Just a Pretty House with Garden in Oxford
written by: Karen Southall Watts
The photos attached to the message were nice, but not spectacular, probably because her cousin snapped them while walking. The house was made of tan bricks, trimmed in white, and the roses were pressed against a black iron fence. She imagined strolling by soaking in the history and the perfume of summer.
She pulled out the chore list for the day, and pushed impossible dreams of European vacations out of her head. It was going to be another chaotic day of pasting together enough gig work to pay the bills. Time for that first cup of tea.
Perhaps her cousin was having tea right now too, maybe in one of those places that served fresh scones? More likely, with the time difference, her cousin was winding down with a cocktail after another morning of museums and local color. Didn’t someone famous write about “Oh, to be in England?” Maybe she’d look up that quote after her first job was finished, as a lunchtime treat.
Glued to her keyboard, she hustled all day, cringing a bit when the neighbor’s dogs howled during a video conference. Lunch was some leftover fried rice she managed to heat up before a passing thunderstorm caused the power to flicker. Once the internet was back up, she looked up that fragment of a poem. It was Robert Browning. Another cup of tea.
During the workday, any birdsong was drowned out by the traffic off of Highway 54, and the weird gurgle that her refrigerator had developed in the last month. So much for fantasies of “the city of dreaming spires” or a sleepy, green countryside.
A series of door slams announced the end of the business day and the return of the neighbors. Late afternoon heat generated a violent downpour that lasted just long enough to drive the kids in from the basketball hoop, and make the apartment complex parking lot steam. She trooped down the stairs to check the mail, praying for no new bills.
In the post-storm quiet, she ventured out the front door. Muggy air swallowed her whole, but in that first breath was the scent of the bedraggled rose bush by the porch. Oh to be in this moment, now that it is here.
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