Home: Part 32

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Expect nothing, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for a while.

March 1982

After a winter of steady, persistent rain, spring arrived as sunshine and dry weather. Kathy and I were sitting on the small balcony outside our apartment’s living room. Trees in the woods behind our apartment complex had been budding slowly for several weeks, but on that first day of spring they seemed green and alive.

“I like this so much,” Kathy said. She leaned back in her chair and turned her face to the sun, the first time we’d even seen the sun in three weeks. She undid two buttons on her tan blouse and bared her skin to the sun.

“It’s a nice change, isn’t it?” I asked. I could see that the creek running through the woods was still running high.

“Speaking of change,” Kathy said. “When I was shopping with Holly a couple weeks ago, she said she might be pregnant.”

“I thought you said she couldn’t have kids.”

“That’s what changed, I guess. Something must’ve clicked the right way.” Kathy’s older sister, Holly had been married for nearly a decade. Andrew, her husband, owned a Ford dealership and had done quite well. The two of them lived alone in a large house Andrew surrounded by walnut and almond orchards his parents had planted when they were first married. An arborist and all around environmentalist, Holly managed the orchards for her in-laws.

“I assume she’s happy about it,” I said.

“She’s starting to be, I think. She’s just now far enough along to tell people.”

“That’s good news, then,” I said.

Kathy didn’t say anything, just undid another button so that the tops of her breasts could absorb the sunlight.