The Writer's Journal: A Short Story, A Child's Memory

I wrote the first draft in 2011 , edited to fit the blog in 2020.

A Child’s Memory

The interior of the lake house was shady in attempts to keep us cool during the hot, sticky, July weather. The lights were off and the shades were drawn at most of the windows. Fans drowned on in every room to the point that the noise was unnoticeable. Specks of light from the sun sneaked through the cracks of the old, fabric curtains.

I was sprawled out on the floor of the front room; my feet kicking behind me rhythmically as I lay on my stomach. My elbows dug into the carpet. The coloring book lay open in front of me and the faded gray couch followed behind it in view. I never really liked that couch; the fabric was too itchy. The one good thing it had going for it was the fluffiness of the pillows. Still, I preferred the dark green carpet I was laying on much more.

 I let my feet drop to the floor as I became tired of kicking them back and forth in the air. My bare feet rubbed against the carpet. I turned to look behind me at my grandma who sat in the big black chair. The stiff fabric cover had bright colors lined through it in a pattern of orange, blue, green. It repeated over and over in straight lines that was strategically placed on the chair to look symmetrical from every angle. My grandmother’s eyes were closed, her forearms rested on the thick over-sized arm rests of the chair. Her white hair blew to the left gently as the fan turned her way and the breeze hit the top of her head.

 I turned to my box of crayons that sat to the right of the coloring book. I used my fingertips to roll them around in the box as I looked for my first choice. The light blue was chosen. I began with the sky. I put the crayon back once satisfied with my coloring and glanced up at the T.V. as I heard it turned on. To my disappointment, my mother had turned it to face the kitchen and table where she was seated.

 I looked at the dust swirl in the sunlight that peaked through a corner where the curtain was pushed back slightly. Then I looked at my mother, studying her with curious eyes. Her hair was down but not covering her face. Her elbows on the table, eyes stuck looking at that T.V. In her right hand sat a cigarette. To her left on the table sat her cold drink. Little beads of water slid down the side of the glass. The television droned on about the weather. All I understood was sunny and hot. But we already could feel that in the house that felt like an oven. Why would I have to listen to the T.V. to know that? She exhaled the white smoke, I watched it drift up into the ceiling fan where it was broken up and mixed out with the breeze.

I looked back to the crayons and the coloring book; my interest in what she was doing was already lost with the smoke. Adjusting my elbows on the floor, I picked out the green for the grass in my picture. Going for another color I looked up to see if my mom was still there, but she wasn’t. I turned back to my book, unworried as to where she went. I picked at random the colors to use. Coloring a sun and sometimes outside the lines of a bike and the person on it. My feet were back in the air kicking in a slow rhythm.

My eyes drifted around the colors on the paper, “what next?” I thought to myself. I was unsure: either add more there or something else here; such a hard choice for such a young girl. I looked back up again, past the dust to the table. My mother stood over it, grabbing the dark orange ash tray. She looked over to me and we both smiled. I went back to looking at the picture, still unsure what to do.

 Grandma started lightly snoring behind me. I turned to see, just as anyone would. Her head was leaning back, hair still blowing, eyes still closed. She woke suddenly as if she knew I was staring. She looked down to my coloring book and asked how it was going. I picked it up with both hands to show her. She nodded and I put it back down on the floor and went back to thinking and debating, again I stopped kicking to use all my focus on the page. My toes dug into the soft carpet as my mind simply wondered around what color should go where.

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Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

M.E.

The writer’s note: I wanted to share an old fictional story in honor of Mother’s Day. Dedicated to my mother and my late grandmother- though as fuzzy memories can become with age, I cherish the ones I have of us together dearly.

The Lake, ‘71