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/ 155 meteor shower “Har-rumph,” Winnie sighed loudly, because she knew it annoyed her elder sister, Elaine.“Har-rumph,”Winnie repeated, like a broken windshield wiper. She could punctuate every word with har-rumph if she felt like it. She could drag out the second syllable in a breathy exhalation. She had lived long enough to do any damn thing she wanted. Elaine popped up and refilled Winnie’s coffee cup from the thermal carafe. She was so short she had to stand to pour. “Oh, what do Michael and Keli want with two old women?” Winnie said, without self-pity. She hadn’t yet told her fifty-year-old son her most recent prognosis. “I’ve had enough coffee, thank you. We can go without them. We’ve done it before.” Winnie patted the solid white fuzz that used to be her silky hair. It had grown back, but it was not the same texture. People probably thought it was a wig. Elaine sat, steadying herself with only one hand on the table. Proud of her agility, at eighty-five she did not need the support of a cane. And she was not 156 / cathryn hankla just being stubborn like that woman down the street who had kept falling. “That woman who put out a chair for the newspaper boy to set her paper on because she couldn’t bend down, what was her name?” Elaine asked. “Her name was Mrs. Cafferty.” “Oh yes.” Elaine raised a scrap of toast to her mouth. She paused in her motion to speak, with the bread just at her lips.“Isn’t this bread good?” she asked, as usual. “It’s good,” Winnie confirmed. When they had decided to economize by living together, Elaine, ever the penny-pincher, had insisted on buying their bread at the day-old store. The bread wasn’t bad toasted, but it made dry sandwiches. “Michael and Keli need to go somewhere romantic. I’m thinking Italy.” Elaine lifted her starry eyes. She had never been married and still had a full hope chest.Though the years had yellowed her linens, her dreams were intact. “Well, they’re thinking Gatlinburg,” Winnie said. Just a stone’s throw away from Dollywood, and about as chic, she thought. “They might as well have gone to the beach with us. But, I’ve never wanted to be a burden to my child. You’ll drive, and I’ll navigate.” Elaine finally chewed and swallowed the last little nibble of her toast. She sure could stretch it out. It drove Winnie crazy.Those tiny, tiny little sparrow bites. “What was that stubborn old woman’s name, the one who wouldn’t use a cane?” Elaine asked again. Without waiting for the answer, she popped up and reached for the carafe. “What a shame,” she exclaimed. “Stop hovering,” Winnie scolded, in the tone of mock-irritation she reserved for her sister. “You’re like a helicopter.” “I forgot my own cup,” Elaine explained. Her eyes wandered to the window. “Those squirrels are going to get all the seed!” she burst out. “Stop feeding them if you don’t like it.”Winnie decided not to har-rumph, because she had something up her sleeve. “You know, if we don’t go we’ll lose the deposit.” Turning from the window, Elaine suddenly focused on her sister with her whole mind. “We will not. You simply aren’t able, Winnie. Weren’t you listening to Dr. Garst?” meteor shower / 157 Elaine’s memory was most annoying, so inconsistent. Anything you’d rather she forgot, she remembered perfectly. “You are willing to lose that deposit?” Winnie jabbed. “We won’t lose it. It’s doctor’s orders. Your counts are too low.” Elaine sounded uncharacteristically firm. If some man said it, she could repeat it all right. Winnie shuffled over to the antique secretary and pulled out the contract. Donning her reading glasses, she read aloud the pertinent clause.“See there, Elaine?” Winnie said calmly, as though she’d given up. “I suppose it can’t be helped.” “I’ll just call them,” Elaine said. “They’ll understand.” The doorbell went off like a siren, and Elaine jumped up to answer. She unfastened the chain and the deadbolt, but left the storm door locked when she opened the door. “Hello, I’m Brett Logan,” a young man said through the storm door. “We have our own religion!”Elaine practically shouted. She slammed the door, fastened...

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