Giddings [✓]

Prologue · Spring Games

“And I’m out of letters!” Jane announced, having just played the word “ON” with her last Scrabble tile, an O. She, my mom Serena, and I were seated at a table in her backyard, enjoying the pleasant spring weather in Colorado with board games and sparkling mineral water. Jane was our neighbor as well as my mom’s friend, and we were over at her house this afternoon for a visit. She was an older woman, with short silver hair framing her face.

Serena then revealed her two remaining tiles from her hand, a V and an I, and I took note of this on the scoreboard by subtracting five points from her score. She took off her reading glasses and brushed some of her wavy black, grey and hazel hair away from her face.

As for myself, I just had an E remaining, so I took away one point from my score. Jane got the sum, six, added to her total since she was the first to go out. 

“That brings our totals to two hundred seventy two for Jane, two hundred eighty nine for Serena, and two hundred ninety five for me,” I declared. “Good game!”

“We had some really good plays this time around,” my mom nodded. 

“I especially like your word ‘FLAXEN,’ Serena,” Jane commented. “Very nice use of the X.”

I started gathering the letters together and sliding them off the game board and the table into my awaiting hand as my mom responded, “Oh yeah, I felt really lucky that I saw that.” I put the letters handful by handful back into the navy blue sack where they belonged.

Mom and Jane helped put the rest of the game away into its box, and we pushed it to the vacant side of the table. A gentle breeze picked up, carrying flurries of pollen along with it. Jane’s backyard was nice, full of trees and bushes teeming with life. Small chickadees pecked at the ground a little ways away and young dandelions scattered the lawn. 

Jane’s white terrier, Winston, wandered happily about the yard, investigating interesting smells here and there, occasionally chasing the birds away, only for them to fly back soon after.

We sipped from our glasses of mineral water until the sun dipped behind the Rocky Mountains. Then as the temperature dropped and the birds began singing their evening calls, we said our goodbyes and my mom and I headed across the cul-de-sac back to our own home.