A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [36]
“Come on,” Cici said eagerly, “let’s go check it out.”
“Beats scraping wallpaper,” Lindsay agreed. “Let’s go!”
The streambed was in fact a virtually endless source of the kind of large, flat polished stones that, when arranged into a low wall, would transform the rose garden into a work of art. Lindsay remembered seeing an old wheelbarrow in the potting shed, and couldn’t wait to start hauling rocks to the garden. Cici found a hoe and started chopping away at the weeds and years of earth until she uncovered, just as she had predicted, the first flagstones of the original garden path. By the time they put away their tools for the day they were streaked with sweat and dirt, and they knew their muscles would ache in the morning. But an entire section of flagstone path had been uncovered, and one layer of shiny dark river stones outlined the rose garden.
“It’s never ending,” Lindsay said, bringing a glass of wine to join Cici on the front steps that evening. She groaned a little as she sat down on the top step beside her. “The list of projects just keeps growing and growing.”
“Yeah,” Cici agreed, smiling. “It’s hard to know what to do first.”
They wore jeans and sweaters against the chill of a spring evening, and Lindsay carried a lightweight knit throw over her arm. She spread it over her knees and Cici’s, and leaned back on one palm as she sipped her wine, admiring the glitter of the single evening star against a purple sky, and the chittering and trilling of the birds in the background.
“It was fun, though,” she said in a moment, contentedly. “Like an archaeological dig. And then to see the garden start to take shape like it used to be.”
“Tomorrow we’ll move the statue.”
“Meanwhile I’m sleeping in a bedroom with half a wall covered in newspaper.”
“I don’t know about you,” Cici said, “but I’ve slept in worse.”
“Like I said, it’s hard to know where to start.”
The screen door squeaked open softly behind them as Bridget came out. She wore a floor-length terry robe and had her hair wrapped in a towel. In addition to her own glass of wine, she carried a platter of chocolate chip cookies. “If you don’t mind a suggestion,” she said, “a new water heater would be first on my list.”
They loved the deep, claw-foot tubs. Unfortunately, they required so much hot water that only one of them could take a bath per evening. The other two had to be content with a lukewarm spritzing from the shower attachment. A new, higher capacity water heater was the only solution.
“I know,” Cici said with a sigh. “But we’re going to have to go to Charlottesville to get it and . . . I just don’t want to leave, you know?”
The other two murmured agreement as Bridget joined them on the steps, setting the cookie platter between them. Leaving this oasis of timelessness and peace for anything that resembled a city seemed to them all as reckless as trying to breathe water.
Bridget tugged a corner of the throw over her knees, and picked up a cookie. “I called the nursing home, by the way, about Ida Mae Simpson. She’s not there anymore.”
Lindsay helped herself to a cookie and passed the platter to Cici. “Oh? Where did she go?”
Bridget gave her a patient look. “Where does one usually go from a nursing home?”
“Oh. That’s too bad.”
“Well, I guess she was pretty old.”
They sat quietly for a moment, munching cookies, sipping wine, and listening to the rise and fall of crickets’ breath as the indigo twilight deepened to a smoky gray. The cool air, such a delicious contrast to the warmth of the afternoon, carried the promise of dew. Their flesh prickled with cold, but they did not consider going inside.
“What do you miss the most?” Bridget said softly.
Lindsay said, “I don’t know. It’s funny, but I kind of miss school. The kids, you know. What about you?”
“The Internet, maybe. And good coffee ice cream.”
“Eaten right out of the carton,” Lindsay agreed.
Bridget turned to Cici. “What about you, Cici? HGTV? The Sherwin-Williams store? What do you miss the most?”
Cici leaned back on one palm,