow the grass.”

"Okay, Eli. I know this is going to sound a little strange but could you not mention to anyone you saw me here? I've just got so much to do around here.”

"Sure, whatever you want. See you later.” Eli got in his truck and left.