| "The Reunion" Part 2 |
| Page 2 |
| How good it felt to be young again! Or, well, young-er! What was funny, though, was that if she had been afforded the opportunity to choose any age to return to, this would have been the time and the age she would have chosen. The time she had shared with her forever friend! A time during which she had found such peace and contentment. This was probably why, she reasoned, that she hadn't experienced any fear or misgiving since arriving in this curious circumstance. Turning from the window her eyes came to rest on something she had not seen upon entering the room. There, on the kitchen table, lay a small open plastic bag with a twist tie lying by it's side. Through the clear plastic she could see contents of orange, green and yellow. Suddenly it dawned on her. Shoo's bag of treats! Exactly where she had left it that Mother's Day afternoon as she awaited the arrival of her cottontail friend. She looked up toward the corner shelf that held the small covered hen dish. After they had found Shoo lying so still in the yard next door, she had taken the food that remained in his bowl and placed it, along with the treats in the bag, in the covered hen dish and put it back on the shelf. She went to the shelf and retrieved the hen dish. Slowly she lifted the lid. It was empty. Going back to the table, she took a small piece of treat out of the bag and squeezed it between her thumb and index finger. The food was fresh. A sudden tinkling sound came through the open kitchen window. The windchime, she wondered? But, how could it be? She crossed the kitchen and opened the back door and looked above the doorway and to the left. There, hanging right where her husband had installed it, hung the windchime! The rabbit windchime he had given her that Mother's Day! She remembered how excited she had been thinking of herself and Shoo-Fly sitting together listening to the beautiful magical sound of the chimes. But, of course, that time had not been afforded them. She also remembered when they moved it from it's post next to the back door and placed it just outside the kitchen window. And, before they moved from the house she had taken it down and packed it in a box to be taken and hung at their new residence, But now, here it hung, back where her husband had first installed it... and different from all else in and outside the house, it appeared brand new Pushing the latch on the storm door with her thumb, she went outside and sat on the back porch step. How many times she and Shoo had sat in this very place! Looking to the right of the step she noticed that the tall grass once again filled the flower bed, the flowers she had put in after Shoo's death not planted yet. Strange. She thought she could see a small indentation in the grass and a scrape, as though a rabbit had just recently laid in it's quarters. She brushed back the tall grass that grew over the bed revealing a small object half filled with rabbit pellets. Shoo's food bowl, she marveled! She picked up a small piece of the contents and pressed it between her fingers. Like the treats in the house, the food was fresh. Placing the pellet back in the bowl, her eyes surveyed the familiar beauty of the yard she had once named "Shoo-land". She looked toward the old gray fence. Had she just seen movement behind the loose slat? No, of course not. Her eyes were just playing tricks on her because of the time of day. From what she could tell from the position of things, she guessed that it must be around three o'clock in the afternoon, the time when Shoo normally came into the yard. She rose form the step and turned to go back into the house. Pressing the latch with her thumb she opened the door, but stopped, looking once more toward the old gray fence. There! There it was again! Something was moving the grass on the otherside of the loose board in the fence. She stepped inside the doorway and looked out the window just in time to see a flash of brown through the slat and a white cotton tail. Did rabbits still come into the yard, she wondered? |
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| Tree Link: Page 3 |