"...to pay the ferryman."

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Chinese New Year and Ash Wednesday coincided that year. Collette wondered how often that happened.

Outside the world was white and the skies were so gray against the lace-hung skeletons, that they began to hint at being violet. Collette loved such days, and she was glad to be staying home for most of the morning to work in the cozy little apartment.

For breakfast, there was a new coffee cake she had baked the previous afternoon, plus a red Caribbean papaya, which she had sliced up carefully for OLeif the night before.

It seemed to have been a bit of an aggravating afternoon – the trouble being begun as Mom was worried about sore lymph nodes on the back of Joe’s neck, which had been giving him headaches and were excessively warm. But there was no need to worry, and by the end of the evening, things were sorted back out again.

The rest had gone well. OLeif had finished the photo-shopped picture of Joe and Annamaria at Niagara Falls, a running joke for many years. Long ago, when both had been little children, they had always planned to be married in the future, and were once so married by the powers vested in Eve and Carrie-Bri. And, as Joe always insisted, he was to carry Annamaria off to their honeymoon “to Niagara Falls in a red convertible”. And so the picture was taped inside a birthday card and Joe was to purchase a small red convertible matchbox car for seventy-six cents and tie it off with a tiny bow. This would be presented to her for her fifteenth birthday, two days earlier, or two days late, that coming Friday or the Tuesday after.

Aside from this, there had been fried cheese for lunch and then bowls of frozen fruit for Joe and Rose upon returning from classes, as Collette tutored math.

While going back and forth between the two of them with the white board, and writing out subtraction sums for Linnea, she noticed Pumpkin cuddled contentedly on the kitchen bench by the window, sleeping soundly under a blanket of coins, rising up and down on her black coat as she breathed quietly.

“Guys, what is this?” Collette spoke rather a little too loudly, amused by the sight.

Joe poked his head in.

“It’s to pay the ferryman,” he answered, guessing.

“Good grief – how many times is she expected to cross the river?”

She noted the great number of coins lying there.

“Nine times,” Joe replied.

He laughed and walked back into the kitchen for another bowl of fruit. And over all, it was a pleasant afternoon – nice and quiet and unassuming.