Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
It felt like the last hour had been essentially going through a box and then moving it from one side of the room to the other. Nothing was going out. Just moving.
Thankfully, the kitchen was in pretty good working order, and being brave, I tackled the rotting smell first. It turned out to be a chicken breast, but once I got rid of it and sprayed the room with air freshener, it no longer smelled like death. I cleaned out the rest of the fridge of anything that seemed like it was expired and wiped it down before exploring the freezer. There were some meats in there along with some vegetables, indicating my aunt was pretty used to being snowed in for a bit of time and had food ready to go.
The gas stove seemed to be in good shape, and I reminded myself to call the gas company to see about the tank. The counters were pretty easy to clean off once I started tossing appliances that looked old and beat up. I certainly didn’t need four blenders, so three of them went to the dumpster. The same with the inexplicable eight electric can openers that all looked like the same make and model from the eighties.
As hour four trudged on, I was able to get the living room mostly empty. Considering it was the most cluttered of the rooms aside from the guest bedroom, I counted that as a victory. What I didn’t want in there, I took to the dining room and labeled all that for tomorrow. For today, I just wanted to be able to reclaim the couch and living area and kitchen. Functional living space. That was what it was all about.
The last few boxes of the living room made me pause a bit, though, sitting on the couch to go through them. They were boxes of old photographs and letters between my mom and her aunts. Seeing my mom’s handwriting made me burst into tears for a few minutes, and I let myself feel the emotion of her loss yet again. When I finally felt like I could handle it, I went through the content of the letters.
It felt kind of wrong to be reading them. But within, it contained some information that I also needed. Like that my aunt offered my mother a place on the land multiple times. My aunts wanted the three of them together, running the farm, but Mom wasn’t interested. She loved her aunts, but she wanted to be on her own.
The letters got fewer and fewer after Aunt Franny died, leaving Aunt Maisie as the last.
Looking around the place, I could see the signs of depression. Aunt Maisie had surrounded herself with stuff to cope with the loss of her family. The business must have shut down years ago, and stacks of bills in the boxes seemed to point how it had happened. They were mostly unopened.
Putting the letters away, back in their box and in the bedroom, I went out to the car and got a few of my things. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make the place feel a little bit more like home. The most important of which was my streaming stick, which I stuck into the surprisingly new television and used a mobile hotspot to connect to my phone. I saw a satellite dish in the yard, and a rather large one at that, but I had no idea if there was service there or not and didn’t find a router yet.
With that set, I went to the cooler I had brought in from the car and dug through the ice for my microwave meal. It wasn’t the healthiest thing in the world, but it was fast and delicious. I brought it into the kitchen, popped it in the microwave and… nothing.
None of the buttons worked. The microwave was dead. Because of course it was.
I punched the buttons on the oven. Again, nothing. What the hell? I turned the burner on, and it seemed to work just fine, but the oven and the microwave were not. Fantastic. I guess that explained the entire box of receipts from the gas station for hot dogs and sandwiches. Apparently, if she couldn’t fry it, Aunt Maisie decided not to cook it, opting instead for gas station hot dogs.
It was a wonder she survived as long as she did, frankly.
Well, now what? I guessed I should have taken Jason up on his dinner offer. At least then I would have eaten some hot food.
Of course, the thought of Jason sent a shiver down my spine and made my cheeks warm again. Along with other parts of my body. Sighing, I looked around the room for signs of anywhere that would deliver. A magnet on the refrigerator was from an Italian place in town and had a phone number on it, directly below an all-caps declaration of “WE DELIVER!”