Libby Visits
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Collette noticed that in the new spring, honeysuckle was growing on the fence in the back yard. There were all sorts of flowering surprises around the house.
Come late in the morning, Libby dropped by with a plate of Collette’s favorite – her most famous quesadillas – and a loaf of Amish bread. She showed Collette several pictures of her three grandsons in Indianapolis and held Puck for the entirety of her visit.
“Oh, he’s just precious,” she said. “You kids are all growing up so well. Your grandpa would be so proud.”
She then encouraged Collette to bring Puck over to the pool during the summer with the rest of the kids. She had finally reinstalled the light in the pool, which was always a fun thing to turn on when the sun had set and the pool was still warm.
“Well, I’m heading off to the nursery down the highway here,” Libby said before she left. “I had some plants earlier around the pool but I put them out before that freeze. And I covered them. But my hibiscus died. So, we’ll see what they have over there. And then I have to go paint the deck of the gazebo.”
Libby had always enjoyed taking care of the pool and the gazebo, the “grounds” around the pool. It seemed to be a sort of sanctuary for her, especially since Grandpa had died. He had built the gazebo for her. And they had both spent countless days swimming every summer. Collette wondered if Libby remembered Grandpa best when she was tending to the flowers around the pool or sitting in the gazebo.
Earlier that morning, Puck had decided to kick himself over from his tummy to his back while on the couch. Collette attributed part of it to the fact that he was on a less-than-perfectly-flat surface. But the kid still did seem to have some power in his legs.
Meanwhile, the kids were at one of the two final choir rehearsals of the year. Once ended, Bluebell South would unleash the 2007 graduates into the new world of adulthood. It would be interesting to see where the slew of kids would head. Most to college, some to work, some to bumhood… And there inevitably seemed to be that one kid who had plans to be married by the end of the year. This time around, forty-five kids would be participating in the final graduation ceremony at 1st Baptist on May 26th. It promised to be a long, albeit somewhat interesting, social function, as it seemed to be every year. Collette wondered if they would soon come to the point where the ceremony would become too long for individual biographies to be read about every single student as his diploma was awarded. Seeing as OLeif was to be the narrator again that year, Collette believed that it would be necessary to bring two water bottles for him this time. He would be reading aloud biographies for a minimum of forty-five minutes total.
Carrie-Bri and Lucia dropped by later that afternoon for the tail-end of their lunch break. Carrie was already counting down toward her final day at NAWS before skipping the country to head to warmer shores.
“Twenty-seven days and two hours left…” she sighed wearily from where she was lying on the couch.
Carrie was pining for adventure.
The late afternoon was warm and green. Storm clouds piled in the east.
Come evening, OLeif played his violin, eventually serenading the Puck to sleep.