The heat wave has finally broken and a comforting rain patters the window. Sophie’s kitchen is directly below the McNabs’, same side of the house but a different shape, theirs being long and narrow and Sophie’s wide and square like the farm kitchen she worked in most of her life. By this time in the morning she usually hears Hal’s footsteps overhead, but not today. What she hears is her own voice saying: let them sleep. Sophie remembers that after her husband, Rolf, died, what she wanted most was sleep. Shrugging on the scratched orange slicker she used to wear feeding the chickens, Sophie lopes downtown in size ten sneakers and an ankle-long cotton skirt, a wicker basket at the end of a monkey arm. As usual she is the first one in the Dominion except for Mr. Franzin who is opening the till. “Hello, Mrs. Power,” he says. “Good to see the rain.” Sophie nods then tramps around the store. She has been in here so often she knows where everything is and in five minutes is at the check out with two chickens, a package of yellow-eyed beans and a dozen eggs.
What do You think about The Birthday Lunch (2015)?
