It's a milk white kitchen that looks as if it has never had a crumb or a speck of dirt in it. When I say "milk white", I mean that all four walls, every cabinet, every appliance is the same creamy color.

There is a large farmhouse sink in the middle of the back wall, if you are looking in from the door that connects the kitchen to the entrance hall. Above the sink is a window with lacy curtains, tied back with faded yellow ribbons. The window looks out to a flower garden.

To the right of the sink is a metal and Formica table. The chairs have white vinyl padded seats. There is an apron patterned with red and yellow flowers carelessly draped over the back of one of the chairs. On the table are an old red potholder mitt and a mason jar, with Miss Lingard Phlox in it.

To the left of the sink is the refrigerator, tucked in so that it is flush with the cabinets. On it are magnets from Florida, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, and a few other touristy places.

Held up with two of the magnets is a photograph of a young, blonde woman. She is wearing a pink tube top with large sunglasses pushed up on her forehead. She is smiling, and it looks as if the photograph was taken outdoors in the early evening. There are other things…a schedule of church events, a pie recipe recently cut from a magazine, a brief list (butter, brown sugar, raspberries, toothpaste).

Standing at the sink is an old woman. Tall and thin with short white hair. She wears a man's white button down shirt, khaki cotton pants, and gray felt clogs.

She is washing her hands. They are sudsy, and smell of lemon. She has a white striped dishtowel thrown over her shoulder, and when she is done washing, she dries her hands with it, then hangs the towel on a hook, on the wall beside the window. She walks to the table and picks up the apron. She hangs the apron up on another hook.

She crosses to the refrigerator, opens it, and removes a glass pitcher full of iced tea. She takes a tall glass from the cabinet immediately next to the refrigerator, and pours the tea until the glass is nearly full.

She crosses back to the sink. She is looking out the window at someone in the garden. She sips her tea and watches with a calm humor in her attitude.

Her name is Iris Wight. She is 77 years old. She is in Calais, Maine.

This is her sister.

There is an old woman weeding in the garden. She has a straw hat on; with a brim so big it looks funny. She's wearing overalls, a faded, pink T-shirt, and dark green Wellies.

She tosses the weeds into a plastic beach pail. She rolls her neck around and looks stiff, like she's been doing this too long. She wipes perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand, smearing dirt on her face.

Althea Wight is 75. Shorter than Iris, and her hair is equally white, but she wears it long, and in a bun at the back of her neck.

There is a shhhk sound above her. Iris has opened the kitchen window.

"You've been at that all morning. Come inside, it's too hot."

"Nooo...it isn't too hot."

"Have some nice cold tea. Did you stop for lunch? Come have a sandwich."

"Lunch? What time is it?"

"It's nearly two, you dim cow."

"My!"

Althea drops the last few weeds into the pail and slowly, carefully stands. She removes her hat and calls up to Iris.

"All right. I'll wash off in the cellar and be up."

She enters the cellar through a door painted the color of wild blue lupine. Immediately in the cellar is an old sink. This is where the dirt goes. This is how the kitchen stays so white. She rinses her arms and lays her hat on a shelf. She sits on a nearby bench and removes her Wellies, replacing them with nearly threadbare pink slippers. She climbs the stairs and enters the kitchen.

Iris has made her a turkey sandwich and poured her a glass of tea.

"Oh, thank you, Iris."

The two women sit and talk between bites. The birth of a neighbor's granddaughter, how Mrs. Herman's cancer is doing, whether or not Pastor needs more help with the upcoming Summer Bake & Tag Sale. The conversation turns to Heather.

"We've got to get her room ready."

"I opened the windows this morning. It smelled rather stale."

"That was a good idea."

The women sigh, and look at the photograph on the refrigerator. Heather Turner.

Their grand niece.

She is very important to both of them. She is Corydalis’ granddaughter.

About Corydalis

Corydalis was the eldest and most beautiful of the sisters. She had never been as tall as they, and she was curvier. She had dark brown hair and large gray eyes and creamy skin. She would have been 83 this year.

