Embrace the Sky | ✔

8 | a mother should

"Hello, hello!" an animated voice greeted. Rae turned her head almost immediately. The drawn-out pronunciation of its vowels caught her attention. It was familiar. She knew to whom that sweet drawl belonged to; a resident she saw every time she was assigned to walk through this route, and talked to on the occasion. It was about time she heard it that day, she almost wondered if anything had happened to the poor little resident. "Good afternoon mail-lady." An elderly Black woman with a kindhearted smile waved at Rae from her porch. "You missed me darling."

"Ah! My apologies ma'am, and... good morning, er, afternoon to you too!" Rae blurted. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she dragged herself and her faulty mail cart past all the grime and snow before the resident's home, and onto the entrance of their porch. Rae then skimmed through the dozens of names on the mail in her hands, made sure to keep her head down. "Isabelle... Sánchez, right?"

Miss Sánchez hummed to herself before she replied to Rae. "Mhmm. Head in the clouds, eh? Tired?"

"Uh, yes," Rae muttered. She found two letters with Miss Sánchez's name and handed them over to her. "Just a little."

As always, Miss Sánchez was in no rush, so she left Rae's hand hanging in the air and kept her own in the pockets of her long puffer jacket. "Hmm." After two seconds passed without either of them making a move, Rae licked her lips and put her hand down. "Would you like some tea?"

"That's so kind of you ma'am," Rae began, "but no thank you. I'm alright. I'll stop by the corner store and get myself one there."

"You don't look good darling, you should take a breather now rather than later," Miss Sánchez said. "Sit down here on the steps. Take a five minute break. What's the harm in that?"

"Ma'am── "

"Hold on just a moment, I'll go inside and serve you a cup."

"Ma'am... !"

"Sit down darling, I'll be quick."

Before Rae could say anything else to her, Miss Sánchez went inside the house. Rae sighed and let her shoulders drop. "If you insist," she mumbled to herself.

She looked over her shoulders, as if her boss would somehow see what she was about to do, then walked past the gate of Miss Sánchez's home and brushed off some snow from the left corner of its steps. She sat herself there, indulged herself in the tranquil mundanity that followed, watched her surroundings; the dog walker picking up dog poop on the other side of the street, the cars that passed by, the barren trees whose skinny branches were teased by the wind. The coat of dirty snow that covered the block, in particular. It had just snowed the day before, why couldn't urban cities go easy on the waste it spit on the ground for at least a day, so that it could look like an actual winter wonderland for once? Mind you, she thought of that while gripping onto the handle of her mail cart, while she absent-mindedly rolled its filthy wheels on the fresh white snow in Miss Sánchez's property.

A hand came into existence near Rae's shoulder, handed her a warm styrofoam cup. "Here you go," its owner said.

"That was quick," Rae gasped.

When Rae grabbed the cup, Miss Sánchez finally got her mail. Fair exchange, I guess.

Miss Sánchez snorted as she settled onto the rocking chair on her porch. "I wasn't kidding when I said I would be quick."

Once Miss Sánchez's butt was snug on the chair, she promptly began to rock away. The chair groaned and creaked louder than the creepy floors of Hollywood's most infamous haunted house movies, and yet, it was somehow the most comforting thing for Rae to hear. It reminded her of when she was younger, of the days where the only things on her mind were memorizing the ABCs and beating her competitive cousins on their favorite game to play when they were all at their grandmothers' house. Their grandmother used to have a worn-out rocking chair that would creak like a motherfucker all day every day, similar to Miss Sánchez's. For a brief second, Rae wondered if the chair was still around, if her grandmother was still around. For either one, she might never know.