Short Stories from Wing's Authors.

The Clothesline

by

Therese Kinkaide

Homer and Marva Judd had lived in that same old farmhouse for at least a hundred years. They lived just down the gravel road from Michelle’s grandma’s old house. Michelle had waved hello and goodbye to the Judds too many times to count when she was just a child. They looked plenty old to her then. Now, when she was approaching middle age, Mrs. Judd seemed ancient to Michelle. Mr. Judd had passed away when she was just a kid. He looked older than time even then.

Michelle never wanted for a thing at Grandma’s house, but Mrs. Judd always came checking around when she was staying at Grandma’s for a few days. Mrs. Judd was a hefty woman, with fat doughy hands, a fireplug neck, and bright blue eyes. No matter the weather, Mrs. Judd always wore flower print dresses and old black work boots. She would come to talk to Grandma, but she always brought a plate of cookies for Michelle. She had spent many days on her grandma’s front porch swing, eating Mrs. Judd’s cookies and watching the Judds across the yards.

Grandma made the best cookies, always peanut butter, and always fresh from the oven. Mrs. Judd always brought oatmeal cookies, and Michelle learned to like them and Mrs. Judd’s visits.

When Michelle got older, she still spent quite a bit of time with her grandma, and she still enjoyed Mrs. Judd’s visits and her cookies. There were times when her grandma, who was beginning to age too, would tell her she hadn’t seen either of the Judds out and about lately. They always knew the Judds were okay, because even if they didn’t see them, they saw Mrs. Judd’s laundry on the clothesline. Just as you could count on the sun setting in the west, you could count on Mrs. Judd hanging her laundry on the clothesline. Yet, at her grandma’s request, Michelle began hiking over to the Judds’ now and then just to be certain that they were okay.

Their house was old. It creaked and moaned as if it ached down deep in its bones. The furniture was old-fashioned and sparse, with uncomfortable wooden angles and no cushions to soften the seat. The throw rugs, placed at each doorway over the gleaming, yet faded hardwood floors, were threadbare. There was no television or telephone, much to her surprise. A few faded black and white photographs of gaunt, sour-looking men and stark, unsmiling women adorned the otherwise bare walls.

The house was a two-story, and the wind howled through the closed-off upstairs rooms. It was enough to make her edgy, thankful her grandma’s house was a modern ranch with good insulation and airtight windows. There was always a faint smell of old and earth in every room on the first floor. It smelled like old books and clothes and people. Heavy flowery scents, the smell of cooked liver, or the stench of stale urine always hung in the air. The earthen smell was what Mr. and Mrs. Judd tracked back inside with them everyday. It was not just the mud on their shoes, but the air outside, clinging to Mr. Judd’s dark trousers or Mrs. Judd’s functional white aprons which she wore over her dresses. Sometimes the snow fell and clung to Mr. Judd’s faded coveralls, and he carried the smell of cold air inside with him.

When she visited, Mrs. Judd would fret because there were no homemade cookies to offer. Michelle tried to tell her that it didn’t matter, that she was just there to visit. Once when she was there, Mr. Judd was ill. She saw him lying in a bed when she followed Mrs. Judd to the kitchen. A glance to her right found their sparsely furnished bedroom, twin beds, and Mr. Judd laying so still in one of those beds that she was sure he was dead. Suddenly he coughed and coughed, and again, Michelle wondered if he was dying. Mrs. Judd muttered as she dug out an ancient Fig Newton and handed it to her gently, as though it was precious crystal that might shatter. Mrs. Judd complained, albeit distractedly, about Homer catching his death.

When Mrs. Judd said goodbye that day and patted her hand with her own calloused hand, Michelle noticed that Mrs. Judd’s brilliant blue eyes had clouded with age. For reasons unknown to a twelve-year-old girl, it made her stomach hurt, and tears streaked her face as she ran back to her grandma’s house. She wanted to look into her grandma’s eyes to be sure the intensity was still there, to be sure she wasn’t getting old too. Afraid of what she would see, and unwilling to let Grandma know she had been crying, Michelle hid from her in the basement until Grandma called her for dinner.

Mr. Judd died a month later. Michelle expected Mrs. Judd to move closer to town or to a retirement home, but she stayed put. Grandma said she wouldn’t hear of moving. Mrs. Judd still puttered in her garden and grew beautiful roses. She began to shrink in her age, but her mind was sharp. Michelle continued to check on her during her teenage years, though her snotty, young friends made fun of Mrs. Judd whenever they went with her. They thought Michelle was crazy to care about an old woman who didn’t have the sense to pack it in, move out of the country, and find a convenient place to die.

Even after her grandma died, Michelle still drove out now and then to see Mrs. Judd. Grandma’s eyes had lasted long into her life. They got old just before the cancer took her. The day she noticed Grandma’s eyes had faded, she hid her tears yet again. She grieved for her grandma for a long time, but she took comfort from her visits to Mrs. Judd’s. Her grandma left her the house and the acre it stood on. Whenever she went to visit Mrs. Judd, she would check on the house. Surrounded by quiet memories, she was lonesome but content.

After college, Michelle moved into Grandma’s old house. It surprised her family, a young woman wanting to live alone in the country. She found a job as a loan officer at a local bank and gradually remodeled and redecorated the house. Through it all, she checked Mrs. Judd’s clothesline every day. When she had time to stop and visit, she took Mrs. Judd a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Mrs. Judd never told her so, but Michelle thought she preferred chocolate chip to oatmeal, Mr. Judd’s favorite.

By the time Michelle got married, checking in on Mrs. Judd had become almost as special as visiting her grandma had been. Her husband knew how important Mrs. Judd had become to her. He helped out with repair jobs that had to be done, though he didn’t doubt that the enterprising old woman would have found a way to do them herself. Mrs. Judd became a regular guest at their Sunday and holiday dinner table.

Mrs. Judd doted on Michelle’s children. As the children grew older, they loved her like their own grandma. Now and then, Mrs. Judd baked them oatmeal cookies, but it worried Michelle when she used her oven. At ninety-four, she was still pretty spry, but her eyesight was poor and getting worse by the day.

Though Mr. Judd had been dead for over twenty years, Michelle still thought of the old farmhouse as Homer and Marva’s house. Even on her worst days, a bad day on the job, coming home from the hospital after a miscarriage, and losing her father to a heart attack, Mrs. Judd’s rose garden and clothesline brought her a little peace.

As she drove home from work on the day before her husband’s birthday, her head pounded. Her mind was filled with thoughts of a computer software problem at work, worries over her mother’s recent bad health, and the argument she and her daughter had that morning before school.

Tomorrow’s a new day. There’s the birthday dinner, the cake she and the kids would make, and the presents they needed to wrap. She suddenly remembered the special birthday when her son had wrapped her present all by himself. The memory made her smile. Tomorrow’s just what we all need. She turned up the radio to sing along with a Garth Brooks song, as she turned down the old gravel road toward home. The words stuck in her throat.

There were no clothes hanging on Mrs. Judd’s clothesline.