With the last of her energy, she scooped up all the bits and pieces that she had cut out and loaded it all up into the wheelbarrow and with that, she took it out to the front, using her sidewalk every step of the way and then piled it all into the compost bin. Done, she moved the wheelbarrow back and grabbed the broom from her garage, then quickly swept the driveway from where the gravel had been. She moved it all off to the side and just like that, another job was done.
Smiling, she headed back inside and tried to figure out what she would eat. A sandwich didn’t appeal, and an omelet would be more substantial, but she really wanted meat. Yet the ham she had didn’t entice her. She had no more pizza leftovers, so it would be a big chef’s salad maybe or an omelet after all. She frowned at that though because she was a bit chilled from being so tired after all that hard work in her backyard and decided to make a heftier omelet.
With her eggs in the pan, she quickly laid quite a bit of ham on top of it and then cheese and a few mushrooms. By the time the omelet was cooked, it was bigger than anything she’d made yet. She put it on the plate and smiled. “If you could only see me now, Mack,” she whispered. But he probably would have said she could have done a whole lot different than this. She took the first bite and sat back, hearing her stomach grumble as it was being teased. She smiled and whispered to Mugs, “This is wonderful.”
He jumped up onto his back legs, putting his front legs onto her thigh, and sniffed her plate. She chuckled. “You’ll have to wait until I’m done,” she said. “I’m a little too hungry right now.”
Indeed, she didn’t slow down until she got to the last quarter. There, she stopped and pushed her plate back a little bit. “So maybe my eyes were bigger than my tummy,” she said. “But then I did do five eggs.”
She rolled her eyes at that because she was sure her husband would have had a fit. He believed that eggs would cause her cholesterol to rise and fat to form on her thighs. But then he’d been very, very worried about her thighs and her hips and her waistline. She slowly had another bite and ate it, and, by the time she was down to the last bite, she cut it up into little pieces and put it on the floor for Mugs. He devoured the entire thing without even thinking about it.
She got up, put on the teakettle, and rinsed her fry pan and flipper. When Mugs was done, she washed her plate, knife, and fork, and then she quickly fed all the animals. She still had some fruit in her fridge, so she grabbed an apple and took her pot of tea outside to the new patio. With a beautiful deck now, she wasn’t sure she should sit on the patio or up on the deck. She didn’t have furniture for both. And the patio had been easier originally, but now she really wasn’t sure.
With her cup of tea, she walked over and sat on the steps and sighed happily. The sidewalk stretched down toward the creek in front of her, and she could see all her hard work from today as well. She grabbed her laptop and brought it out to sit on her lap while she leaned up against the railing. It was perfect. She could sit all over the place. And still work too.
She brought up pictures of Curtis, Marsha’s husband, and noted his features. A couple photos of him were from various prominent volunteer positions he’d held. A big affable man with a rounded chest and always had his arm hooked around Marsha’s shoulders. They looked happy together. It didn’t look like he’d be the kind to run off with a younger woman at all. Frowning, she kept looking through more, going farther back into Google’s archives. Sometimes his name brought up hundreds of pages, and it took time to sort through them.
When she finally took a look for Rosie’s husband, David McDougal, she found much less in the way of pictures. It was mostly Rosie’s photos and not David’s. And then she found one with his hat on and his face turned to the side. She frowned at that. She picked up her phone and called Nan. “Hey, Nan. I know you said earlier how Rosie’s husband was a layabout, with his gambling and his supposed gardening. But what did Rosie’s husband do to earn a living?”
“He was a salesman,” she said. “Medical supply company or something like that. Why?”
“Just, you know, if he took off on her …”
“I don’t know that he did that though,” Nan said. “I don’t really see it as being something he would do.”
“The women were all friends, right?”
“The other three women were friends with Marsha,” Nan said. “Yes. But not Rosie.”
“She wasn’t friends with Marsha?”
“No, no, not like the others were. They were the kiwi clique. Carried those stupid things around everywhere. Rosie, instead of arguing with them, used to hand them out to everyone instead. Especially to the four of them. Almost as a reminder that she was there and would usurp the reigning Kiwi Queen.”
Ahhh, bingo. “But Rosie wasn’t having trouble with any of them, was she?”
“Only Marsha,” she said. “And that was over the kiwi contest. She knew the other ladies and was friendly to them, but it wasn’t the same thing. The other three were friends friends.”
