When Rose finished her cup of coffee, she got up and went into the kitchen. She rinsed out her cup and set it in the strainer. From the refrigerator, she pulled out the carrots, celery, and cauliflower. She took out her grandma’s sectioned tray from the one cupboard and washed it. She set the tray further down on the counter and then grabbed the bamboo cutting board. She rinsed off the stalks of celery and set them on the cutting board. With her peeler, she peeled the carrot skins off and rinsed them.
She cut the carrots and celery down to smaller sizes and placed them in the tray. Then she washed the head of cauliflower and cut the base off. She broke up the head and placed pieces in the tray.
“There, ready for snacking,” Rose grabbed a carrot stick and took a bite.
She put some plastic wrap on top of the veggies and put the tray in the refrigerator. The leftovers she wrapped up and put in the drawer in the refrigerator. Maybe I should make some lemonade, she thought. Rose took out her glass pitcher that had large sunflowers on it from the cupboard. She grabbed the larger container of sugar from the other cupboard. She knew that she bought a bunch of lemons for a reason and took them out of the refrigerator.
One by one she cut the lemons up and squeezed the juice into the picture. She added the sugar, and some cold water stirred it really well, and put that into the refrigerator. Now she was ready for her company. Rose walked into the living room and remembered that she wanted to wipe down the table that Josh moved for her into the entryway. She went back into the kitchen and grabbed some polish from the cupboard and a rag.
She walked into the hallway and went toward the front door. The wood antique side table that grandma had up in the attic was now where the phone table was. Rose sprayed some polish on it and wiped it down really well. There, that looks better, she thought. She put the polish and rag away and walked into the living room. She picked up the daisy vase that was on the coffee table and carried it into the entryway.
Rose set the vase on the freshly wiped table, “There, that looks good on there.”
She looked at her watch and noticed that it was almost one o’clock. I wonder where Lisa is, she thought. Rose opened up the front door and walked out onto the porch. She saw another butterfly fluttering around the flowers. When Rose looked down her driveway toward the house across the street, she saw some man yelling and pointing his finger at a woman. Her house sat back about 200 feet away from the road so she couldn’t hear anything.
Hmm, I hope that she will be alright, she thought. Rose watched as the man climbed into his car and peeled out of the driveway. The lady then went inside her house. Rose looked around and admired her flower beds, and noticed that the grass was going to need cutting soon.
“That’s right, I either need to hire someone or buy a mower… Grandma had a maintenance man do it.”
Rose looked at her watch again and went back inside the house. She dug her laptop out of its case and plugged it into the outlet by the floor lamp in the living room. She hadn’t gone online yet since she had cable and internet installed at the house. Rose was thinking about her uncle Ralph and the fun things they did together. It dawned on her that the watchband she found in the basement looked familiar. She trotted up the stairs and went into her bedroom closet.
She had a box with some photos in it up on the shelf in there. Carefully she took down the box and carried it to her bed. As she dug through it, she found a photo of her and her grandma, and one of her, her mom, and her grandma. She sorted through some others and found a photo of her with her uncle Ralph. He had one arm around her and the other resting on his leg. She held the photo close to her face and tried to make out the watch band on his one wrist. It sort of looked like it but she wasn’t sure.
Please join me again for more of: Rose’s Ghost.