Strawberries

The weather lady predicts a scorcher, unusual for early June. If Lucinda goes now, in the dewy cool, she can pick a flat and be home before it’s too hot. The rest of the news will just be more Obama-Republican yammering anyway. She finishes her granola, turns the TV off, puts the yogurt in the fridge and goes back to the bedroom to put on a long dirndl skirt and a long-sleeved white blouse.

“And sunscreen, Mom,” Carol insisted when she phoned last night. “I don’t know why you’re picking strawberries anyway. At least take care of yourself.”

“Too late,” she said, “I’m a prune already. And the ‘why’ is because I’m going to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie, which was your father’s absolute favorite. To satisfy you, I’ll find some sunscreen.”

“At least 50 SPF,” Mom.

“All right, dear.”

Carol and Robert think she should sell the house and move into the retirement community she and Harold signed up for years ago.

Read the whole story as it will appear in The Violet Hour