Acre Under a Green Sky

I lay awake in their guest room that morning; listening, and dreading the day ahead. I don't think I had slept five minutes all night long. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to go home.

The Sisters McConnell had already left their double bed with the ornate wrought iron headboard that they had painted white and were having breakfast at their kitchen table facing the glass-enclosed back porch and the garden beyond. Each morning they awoke in the dark minutes before sunrise and made their way to the kitchen for thick slabs of oven-toasted bread and marmalade and piping hot tea. In winter, Irene would make hot cereal, too, but mostly they liked the rich seven-grain bread Irene baked herself every other day filling the house with a perfume you can't buy. Fats, the giant cat, would be fed, too; and then the three of them would sit around the table watching the sunrise through the many-paned windows of the porch they used as a combination potting shed and greenhouse, and they would discuss their plans for the day and gossip about neighbors and friends.

Today, Janet would work on the asparagus bed, and Irene was expecting Mrs. Moskowitz over to address envelopes for The Library Fund. Mrs. Moskowitz's daughter, Iris, would take us kids to the pool along with her small boys. She must have five or six boys by now. It had taken the Sisters McConnell thirty-five years to cultivate the silence of sunrise together, and the shorthand communication of lifetime mates. Their voices were clear and soothing like a cat's purr in the darkness that surrounded me, and I could picture Fats lying draped over Janet's lap purring to her rhythmic, languid caresses.

"There's a lime marmalade, you know?"

"At Winston's. I'll get some."

"Might be good."

"Might."

"With your bread."

"Mmmm. I'll get some."

"Windows tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Can't put it off."

"Oh! The book fair?"

"Next week."

"Right. Next week."

"Windows tomorrow."

"Right. Here. You're empty."

"Thanks, dear."

This morning was like all the others; a flawless routine. After a time, some soundless alarm went off; and Janet groaned to her feet with a sigh, dropping Fats to the floor with a thud, and their day began. Janet went up to dress, while Irene cleaned up after breakfast and laid out a few things for lunch. After Janet passed through the kitchen to the garden, it was Irene's turn to dress and straighten up the bedroom.

I heard her climbing the stairs, and looked over at Danny and Baby Ruth fast asleep in the twin bed next to mine.

Irene looked through the open doorway, and whispered, "Is anybody hungry?"

I didn't answer. I heard her enter their room across the hall and close the door. She would be dressing now. They were so wonderfully predictable, and I remembered a brief exchange between them just a day or two earlier.

Irene said, "Let's not talk about the future. I prefer the past."

"Of course," Janet said, "it's so much more predictable."

I didn't quite understand, but something in their eyes; something unsaid in the tightening of Janet's spine and the tilt of Irene's head informed me well –– the future is dangerous, and the past is safe. It seemed to me that they had found a way to live in the past; to duplicate it on a daily basis, forever shutting the future out. They were safe. This was a safe place.

I went to the bathroom to pee. I had held it back as long as I possibly could; feeling in some way that I was holding back the start of the day, but like the day, urination has its own imperative. When I came out of the bathroom, I saw that their bedroom door was open.

Irene was making the bed; smoothing out the fine white linen with picot edging. She looked up from the bed and smiled at me.

"Hungry?" she said; but before I could answer, something more immediate occurred to her. She went to the open window and cast aside the lace curtains to lean out. I followed her to the window. Down below, Janet was already busy in the garden with wheelbarrow, hoe and shovel.

Irene called out to Janet; but of course, Janet heard nothing. Despite her protests to the contrary, Janet was going deaf. Irene called out again. Still no response. I noticed that Janet's straw hat was unraveling at the brim and that her gardener's smock was ripped and faded to a non-color that once might have been green. Her gloves were earth-brown. She looked like a hobo.

When the sound of Irene's shouts finally reached her, Janet looked up to the second floor window with annoyance as if to say there was no need to shout so.

"Don't forget the broccoli," Irene shouted.

Janet winced and cupped her ear.

"The broccoli. The Broccoli! THE BROCCOLI!!"

Janet nodded and waved an "okay", and Irene moved away from the window cursing Janet's obstinacy: "Really, would a hearing aid be so bad!"

She jumped with a start when she saw me, and clutched her heart. She was always startled to find us there in her home. We were like ghosts haunting their routine.

"You're still in your pajamas," Irene said, "Iris will be here for you any minute."

I woke Danny and Baby Ruth and helped them dress for the pool. By the time we got downstairs, the kitchen table was already set for our breakfast of Rice Krispies which they had stocked especially for us, and Irene was setting up the dining table with pens and shoe boxes full of envelopes and the mailing list for The Library Fund.

We ate at the kitchen table in silence. Something about that house made silence comfortable. After a time, Irene joined us without a word. Neither Irene nor Janet ever felt compelled to talk to us just for the sake of talking. We needed no assurances that we were welcome guests in their home.

Irene made coffee for Mrs. Moskowitz, and prepared a tray of coffee cake slices. She and Janet had given up coffee years before, but they had it on hand for guests. Suddenly, the house was full of the aroma of fresh perked coffee.

Irene took a long luxurious whiff; and said, "Isn't that wonderful! Janet would love this. Should I fetch her, do you think? No. Better not tempt her. She'd pour herself a cup, and I'm not going through weaning her off coffee again. Is that cereal enough for you? That's not a good breakfast, you know."

Irene never waited for answers to her questions. She was talking to herself, and we were eavesdropping if we listened at all.

She went about preparing a large salad for their lunch, and was cutting slices from a breast of turkey when Mrs. Moskowitz called out from the front screen door. Irene called Mrs. Moskowitz in and wiped her hands on her apron before joining her in the dining room.

"Where's Iris?" Irene asked.

"Waiting in the car."

"Iris is waiting for you in the car," Irene shouted into the kitchen, as if we couldn't hear every word.

We gathered our things and ran down the walk to Iris' Ford station wagon with the fake wooden sides. Irene and Mrs. Moskowitz were waving good-bye from the porch.

Mrs. Moskowitz later filled in the rest.

She and Irene addressed envelopes and chatted until lunchtime. Irene made sandwiches at the kitchen table while Mrs. Moskowitz prepared her salad dressing. Together, they cleared the dining table of the morning's work and set the table for lunch. Irene asked Mrs. Moskowitz to fetch Janet; commenting that Janet would work through the day without a bite if they let her.

It was Mrs. Moskowitz who found Janet's body. She was lying among the asparagus –– her head bashed in with a hoe. And it was often said in the days that followed that it was a damn good thing Mrs. Moskowitz had been there all that morning or Irene would have been arrested for Janet's murder like that Luka fellow.