Listen to "The Grass Grows Ordinary"
read by Julie L. Moore
It's 9:00 and the flesh of evening turns pink as salmon. My husband calls me to the porch where we sit, watching our son and his friend, their faces aglow with rose, tossing their blossom-leathered ball. Our sidewalk blushes, the lawn dons rouge. My grandmother died this morning just before my grandfather walked through the door of the nursing home. When my aunt arrived, he raised his coffee cup, said, "Hey, kid, want some?" The rest of the family, on the other side of the country, was still in church. So my aunt left us messages, her words, steeped in grief's briny distillation, greeted us as we returned home. A neighbor's bottle rocket whines, shearing the dream-like fabric of dusk, erupts in green applause, then falls silent as a star. Why, my sister and I will wonder later, didn't Grandmom wait till after her daily lunch with Granddad? "What," my mom calls to ask, "will you wear to the funeral?" A car door slams in the distance. The light fades in minutes. Already, the concrete pales, the grass grows ordinary in its dark suit.