I sat back on my knees and thought, tinny. That was the best I could come up with. My mind was so muddled from the recent state of affairs that clear thinking, much less accurate description was a degree of okay at best.

For the better part of a week I’d been going through a house that suddenly belonged to me. It was someone’s will – a neighbor who I affectionately remembered from my very young childhood – that bequeathed me her house. She, as I recalled, wore what they used to call a house dress every single day. Never pants, but in that time no self-respecting woman ever did wear pants. I looked down at my by now filthy jeans and thought an apology to her. Her name was Virginia, though she had allowed me to call her Ginn because at age three one syllable was easier for me than three.

She was short and wrinkled and smoked one cigar every evening. She always had sugar cookies in a jar on her kitchen counter. Her house was, even then, weathered: a white clapboard with green trim and a front porch with a swing that held two or three depending on the size of a person.

I wandered over most days, walked in uninvited, and she would peek her head out of the kitchen door with two cookies in her hand (one for me and one for herself) and a small glass of lemonade like she’d been expecting me. We would enjoy the snack at the kitchen table, then move outside and sit on the porch swing.

Our topics of conversation varied wildly from fire engines to flowers, Harpo Marx to heaven. Harpo, Ginn had commented, wasn’t as quiet as everyone thought. She’d met him when she was a performer within the entertainment community. When she talked about him, my three-year old self wondered if he might have been an unrequited crush, but all she would conclude is that after he died, his wife had donated his harps to Israel. Anytime conversation wandered to Harpo, we’d sit in silence for awhile so she could, I suppose, let memory have its way. Or maybe not. My three-year-old self knew less than nothing about such things. Maybe she was waiting for me to leave so she could eat another cookie.

But besides harps and fire engines, we did, I think, have some philosophical heart-to-hearts. For instance, one time I’d been recounting a disappointment and seemingly out of the blue Ginn had remarked, “Sometimes a person would rather hide who she is. It’s easier.” She bit her lip, then looked down at me, “But easier isn’t necessarily the best choice. You understand?” I’d nodded, though my comprehension of her comment was surface at best.

My family had moved when I was six. I’d gone next door for one more wild chat and stayed until sunset. I’d hugged her tight and she’d hugged me tighter. That was the last I saw of her. I’d asked my mother one time if we could go back to visit Ginn, but she said she couldn’t imagine why and that was that. I did not argue because arguments with my mother always ended in me losing and feeling as though I should apologize, though to this day, I don’t know why. So I chose what was easier and didn’t argue.

After high school, I took a filing job at the courthouse downtown. Then I moved, went to college, and became a kindergarten teacher. Sometimes I thought about Ginn and how small I must have seemed to her even up until the time my family moved away. I sent a few cards to her address, but they were returned. Then one summer, I decided to find out why my cards had been returned and what had happened to Ginn.

to be continued . . .

Image: considerate-agency-Mb1wyoOquSg-unsplash-scaled.jpg; pexels-kate-l-2149358429-31116128-1-scaled.jpg; any; this story is fictional and any resemblance to an even or character living or dead is coincidental.