Mornings in Blue Springs always start the same way. I wake at first light, when most of my neighbors are still asleep. At seventy-eight, you learn to treat every new day like a gift—though some days feel more like an ordeal, especially when my joints ache so badly that even the walk to the bathroom becomes a small victory.
My little house on Maplewood Avenue isn’t what it used to be.
The living-room wallpaper has faded over thirty years, and the wooden porch steps creak louder every spring. George—my husband—was always going to fix them, but he never got around to it before the heart attack took him.
Eight years have passed, and I still talk to him some mornings, telling him the news as if he’s just out in the backyard. This is the house where my children, Wesley and Thelma, grew up.
Everything here remembers their baby steps, their laughter, their fights.
Now it’s so quiet it sometimes feels like those happy, noisy days never happened. Thelma comes by once a month, always in a hurry, always checking her watch. Wesley shows up more often, but only when he needs something—usually money or a signature on paperwork.
Every time he swears he’ll pay it back soon, but in fifteen years he’s never paid back a dime.
Today is Wednesday, the day I usually bake blueberry pie. Not for me—for Reed, my grandson.
The only one in the family who visits without an ulterior motive. I hear the gate slam, and I know it’s him.
Reed has a peculiar walk—light, but a little clumsy, like he isn’t used to his tall frame yet.
“Grandmother Edith,” his voice calls from the doorway. “I smell a specialty pie.”
“Sure you do,” I say, smiling. “Come on in.”
Reed leans in to hug me.
Now I have to tilt my head back to see his face.
When did he get so big? “How’s school going?” I ask, settling him at the kitchen table.
“Still wrestling with higher math,” Reed says, already reaching for his plate. “But I got an A on my last exam.
Professor Duval even asked me to work on a research project.”
“I always knew you were smart,” I tell him as I pour tea.
“Your grandfather would be proud.”
Reed goes quiet for a moment, staring out the window at the old apple tree. George taught him to climb it when he was seven. “Grandma,” Reed says suddenly, returning to his pie.
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