Her room has been the "Guest Room" since her death five years ago. She told Iris and Althea to change it around, not to make it a shrine to her. She knew they wouldn't listen. It was the room she had grown up in, the room she returned to (widowed at age 60). How could they change it? They got a new bed. They kept the walls lilac. They kept her flute displayed on a new dresser. A compromise, Iris and Althea say.

Now the windows are open, waiting for her granddaughter. Althea has brought the last of the Sweet Peas in. They are in a jar on the dresser, and the breeze is making their fragrance fill the air. Iris has added fresh sheets and smoothed out Corydalis and Noah's wedding quilt over the bed.

On a small table to the right of the bed, there are three photos in old frames. The first is of three little girls wearing stiff hats, holding hands and smiling on Easter Sunday, 1930. The second, a handsome young couple in wedding dress and Naval Officer's uniform. Corydalis and Noah in 1945, seemingly the happiest people to ever live. The third is of Corydalis in 1950 proudly holding her newborn son, Alexander. Heather's father.

Her granddaughter is going to be staying in that room for two weeks.

It is nearly dinnertime, and Heather is arriving.

She rolls down the window about a mile from the house, (past the post office, where the trees form a canopy over the road). She turns the radio off. She is not aware that her face is changing. The closer she gets, the softer the lines in her forehead become. Her eyes look less tired. A small smile creeps onto her face. Now, she is lovely. Now she bears a resemblance to Corydalis.

She pulls the old Honda up in front of the Aunts’ house. She gets out and leans against the car. Inhale. Exhale. The fresh air that smells like nowhere else.

The buttercup yellow door swings, bangs open. The Aunts come out to great her. They embrace her, both talking at once, asking about the ride, her bags. Is she tired, hungry, thirsty?

Iris thinks that Heather’s shirt is too tight and her shorts are too short. The dyed blonde hair isn’t flattering. She thinks Heather looks older than she should and hopes that she has quit smoking. Iris says none of this out loud.

Althea can see that Heather is pleased to see them, but Heather is not happy. Althea thinks that something must change in these next two weeks.

Heather would not describe herself as unhappy. She has forgotten what happy really is. She thinks that it is merely not being sad.

She does not remember when anything outside of her Aunts house was special, beautiful, or really good.

It is the next morning, and Heather is waking up.

When Heather is at home she wakes to the sound of his coughing and the smell of his first cigarette that crawls from the kitchen. Their bedroom seems to have nicotine on every surface, even thought she quit six months ago and got him to stop smoking in their bedroom last month. Her brain won’t register the headache she had when she went to sleep, and still has when she gets up.

In the Aunts' house, Heather wakes up without the headache. This is when she recalls it, in its absence. She pushes her hair from her eyes and blinks at the sun filtering through the sheer curtains. She can hear Iris and Althea downstairs, clinking dishes, murmured conversation. A teakettle whistles.

She stretches herself long, until she hears little popping sounds in her shoulders and knees, then she curls into a ball. She pulls the quilt over her head, and lets the light shining through make her a hazy lavender world. Where everything smells good and is natural and pleasant.

This is why she comes here every summer. To "take care" of her old Aunts, who are doing just fine on their own. She comes for the feeling of lightness and simple happiness. She comes for the way she feels when she wakes up.

It is three days later. After lunch.

Heather is outside, stretched on a blanket with a sketchbook and colored pencils. The Aunts watch her as they clear the dishes. She offered to do them, but they told her she not allowed to do chores on Wednesday (why Wednesday, they don’t explain). Iris fills the sink with soapy water and rinses three plates, three cups, and a blue platter that held chicken sandwiches half an hour ago. Althea puts the remaining half of a bunch of red grapes into a faded cloth bag, and places them in the crisper. Then she dries the dishes.

There is a little pink mobile phone next to Heather. It begins to sing. It is a song the Aunts don't know (if they did, do you think they would acknowledge it as music?). Heather's face is yanked from its content expression. She picks up the phone quickly, as if it will explode if she answers after more than two rings.

Althea and Iris cannot hear what she is saying, but they know to whom she is talking. The tautness in her mouth and lines between her eyes … her husband.

The Aunts have not talked about her husband since she married him. Althea told her he wouldn't make her happy. Iris told her that he was no good. They told her not to.

