Chapter 20 "Day Dreaming"

May awoke early on Tuesday, as she did every Tuesday regardless of whether or not she wanted to, she slipped into the tattered skirt and long sleeve shirt that would block the sun’s attempt to darken her already lightly tan body. As she ate a filling breakfast of grain and yogurt accompanied by a sweet, warm, cup of coffee in her enchanting green kitchen, she daydreamed of places far away from The Sandbox.

She gazed out the kitchen window and pictured the fixer-upper house she wanted to own someday. A great, big, fixer-upper house that sat close to the water and who’s stained, glass, windows shaded the grass, clouds, and water different tints. She imagined the sizeable old fashioned tub that would be the focus of the bathroom and the crown molding that would bring character to the living room. She even thought of what rooms would be scented by which Yankee Candles. Surely, each room should have a sweet smelling scent in which to be recognized.

May thought of the snug office, that she would call a “study” merely because it sounded better. The study’s walls would be just big enough to fit a poster displaying photographs of different sushi properly named in the caption below each picture. It would be accompanied by framed photographs of different restaurants she visited around the world. Her favorite part of that room was the dark, mahogany wood, chair with cumbersome cushions that swallowed anyone who sat in it and perfectly accented the dark picture frames on the desk.

She imagined the flower garden in the back of her house. She saw herself walking down the red and yellow tulip and white daisy path to the, freshly white painted, swinging chair that faced the water. She looked forward to curling up on it and swinging in the breeze while being carried away in whatever book she was reading at the time.

May thought of future summer vacations to Cape Cod and the Jeep Wrangler that would get her there. She thought of the gigantic, black, boots she would wear Cole-hogging and how good Cole-hogs tasted with a smidge of horseradish on them. She thought about jogging on the Cape’s shores in the early morning and jumping in the ocean to cool off after a good workout. She imagined Christmas Eve’s by her Grampa’s old fireplace. She pictured playing in the snow and feeling the crispness of the air on her cheeks. She could feel the winter’s numbness on her hands and feet as she dodged snow balls in the woods behind his modest house that rested, between curves, on her favorite hill on the Cape.

She wondered whom it was she would share the beautiful house with and who would accompany her on her vacations to the Cape. She awaited the days when she would admire and be admired by the same person. She did not think of what he looked like or where he was but of quaint little things. She thought of the pleasantness it would be to have someone to take care of her when she had a cold, to reach the high places in her house, or to sway with on the white swing. She thought that whenever the Father blessed her with him, she would take him back to her little hometown in Connecticut and walk down all the roads she walked down single, thinking of who he was and how they would meet. She thought she would bring him to the little fishing lakes, the ocean and the bay, in Florida, where she used to jog and fish and do all those things as a “couple” that she once did as a “single”.

May finished the last sip of her coffee and swallowed the last spoonful of grain that nearly escaped her mouth. She took a deep breath in and warm air filled her lungs. It was another Tuesday morning in northern Africa.