Chapter 2: On the Mend
Two days later Karen and the
little ones felt better but Johnathan and the older two had come down with the
illness. Karen sighed (she seemed to do this a lot lately), it always seemed go
through the whole family when someone got sick. If they were lucky, not
everyone would be sick at the same time and it would stop there. Sometimes it seemed
to morph into another illness to make a second round. Her mom used to come and
help out when these situations occurred, but she was too far away right now.
Karen still felt very tired, but her fever was gone and her appetite was back.
She’d have stayed in bed if she didn’t have a family to care for, but somebody
had to be up taking care of things. She was contemplating dragging herself to
the grocery when the doorbell rang. Who could that possibly be?
On the doorstep was a
smallish lady with long grey hair down to her knees caught up in a braid, a
floppy straw hat on her head, and overalls. It was hard to tell how old she
was, but she could have been in her 50’s. She said, “My husband says you folks
have been under the weather, and since we didn’t see your husband out there in
the woods the past two days, we were worried you might need some help. David
gave me your address, and I thought I would come check on you. I brought some
chicken soup!” Karen smiled. It had been a while since anyone outside the
family had shown her some kindness. “Thank you so much! We really could use
this. I’d invite you in, but I don’t think you should. You might pick up some
of this nasty bug and I would hate to do that to you.” “That’s alright. I never
get sick. My name is Rose by the way. Let me put this down in your kitchen for
you.” She stepped in and put the pot down on the counter, moving some dishes
aside.
Emma was on the floor in a
pile of Tupperware while Snitch surveyed the mess beside her. He came over and
gave Rose a sniff. She must have passed the sniff test because he wagged his
tail and went back to supervising. Joe was at the kitchen table making little
monsters and pretend food out of play-dough. In the living room Ellie, Sarah
and Jack were each in various corners of the room working in their math books. Sarah
and Jack had piles of used Kleenex next to them and Jack was muttering to
himself. Rose said, “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, the place is a mess, but
you are an industrious bunch! Is there anything else I can do for you? I
figured if you couldn’t come for dinner, I would bring some dinner to you. Oh!
And here is some bread I just baked to go with it.” She placed a wonderful
smelling loaf of bread next to the pot of soup. Karen said, “I’m speechless!
Thank you so much. We’ll be ok, really, but this meal is very welcome.” Rose said, “OK. I’ll just get out of
your hair. Don’t worry about bringing the pot back too much. I don’t need it
right away. I have another one and won’t miss that one. I’ll come by again
soon!” and with that she was out the door. She was such a small person, but it
seemed as if a whirlwind had just come in and out the door and left the
wonderful smells of fresh bread, soup and lavender behind. Karen was so
touched. She couldn’t believe it! Well, that solved the dinner problem!
Over the next few days
everyone began to slowly get better and things started to get back to normal,
if there really was a normal, which there wasn’t. The only difference was that
they started to get regular visits from Rose and sometimes David and once they
did actually drive out to the Greenberg farm for dinner. Surprisingly, the
commotion of all of those kids seemed to make them happy instead of tense, and
the kids had fun running around amongst the blueberry bushes. Rose showed them
her garden, which was rather barren since it was Fall, but she showed them her
cold weather plants (lettuce, broccoli and carrots mostly) and spun a picture
for them about how it would look in the Spring and Summer. It was a large and
well-tended garden with several large beds. She even talked about all of the beneficial
bugs one would find there. Ellie was particularly entranced by this. It was
nice to have someone in the area to talk to besides each other.
The following week Karen
found a soccer league in town and signed the oldest three up for it. She felt
they needed to make an effort to get to know people, and the extra exercise was
good for them. Ellie was glad. She loved sports, but the other two protested
greatly. Karen persisted anyway and hoped that it would help them to make some
friends. They also joined the local 4H group, which was a little awkward. Most
of the kids in the group had grown up around farm animals their whole lives,
and also had known each other most of their lives. New people were not very
common and it was hard to break into the circle of friendships. Some kids just
ignored them, and others laughed at the differences (“What, you never heard of
a heifer? Really?”) The Katz kids didn’t have the southern drawl and didn’t
seem to know very much about life on a farm, didn’t know any of the local
teachers, and didn’t get any of the inside jokes many of the kids shared. Several
were friendly, but Sarah was puzzled when a really nice girl who was friendly
and kind to her one week gave her the cold shoulder the next.
One day Karen and Rose were
sitting down to share some tea. Rose had been coming over about once a week,
she said to help out and see the kids.
Today, she confided that she had been lonely, and now that the growing
season was over, she had less to keep her busy. Her son was away at vet school
and her daughter had entered a school of the arts in New York City in the hope
of becoming an artist. She didn’t get to see them as often as she liked. They
did come home for holidays though. The two women had in common that they had
not grown up in the area. Karen said, “Rose, the kids are having a hard time
finding friends here. I don’t think we’ve ever had that problem before. It’s
very frustrating. I know we are “outsiders” and we don’t go to school or
church, but I guess I never expected that to be such a big deal. “ Rose said,
“Hon, I’ve lived here for ten years now and I’m still an outsider and probably
will always be. They’ve got me pegged as an oddball, but that’s ok for an old
lady. You kinda expect old ladies to be a bit off their rocker! I’m not sure
what to tell you, but my guess is that if you give them some time, they’ll all
come around. Who could not like you guys?”
David had shared some of his
tips for managing things around the house with Johnathan, like how to get the
old heater to kick in, and how best to fix a broken fence. Johathan, however,
didn’t have a huge amount of time to socialize. He was wrapping things up with
his Fall reptile survey, and managing his help along with compiling the data
they had collected was taking up all of his time.
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