Heather said it wasn't true. He was never unfaithful, never abusive, had a decent job.

"I didn't say he was a bad man." Iris had snapped "but he is no good."

She married him anyway, and the Aunts sighed and prayed.

In the three years since, he has given Heather nothing. He has never given her a bruise, and he has never given her a kiss that lifted her from the ground. He has never verbally abused her, and he has never told her the creativity and intelligence she possesses are capable of great things. He has a job that requires the barest minimum of work that barely pays half the bills and offers nothing to the greater good of society. He never thinks of anything outside himself, his immediate and superficial wants.

Yet he takes all of the love, devotion, energy, time and money that she brings, and he does with no word of gratitude. He is Mediocrity, and he has no desire to change. When Heather is with him, he pulls her down.

Now he is whining about all the things he has to do in her absence (clean, cook, shop for groceries). Every year he calls her after she has been gone a few days, acting as if it's been a year. She used to stay a month. Two years ago he got her to go back after three weeks. This year she will be here for only two. Less if he can tire her enough from the other end of that pink phone.

"A waste." Althea whispers.

Iris grumbles. "I almost wish he'd smack her once, just so she'd have to leave."

"He knows that, and that’s why he won’t."

Althea pulls a cookie from the jar...a bell rings whenever the lid is lifted, and Iris automatically dries her hand and holds it out for one.

They chew oatmeal and chocolate chips. Althea leans toward the window and watches Heather close her phone, with an irritated face. The sun has gone behind a cloud for a minute, and Heather looks up, silently begging for it to come back.

Iris says, "She's never going to leave him."

Althea turns from the window and says nothing.

But she thinks.

Four days later, in another kitchen.

It's hard to tell what color this kitchen is, as everything is covered with a layer of gold film. "Gold” does not mean shiny and expensive. It means the sort of yellow, sort of orange, sort of brownish color that makes everything look as if it's sticky. Every cabinet, every wood veneer panel, every appliance has this...this grime that has long ago smothered the original colors.

It smells of cigarettes and warm plastic, and something else.

Looking into the room from the front door, there is a large plastic trash bin on the left, with an aged pair of sneakers kicked nest to it, and a plastic grocery bag with a box of light bulbs. The bag and the box are covered in dust. A much stained counter (it was light blue at one time, but now it looks a swampy green) leads to a sink full of dirty dishes, a stove with blackened clumps of mystery stuck to it, and an old refrigerator. The refrigerator has three magnets. One is in the shape of a toilet, (holding a scrap of paper with a phone number), one of a duck (holding a photo of Heather with her arm around another young woman. They are in bikinis, at a beach, smiling broadly.), one of a beer can (holding a piece of paper that reads "Jolene Friday 9").

Past that (keep looking to the right) is a little more counter space, and then a wall of "wood" paneling. There are two posters of busty women in Bavarian costume, holding beer steins. Below them is a table piled with several days' mail, grocery store circulars, and Styrofoam food containers. On the floor underneath the table is an empty paper container that once housed a dozen cans of cheap beer.

The old woman looks as if she is in a foreign land. She wears crisp, pale pink pants and a short-sleeved blouse with small pink flowers. She has a white hat that shades her face. She wears pale fawn colored driving gloves and soft white shoes.

This room subtly upsets her. She moves through it without touching anything, she doesn't even want to touch the floor. She clears her throat delicately. She passes into the next room, where she believed she hears snoring.

He is on the couch, lying on his back. He is shirtless and wearing gray sweatpants. The enormous television is on to the weather channel, but the sound is off. The room has stacks of things. Stacks of clothes, stacks of magazines, stacks of DVD’s. This room is less messy than the kitchen, but it is darker. The unfamiliar smell is much stronger here. The carpet and couch are worn dark blue, and the dirty curtains are drawn. Between his knees is one empty beer can. On the floor, at the end near his feet are five more.

His right arm has dropped off the end of the couch, and his hand rests between an ashtray (full of cigarettes and stubs of what she has just realized is reefer) and an open pizza box. She can see that there are slices of pizza, and a cheap steak knife. He used that to cut the pizza slices apart. It will suffice.

