Friends
Looking back, perhaps I should never have opened the front door in the first place. The problem is, when you live on your own, it's quite exhilarating to hear the doorbell ring. You never know who might be coming to see you, do you?
Or in my case, which adult child needing a loan. Only time I ever see my son or my grandchildren is when they need Grandma to get them out of a tight spot.
In my heydays, I was a popular girl and always had friends coming around to invite me to this party, take me dancing, or just want to be with me. Sometimes, I fool myself, and when I look in the mirror, see that pretty girl smiling cheekily at me from behind the wrinkles and rummy eyes. I wave and she waves back, winking bright blue eyes, and laughing without coughing.
I loved hearing the doorbell back in those days, it meant something exciting was about to happen, and I was always in the thick of it. Yes, in my heyday, I was a popular girl. So, when I heard the doorbell ring, I forgot all about the sensible advice I received from the kind people who think my brain has reduced to one cell, and opened the door without a care.
You know the saying, there is no fool like an old fool, and I admit freely, I was foolish on this occasion, but I was lonely. As soon as I set eyes on the boy's face I knew something exciting was going to happen to me. Call it an old woman's intuition, but the small boy with tears running down his cheeks was going to be my salvation.
The bottom lip was trembling, and I knew from a mother's eye that it was only seconds before the floodgates opened and the child burst into tears. I might add: I haven't always had such good intuition, even when Larry, my ex-husband, walked out the door, hand in hand with my best friend, Shirley, I still didn't believe the rumours about them. I still wondered when he was coming home, gosh darn it, I even made his favourite supper! Still, I like to think I have become a lot wiser since then, but then again, letting a strange little boy into my house showed I have a way to go!
I can hear Larry scold me, Georgina, you are such a sap!
The little boy, who's name I found out was Daniel, was running away. Yes, he'd had enough of being told what to do and what to eat, and the broccoli was the last straw. So, the little boy, tears in his eyes, lip trembling, asked me if I knew the way to the sea. He fully intended to run away and be a sailor because they weren't any time-out chairs on submarines. He had a book and there were no chairs or broccoli on submarines. See, I knew I'd like this boy; a child who thinks outside the box will be an interesting man. Providing he lives long enough to become one, and ringing stranger's doors wasn't a good plan.
I invited Daniel in, and being a cagey old woman, tricked him into telling me where he lived. He drank my soda and politely mentioned it was flat. With a whisper, he asked me if I needed him to bring me some more. His daddy had lots of pop, and he wouldn't mind sharing. I then gave him a cookie, and taking the barest of nibbles, he explained that he wasn't allowed to eat soggy cookies, he was allergic to them.
Wasn't doing well was I? So, I asked him to take me to his house and then I could have a cup of tea and the cookies his daddy always buys from the markets. Hand in hand we knocked on the house four doors down, and when the good looking daddy answered I smiled. I swear I caught a glimpse of my younger self grinning in admiration, and with a sashay down the hallway, I invited myself into my new family's heart.
The End
