Life Happens- 1941

Chapter 12

The middle of April.  Four more months. How can you possibly manage to tell someone you love how much you care about them when you know you only have four months?  Every time we kissed or laid on the couch together and listened to the radio, or said “I love you”, I couldn’t help but wonder how many more chances we’d get to do this.  To sit in the living room and hold each other while we listened to the baseball game.  Or how many more times I would feel his warm embrace as I leaned into his neck and told him I loved him.  I guess I was almost afraid he would forget it.  

One afternoon Elliot had gone into town to get groceries, I decided to plant some flowers.  Our house needed a little more ambiance.  It was a small cookie-cutter, one story, brick house with a large red front door.  It had a kitchen, dinning room, one bed, one bath, living room, and a small room where we stashed miscellaneous things like the lizard lamp that my aunt sent me for Christmas one year.  Not to be rude, but I did not want that hideous thing on display in my living room and I certainly didn’t care to wake up in the morning with it glaring at me from the night stand next to our bed.  So the orange and lime green lizard lamp found itself in our storage room.  Elliot thought it was hilarious.

“Look at the way it’s eyes bug out. Well I guess that’s one way to scare off Francine from visiting.  Can we please just leave it out for a little bit? It gives off great light. See?”  And then he would chase me  around the house with it, pretending to make it gnash it’s teeth and commence to make lizard noises as I ran down the hall laughing.  (What do lizards even sound like?)  

Anyway, I decided to plant peonies.  I put them by the front door in assorted colors of red, purple, yellow, and pink.  I didn’t have much of a green thumb, but I just hoped that if I gave them a little water and a pinch of fertilizer, they’d be good to go. It was a pleasant morning and it didn’t take me long at all to get my flowers in the ground.  I dusted off my hands and was rinsing off my trowel as Elliot pulled in the driveway with the groceries.  I went over to help him with the bags.  He opened the door and I leaned in and kissed him.

“Bonjour mon ami.” I helped him out of the car.

“So you did learn a little French, eh?  That was very good.”  I smiled.

“Merci.”  He took my hand.

“Darling it sounds wonderful but I can’t understand a word you’re saying.  I giggled.

“Can I help you carry these into the house?  I’ll go get lunch started.”  Elliot smacked his lips hungrily.

“Lunch.  Now that’s a word I understand.  Sure, you take one and I’ll take one.  Here, you take this one, it’s lighter and it has the eggs in it.”  I chuckled at him and pecked his cheek as he handed me the grocery bag.

“Thank you kind sir.”

“You’re welcome dear lady.”  We walked to the door together.

“What do you think about my peonies?”  I pointed down at the flowers.

“They’re lovely.  You did a good job.  Do they smell good?”  As Elliot bent down to smell the flowers the bottom of his grocery bag fell out and it’s contents started rolling all over the driveway.  

“Aw geez,” he exclaimed as he went chasing after a bag of apples whose contents had come out of their bag.  I set my grocery bag down and started to help him.  Eventually we wrangled up the bag of apples, an onion, two carrots, a carton of milk that luckily didn’t spill, and a loaf of French bread (which thank goodness, was covered in plastic packaging).  I just shook my head and laughed at Elliot, “Well at least I had the eggs.”  He shrugged and sighed, “That’s true.”  I grabbed his hand, “Come on, let’s go have some lunch.”