Haley

It was around eleven-thirty in the morning when I heard my stomach grumble. I had been in my study for the better part of an hour. Articles on various crises around the world like the war in Eastern Europe and the Federal Reserve's challenge of tackling high inflation were tiresome, and instead, I decided to read some cheerful stories for a change. I particularly liked the ones about the high school students in Indiana who raised money for their seventy-five old janitor so he could retire, and the one about twenty-two species in Australia recovering enough to be taken off the endangered species list. These stories put me in an especially good mood and then all the sudden a light pain started to form on the top of my skull. 

The windows in my study were cracked open so I could hear the finches and robins chirping in the yard. Shutting down my display, I walked over to the couch and laid down. The upholstery was cool and fresh with the slight breeze coming in. I rested my head on the pillow. I didn’t doze off though. Midday naps have never been something I like to do. Waking up at two-thirty in the afternoon groggy and sweaty if anything makes me more irritable rather than refreshed.

After tenish minutes, my headache went away and I got up and decided to have lunch. Walking down the stairs, Beau, who had been laying in the corner of the study, now followed close behind me. The blue sky and white clouds shone through the skylight. 

When I entered the kitchen, I looked out the windows over the sink. The forest across the yard, and the yard itself, looked spectacularly lush. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many different shades of green in my life. The trees in the yard had been trimmed about a month earlier and the hispanic landscapers edged around the trunks yesterday, giving them a nice clean look. The trees were nicely spaced in the yard with about twenty to twenty-five feet in between them.

The grass was healthy and thick and ready for bare feet to run through it. Not a single dandelion was anywhere near, making the yard social media ready for the teenagers that are always over at our house. The landscapers mow once a week and I must say, the guys do quite a great job. I’m glad Claire forced me to buy their service. It’s a bit pricey, but well worth it when I get a view like the one I looked at this morning.

Once I concluded my admiration over the yard, I went through the fridge and pantry, grabbing various items for my lunch: a Ball Park hotdog, poppy seed bun, Dijon mustard, kettle chips, and a Canadian beer. 

After warming up my hotdog in the microwave, I had just sat down at the island when I heard a jingle approaching from the connecting hallway. I turned around to see Haley enter the kitchen with what I interpreted as a rather guilty look on her face.

Her keys were dangling from her flower lanyard and she had two fingers holding on to the plastic handle of her red stainless steel water bottle while her other fingers held her smartphone. Her hair was in a ponytail held together by a pink scrunchy. I could see her ear had multiple little, shiny, silver earrings lined around the outer edge. While her clothing choice was a long, crimson colored sweater that went down to her bare thighs, and high white socks paired with white slip-ons. 

I could see her looking out of the corner of her eye to see if I was looking at her. She then turned her head briefly as she continued to walk and we made eye contact. Turning away from me quickly, she opened the pantry and grabbed a pack of Welch's fruit snacks and then went out to the garage without saying a word to me. I heard the buzz of the garage opening; the turning over of the Jeep Wrangler Claire and I had gifted her for her sixteenth birthday; the buzz of the garage closing; and then stillness.

I went back to my lunch if I remember correctly. I sat alone at the island, reading something about the future of autonomous vehicles on my smartphone while waiting for Claire to get back from her yoga class and errands.

Beau was sitting next to me by my feet. I threw him some kettle chips every now and then. I watched him as he stared at my hand going into the bag, grabbing a chip, pulling the chip out and putting it in my mouth; his gray snout moving slightly back and forth with the chip.

As I was finishing my lunch, the buzz of the garage door opening garnered my attention. I heard the car doors opening and closing through the walls. Then the door connecting the garage to the house opened. The buzz of the garage door closing and the rustling of the plastic grocery bags filled the mudroom as Claire came in.

“Hey. You need any help?”

“No, I got everything.” She lifted and placed the grocery bags on the countertop across from the island I was sitting at. “Well, that was expensive. I thought I didn’t even buy that much.”

She took a deep breath, pushed a strand of hair on each side of her face behind her ears at the same time, and then looked at me with a closed smile. “Has Haley gone out?”

“She left about fifteen minutes ago.”

Claire continued to unpack and put away the groceries while I gave Beau one last kettle chip before I put on the chip clip and cleaned up.

“Did Haley say where she was going?” I asked rather abruptly.

“Out with some friends.”

I thought for a second about what I wanted to say and then some words just came out: “She wasn’t wearing any pants.”

Claire, who was putting away some items in the fridge, backstepped, turned, and proceeded to raise her eyebrows and lower her chin at me. “What?”

“I was sitting here eating lunch and she walked into the kitchen with no pants on.”

“Wait. What do you mean she had no pants on? Did she have a shirt on?”

“She was wearing a long, crimson colored sweater.”

“Did the sweater go down to her thighs?”

“Yes, but …”

She laughed and went back to putting groceries in the fridge. “Honey, you’re overreacting. She’s fine. All the girls do it. My guess is she probably has shorts on underneath.”

In the lull of conversation that followed, I swallowed my disagreeing opinion and turned and looked out the window into the backyard while I drank the last part of my beer. The birds swooped and flapped their wings while a squirrel bounced across the yard and ran up a tree that blew in the breeze. The yard looked quiet and peaceful and happy.