Page 18 of The Problem with Falling
“Yes, you. Who else would I be talking to?”
“That’s hard to say, seeing how you’re asking me a pretty straightforward question. I’m just sitting, and I was writing—”
“Those chairs are off-limits. Get up.”
I laughed. “Excuse me?”
“Those rocking chairs. They are off-limits. I need you to get up.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
No, no, you don’t.
I didn’t think that man could find his way to a joking manner if he tried his hardest.
I stood from the chair and held my laptop to my chest. “My mistake for thinking that a chair could be used as a chair. You should’ve put a Post-it note on it,” I quipped.
He grumbled and didn’t say anything else.
His eyes fell to the rocking chairs.
He gazed longer than one would deem a normal amount of staring. Then he started toward his boat.
What an odd, odd man. The grumpier he grew, the more I felt the need to do what I did best—kill him with kindness. It drove me a bit mad that he didn’t seem to like me. People liked me! I prided myself on being liked by many. Theo not liking me was doing a number on my psyche.
“By the way, I know you ate one of my cookies,” he said without turning back toward me.
I smiled a little. It was a delicious cookie.
“Are you going fishing?” I called out.
“Yup,” he replied.
“Can I go fishing with you?”
“Nope.”
CHAPTER 4
Molly
We moved a little slower as of late. Harry was a bit slower than me, but I never rushed him. As long as he was still moving, I was happy. I locked his wheelchair into place before I moved to the side of the bed where he’d been resting. His olive skin was soft from the bath I’d given him earlier. Emma, the nurse we’d hired to help around the house, said she’d be more than willing to give Harry his showers, but Harry said, “Ain’t no damn way another woman’s washing my balls. You’ve been playing with these balls for years, why stop now?” Even with his health issues, he was still such a fool.
“Willow looks good,” he mentioned as I helped him into his wheelchair. “I can’t believe you two have been in touch for so long over the years.”
“She’s a good thing,” I replied. I never saw myself making such good friends with a young girl in her late twenties, but when I randomly met Willow at a crocheting class in Chicago, weinstantly clicked. Something was so special about her spirit. I’d lived a long time and had met many people, but never anyone like Willow.
She took being a free spirit to a new level. Harry said that was why I connected with her, though.
“She’s a carbon copy of who you once were, and you are the blueprint of what she’ll become,” Harry told me once before.
He was right, too. Willow and I had much in common. We danced when no music was playing and laughed way too loudly. We’d strike up conversations with anyone and everyone, never falling short of words, and we’d always lead with love—and color.
Oh, how the two of us girls loved our vibrant colors.
Harry called me his rainbow, a burst of energy and colors that lit up his world.
