Page 83 of Dear Henry, Love Edith
Julie’s shoulders sank and her feet began to drag. “I think I liked it better when you were just a paying customer.”
Brushes of pink and lavender smeared across the sky hours later as Edith and Julie sat on a park bench, watching a family of ducks make their way across a pond in a single-file line.
“I’m starving.”
“You’re not starving. We stopped for an early supper on the way over here. Besides, you consumed enough calories at the bakery to last you until next week. I’m the one who should be starving. If I’d known you were going to drag me to the edge of civilization when I suggested a nice leisurely stroll, I would have packed a survival kit.” Julie threw a piece of cracker toward a duck.
“What are you doing?” Edith angled toward Julie.
“What do you mean what am I doing?” Julie followed Edith’s gaze down to the package of crackers in her hands. “This?” Julie shrugged. “I’m feeding the ducks.” She broke off another piece and threw it.
“I just said I’m starving.”
“Yeah. But obviously you’re not starving, and obviously—” she cocked her arm back and sailed a chunk of cracker into a group of three mallards—“these are for the ducks.”
“You always keep a sleeve of saltines in your purse just for ducks?”
“Sometimes I keep stale scones.” Julie dispensed the rest of the crackers, then brushed her hands together. “There. That ought to keep them happy for a while.” She swung her gaze toward Edith’s profile, no doubt taking in the forlorn expression on her face, and sighed. “Fine.” Julie dug into her purse, then held out her palm.
Edith blinked. “Gum. That’s the sustenance you offer me?”
“It’s not just gum. It’s Big Red. And frankly I’m going to need the sustenance more than you do if I ever hope to make it back to my car again.” She pointed at the cross-trainers on her feet. “Pretty sure I have a blister. These aren’t exactly hiking boots, you know.”
“Aren’t those the shoes you normally wear to work?”
“Yeah, I love ’em. They’re super comfortable.” She raised them off the ground and flexed her feet back and forth. “But I don’t usually run a half marathon in them either.”
“Julie, you do realize we walked all of a mile to get here.”
“Edith, you do realize you ate supper, plus an entire bakery, before we got here.”
“Fair enough.” Edith slouched on the bench and crossed her arms. A minute later, she unfolded them and leaned forward. “See, here’s the thing though. The last time I was feeling down, I wrote this letter, and it turned out to be a big mistake. I poured out things I should have kept bottled in.”
Julie snapped her gum and nodded for Edith to continue.
“I told myself the next time I was ever tempted to do that again, I’d do what I should have done the first time. Eat ice cream. In today’s case, pastries. Nothing bad comes out of eating ice cream and pastries, right?”
“Possibly diabetes, but you’re the nurse.”
“So today, after that interview went so horrible—”
“I wouldn’t say horrible.”
“I sneezed on the reporter, Julie. My snot landed in her eyeball.”
“I doubt anybody noticed.”
“She squealed and yelled, ‘Ewww, my eye!’”
“There was that.”
Edith stood and began to pace, sending a lone duck that had wandered close to their bench scurrying back toward the pond. “You want to know the worst part?”
“It was all captured on live TV?”
“The worst part is knowing, right when I needed him most, Henry left. He just left.”
“Well, honey, I’m sure he had a good reason. Have you talked to him yet?”
