Sally sipped tea, ate thick slices of zucchini bread, and read her latest romance novel in the comfort of a cushioned lounge chair under a broad umbrella. To some it may seem silly to take a vacation in the middle of winter in your backyard, but Sally thought it was perfect. Well, almost perfect, if thirty degree temperatures didn’t bother you. Old ski boots, a snowsuit, gloves, down coat with hood, two wool scarfs, and a wool blanket took care of the cold weather. She called this phase of her vacation, ‘Testing The Water.’ With languid snowflakes falling, maybe a more appropriate title would be ‘Testing The Temperature.’

Four solid weeks of crying and a constant trail of company had followed the death of her husband. She thanked her best friend for staying with her all month. Waving goodbye she cried again, tears rolled down her face and cut channels in the thick make-up she wore to hide her dark circles. Fear and abandonment had leased space in her heart. Liked it or not she had to push herself forward or she’d grieve away the rest of her life. It wasn’t an easy decision but necessary.

Pamphlets of Hawaii still lounged on the coffee table. A constant reminder of forming plans to spend their twenty-fifth anniversary somewhere warm. The date loomed two days away. Sally’s announcement of a trip to Hawaii launched encouragement from everyone. A little lie, but surely not enough to deny her future admittance through the pearly gates. Maybe next year she really would fly to Hawaii. For now, this test of living alone in the house offered enough of a challenge.

Maybe this won’t be so difficult, Sally told herself, nibbling another slice of zucchini bread. Nestled in the front of her mind sat the promise that a phone call would guarantee her friend’s return. She closed her eyes and thoughts to the parade of fears beginning to congregate at the starting line of her emotions.

“What are you doing here?”

Sally flung her eyes open and all but dumped herself out of the chair. Only one person carried a voice marked with such an irritating two-tone quality; thick as molasses, and sharp as aged cheese. Her mother-in-law. Ethel’s bittersweet tone spread across the frigid air, like frozen butter over cold bread.

“And where did you get that ridiculous snowsuit? Green sure doesn’t look good on you, does it?” Ethel scrunched her nose to resemble a wad of three day old chewing gum.

Sally tugged at the ill-fitted body suit. Inside, she fumed with anger. Outside, she bit her tongue hard to keep from crying. Didn’t the loss of her husband include the loss of her mother-in-law too? Ethel’s pinched expression evaporated any hope.

Simply put, Ethel was color crippled. Sally had spent fifty dollars to be color draped, and green celery claimed penthouse residency in her color pallet. She wanted to tell Ethel the orange she wore completely washed the color from her face, but the insensitive woman hadn’t asked her opinion.

“You’re suppose to be in Hawaii. Did the ocean cast you back, or did you decide to spend the money in some other frivolous way?” Ethel’s critical tone delivered an extra measure of bitterness meant to inflict immeasurable pain. “Are you trying to make a spectacle of yourself? You might have thought about me, or at the very least the negative reflection left for me to explain away. Get in the house before I have you committed.”

Ethel’s harsh vituperation ignited Sally’s feet into a skip-hop across the paving stones back to the house. She hibernated in her bathroom, behind locked door. Still in her snowsuit and ignoring as best she could Ethel’s demands to come out, Sally grabbed a towel for a pillow and stretched out in the bathtub.

A fist pounded on the door. “You need to act like a grownup, not like some spoiled brat.”

Sally jumped out of the bathtub and flipped on the fan. For the first time in three years delight replaced irritation at the thump and rattle sounds breaking up Ethel’s abrasive voice. She returned to the tub, closed her eyes, and imagined sand beneath her and the beat of ocean waves dancing to the shoreline.

Moments later a hefty scream a few octaves higher and twice as loud as the fan invaded Sally’s thoughts. Her serene scene instantly collapsed. Drown in an ugly banshee cry. “What have you done to the houseplant? It’s dead!”

With breath held long enough to make her dizzy, Sally waited, frozen in the silence engulfing the other side of the door.

A slow smile spread across her face. The first smile since her husband’s death. The vision of her mother-in-law in complete despair, wiping fat tears, while huddled beside the beloved dead houseplant, once an heirloom handed down from generation to generation, recently moved into a corner of the spare bedroom, laid a souvenir in Sally’s mind she would enjoyed again and again.