“I can’t believe it,” Sheila said, either talking to herself or to me, although I doubted the latter. Although her mother had ordered her out of the house, she remained sitting at the table. She picked up her mug, probably full of cold coffee by now, but drank the rest of it down. Then she recovered her fork, and despite the fact that it had been lying on the table where she’d dropped it, the woman crammed it into her mouth and swallowed the bite of eggs still remaining on it.
“These are cold,” she said. “I suppose the pancakes are, too.”
I was half holding my breath, not knowing what to do. Martha had ejected her from the house, well, at least orally, but the woman was still here. Should I do something or say something, to make her leave?
“Would you like more coffee?” I said instead.
Sheila looked up at me, then, examined me as if she hadn’t really taken the time to do so before, although I know she’d earlier scanned my hair and clothes, finding them both deficient in merit.
“I would appreciate another cup,” she said, not smiling, but not giving me the scowls she offered before.
I grabbed up her mug, then retreated to the kitchen, where I poured the woman a fresh cup of coffee. I fixed myself one, too, figuring that someone should sit with her. I think this was what Old Mother might call the woman’s “hour of need”.
When I returned to the table, I saw that Sheila was eating her eggs, cold as they were. She’d forked a couple of pancakes, too, and was cutting them up with a knife.
“Thanks,” Sheila said. “It’s nothing personal. You might be a decent person. It’s just that . . .” Either she didn’t know how to finish the thought or she desperately needed the coffee. She blew on the mug and then took a sip.
I picked up my mug and sipped it slowly, not adding tinder to the flames of Sheila’s fire by saying anything. Silence is sometimes holier than religious chants, Old Mother once told me, then later ordered me to forget that sentiment, I guess because she really didn’t like anything dealing with conventional religions.
So silence it was. Two women drinking coffee and musing on private thoughts.
“How did you get the two boys?” Sheila asked after a minute. “I know Dr. Ben said something about it in a letter. I think he said you adopted them, right?”
It wasn’t a topic that I would have chosen, but I answered Sheila’s questions. She seemed surprised by my answers. Her eyes widened, almost in disbelief. “So, you’re not even related to them?”
I widened the topic to explain how I’d been hired to take care of the boys and placed in this house, which had belonged to someone recently deceased. “I thought I’d only stay a week or two, but Martha and Frank asked me to make it a longer stay.”
Sheila had eaten everything on her plate and emptied her second cup. “Is there any more coffee?” she asked, holding up her mug with a hopeful expression on her face.
Since she’d begun treating me like a person, instead of a piece of trash picked up from a garbage heap, I nodded and returned to the kitchen for more.