Together – Friday Flash

My brain is completely shot this week, so this Friday’s offering is a flash story I wrote ages ago and could never quite figure out what to do with. But reading it again now, it made my heart smile, so I hope you enjoy it.

Together
(A Flash Story by Maggie Slater)

THE OLD WOMAN CAME TO look at our house on a Thursday in June. She stood on the granite patio under the silver maple, clutching a little piece of fabric in her hands. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said when I answered the bell, “I’m afraid this is a terrible intrusion, but might I just walk about the premises for a bit? I used to live here ages ago.” 

I was working from home that day, and she seemed harmless, so I nodded and left her to it. Now and then, between Zoom meetings, I peered out my windows to see her stooping by the edge of the knoll, or poking about the old, overgrown garden and chicken coops, or standing beneath the sugar maple in the side yard, peering up into the branches. She was always smiling, and now and then, I thought I heard her laugh with delight, which made me smile a little brighter when I sat down to my computer again. 

She stayed until just after lunch, then rang the bell again. “Thank you so much. You’ve no idea how much I appreciate it.” She turned as if to go, but then paused. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen him, rustling about after all these years?”

“Him?” I figured she meant some old dog or wild critter. 

“Nevermind,” she said, with a secret little smile. “Thank you, again.” 

A few weeks later, I heard her laugh. I peeked out my back window, but there was no one in the back yard by the knoll. I assumed it must have been a walker on the street, and paid it no more thought. 

Then I heard her laughter from the side yard, by the maple tree. It was closer than before, and I tiptoed to the living room to see if she really had come back, unannounced. There in the side yard, like a slip of light, I saw her, or a woman who looked vaguely like her. She was my age, wearing a print dress, her hair styled in an old fashioned beehive. She stood in the side yard, her arms uplifted, laughing. 

And as I watched, the branches of the old sugar maple shivered, and I heard another laugh, a squealing, high-pitched laugh, and saw what I thought, for the briefest moment, was a little boy. He dropped from the branches into her waiting arms, and as she kissed his cheeks and nuzzled his nose, they both faded from view. 

To this day, on lazy summer afternoons, I like to peek out my side windows. Sometimes, on a particularly lovely day, when the sky is blazing blue and there’s not a breath of wind, I’ll see the branches rustle, and hear two voices laughing, and I find myself warmed and comforted, knowing they’re together.