She bends to the box. She picks up the knife and positions herself so she is standing directly above him.

She calmly sticks the knife into his chest, where his heart is. Sideways, so it goes between his ribs and makes less mess. She pushes it into the hilt. His eyes flutter when she does this, but he is inebriated on beer and lazy from marijuana. They close again.

Althea leaves as quietly as she came.

"Where have you been?"

Iris asks as her sister enters the house. Iris is in the milk white kitchen, rinsing a china teapot acquired at the bake and tag sale.

"Where's Heather?"

"After the church sale, she went to a movie with Nancy's daughter."

"Oh, that's nice. Allison or Jessica?"

"The one who just got married.”

"Jessica."

"Sure. Answer my question."

"What did they go see?"

Iris puts the teapot down.

"I don't know. Why aren't you answering me?"

Althea is quiet. She puts her bag on the table and removes her hat.

"You were supposed to be back from Dr. Van Austen's at one. I was worried."

"I'm sorry you were concerned. See, though? I'm fine." Althea smiles at the teapot. "This is very pretty. Did you pick this out?"

"Heather found it. Althea!" Iris has her hands on her hips and she stands in front of her sister.

When Iris is trying to hide something from her sister, she huffs and puffs and pretends offense. When Althea is trying to hide something from her sister, she changes the subject and is extra sweet. The tactics work on other people. They do not work on each other.

Iris's unfounded concern changed to irritation and now it is anger. She does something not done in this house. She curses.

"Althea Elizabeth Wight, where the hell were you?"

Not one of the greater swear words, but strong in a house where none are said at all.

Althea sighs. "I took the car to Heather's house and killed her husband."

Time has stopped. Iris does not blink, and even her breathing seems to pause.

She speaks a full minute later.

"You...you did?"

"Yes." Althea delicately removes her driving gloves and puts them in her bag.

"Oh." says Iris. "Well." She pulls up another chair and sits. She still does not blink.

Althea reaches out and gently takes her sister's hand. Her voice never changes in tone or urgency.

"She can come and stay with us now. Mrs. Herman's son said Calais Regional is hiring. She can live in Corydalis' room and leave that awful, smelly place and that awful parasite of a man and be really happy."

She might have been discussing the pretty teapot.

"Something had to be done, Iris. I think it's a service, don't you?"

Iris stares at her sister.

Then she blinks.

"They have neighbors..."

"There were no cars in the next driveway, and all of the shades were drawn. The other house is empty. It's a little, dead end dirt road, far from the main highway. You remember? Heather told us that when they moved there."

"I remember. Are you sure no one saw you?"

"No one, dear. Don't worry about that. It's Heather that matters. When do you think she'll be back? Not for a while?"

Epilogue

It is "Not for a while" later. And beyond.

Heather is back from the movie.

She has enjoyed herself.

Althea and Heather gossip and garden.

Iris is mostly quiet; she busies herself cleaning the house.

She calls Mrs. Herman's son.

After dinner.

Iris is in better spirits.

The three women sip iced chamomile tea in the cool, white kitchen.

There is a jar of white Hydrangeas on the table.

Next to the pretty teapot with strawberries on it.

And a small pink mobile phone.

The small pink phone rings.

The Aunts get up to refill their glasses.

The next morning Heather leaves.

Pastor drives her to the town she lives in.

She talks to the police.

The police talk to Pastor (a witness to where Heather was all morning).

They call Nancy's daughter (Jessica, who just got married).

They call the movie theater (it was a very slow afternoon and the girl at the box office would have noticed if someone left early).

Then they find a man who worked with Heather's husband.

They caught him driving erratically, with a large bag of marijuana in the backseat of his car. In plain sight. Stupid.

He is hung-over and cannot remember where he was the afternoon in question.

Three nights ago the neighbor (whose shades were drawn) heard him yelling at Heather's husband about money.

The police close their case.

Heather returns to her Aunts less than a week later.

She brings two suitcases of clothes, all the money from her bank account, and nothing else.

She moves into her Grandmother's room.

She gets a job at the Calais hospital.

She lets her hair go back to brown.

She wakes up every morning in her hazy lavender world.

She goes to sleep every night

Happy.

The End