that's mrs. mediocrity to you

Because that’s where she felt most alive. When she’d said that to Stuart he snorted a little, not mocking, really, but clearly not understanding. Still, he hadn’t said a word, just walked back down into the cellar, and pretty soon she’d heard the sound of his saw. She knew then he wasn’t thinking about her any longer, he was thinking about getting that shelf finished for old Mrs. Lattimore.

She wished she had a hobby to distract her, or a project. She wished she could read. But her eyes had got so bad in the past few years that mostly all she did was sit in the rocking chair closest to the fire and listen to herself growing old.

Her body was betraying her after all these years, forgetting how to do all the things she’d once taken for granted. But she didn’t feel old on the inside. She still felt young and stupid and naive. And most of the time, she felt scared.

Every day she tried to rock herself a little farther away from this place where she’d lived all her life. She always thought she and Stuart would travel once they retired, but she knew now that she was stuck here, in this house, in this chair, in this creaky old body.

But that never stopped her from going places in her mind. Just this week she’d been to Spain and Paris and even Cuba, following Hemingway around in her mind.

She always ended up right back in her own living room though, staring down at someone else’s gnarled, spotted, wrinkled hands.

But sometimes, when she came back around, she was smiling.

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