The Cave, Part 3

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

That night, Collette experienced strange dreams of an expedition to the Antarctic. A blizzard was coming and the little lodge where the party was staying, would be lost in the blizzard if they didn’t leave immediately. One man, however, stayed behind. Collette never heard what happened to him.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, progress was being made. Rose’s room was finally coming together. During the morning hours, Carrie pieced together pillows for Rose’s bed, covering them in shiny bright orange cloth and fuzzy bright orange cloth. More orange cloth was made into a curtain for the window. And Mom and Carrie had purchased Rose’s request: beige microfiber bedding.

After Mom had dropped off Trooper at PetCo for the day (for a much-needed hair cut) and had picked up a case of bagels from the Bread Co., she was gone with Grandma Combs for most of the day. She headed out in her white summer dress to join Grandma for a luncheon with her old friends from Normandy – her high school.

While she was gone, Collette sorted through all of Rose’s keepsakes. Some no longer required keeping, however, including a plastic jar of murky water in which swam a little ceramic mug, different colored plastic pegs, and maybe other things that she couldn’t see through the dirt. She later discovered that Francis had given it to her as a present a long time ago, (as a sort of kaleidoscopic toy). It had been clean at the time. Collette didn’t really care to know how it had come to such a state.

There were other things: Mom’s old Skipper-Barbie doll (that didn’t look anything like the modern Barbie dolls), rocks, shells, and bones, wrinkled ribbons from horsemanship competitions, and many tiny things that had to be boxed together. Collette put a third of these memorabilia in a Tupperware under Rose’s bed. The other two-thirds were boxed and sent downstairs. The boys and Linnea carted a number of loads to the basement before the work was done.

It was about at this time of the day, when Puck went down for his afternoon nap, that Collette and Carrie finished typing Carrie’s memoirs from Egypt.

Then they returned to Rose’s room to sort through her photos from Egypt and frame the best ones in silver frames and attach them to Velcro on the wall.

By the end of the day, the must still hung heavy in the room. Collette was obliged to light one of Mom’s small scented red Party Lite candles and leave it on Rose’s chest of drawers.

They finished almost everything just in time for Mom to walk in the door. With a little extra cleaning and vacuuming, it was almost finished. When Dad returned from work, he and Joe prepared to lug the molding fish tank down to the basement. The disaster of Rose’s room was about to be vanquished.