In the kitchen, I refilled our mugs, then filled a plate with some gingerbread cookies I’d made the day before. The boys hadn’t been enthusiastic about them. Carlo had claimed that the cookies were hot on his tongue. I figured that, perhaps they were more of an adult taste.
Sure enough, when I set them down on the table, Sheila reached out and took one. Although she didn’t praise them, she kept right on eating them. As the pile of cookies decreased, Sheila started talking. This time it wasn’t about me, but about the place where she lived.
I was always eager to hear about other towns. Having experienced only two of them, one which was pretty negative, I found the habits and practices of folk interesting.
“Women like me aren’t supposed to work outside the home. It’s expected that I’m good at cooking, sewing, rearing children, and keeping the house pretty. That gets boring, you know?”
I nodded. I could understand that. Everyone needed something extra in life, like a beautiful gray stallion and a familiar?
But, truthfully, I’d never been a stay at home wife, or any kind of wife. Nor did I resent cooking. I liked trying new dishes and baking cakes and cookies for the boys and for our guests.
I thought about the woman who’d smocked my dress with the beautiful daisies. It would be nice to have that kind of talent, but I had to agree with Sheila, sewing wasn’t all that exciting. For one thing, the silly needle always ended up pricking my fingers, and sometimes when I was patching a garment, I accidentally sewed it onto my pants or my shirt.
Sheila looked up, saw my nod, and must have decided that the two of us were bosom buddies, because then she went on to discuss how her husband almost never came home anymore.
“I know he’s busy. He’s a surgeon, and he has to travel sometimes. When he’s in town, he has a bed in his office. I guess he falls asleep there.” She grew quiet, then reached for another cookie. It was the last one on the plate.
“More coffee?” I asked.
“Um. Yes, but could you show me where the bathroom is first?”
I led her there, then turned back to the kitchen. I placed the rest of the cookies on the plate, filled Sheila’s mug and added a glass of water for myself because my coffee limit had already been exceeded. Anymore and I’d be springing up and down like a wild rabbit fleeing over fallen logs. I brought everything back to the table, and sat waiting for Sheila to return.
She pulled out her chair, sat down with her head lowered, then grabbed at her newly filled mug. It was several moments of silence, except for the sudden case of sniffles she’d developed, when I realized that she’d been crying. When I finally saw her face, I saw that her eyes were beet red and tears were streaming down her cheeks.