and insects, but out of my home. I spent a lot of time at the end of my life in my garden, looking at the roots of strawberries and rasperries, cutting the trees for having more fruits, I like my ugly apples, I do great jams, without added sugar. My best dessert was fruits tarts, with eggs and suggar and butter to make it softer.
I like objects. The old black phone the one that gave me good and also bad news. The tabouret in the kitchen and the old wood table with scars of cutting the bread, I can see Jean drinking his hot chocolate, so hot one day I burnt my hand dropping it. Jean used the bathroom to do sport and wash his hair before his breakfast. He was doing as much noise as a morse, and we were forbidden to enter. I had to use a fabric to make all the water disappear after he had finished. When I came back to the kitchen he was on his chair, trying to make his chocolate less hot, impeccable in his gilet and white shirt with a neck rigid by the amidon he liked me to use.
I know one of my daughters is planing a big party with a big part of the family, in her chalet. I like to see all the faces happy. My only son to live now is forbidden to swim by his daughter doctor Kate. I never liked her to much, she was too serious. The other girls continue to be activ : bike for one, she had nearly three accidents in a year, but she enjoys it, I can see her at her smile, swimming in the lake for the other, it's nearly twenty five degrees which is astonishing even for an August month.
Don't tell the others, but I had a prefered child. Rob, he was full of energy and life, never calling me by phone, which made the three sisters mad at him, and suddenly appearing to take me to a restaurant near the lake, by boat. I loved it, it was so much fun. People think old people like their routine, and hate surprise. They're simply wrong. I love spontaneity.
I tried to educate my children by the example with my husband. He was the authority, I was the sweetness. Although, I must acknowledge I rarely kissed my children. I think you reproduce when you're an adult what you have lived as a child. I lost my mother when I was born, and my father was shot dead by the Germans during the first world war. I was educated by my Marraine. She was a tough woman. Never smiling, always strict and upset by something.
I met my husband when I was ten. I decided Jean would be my man. His huge forehead, his dark eyebrows, the way he was short sighted but not wanting to put glasses. I liked everything about him.
I had a nice life. He was not very keen of sexual intercourses, and I understood that he was brutal, coming in my bed, then dispearing without a kiss or nice gesture. In a way he was shy.
I did get along with my brothers at the begining, they were smoking cigares together, looking at the mountains, sharing an "eau de vie". Then when Jean began to invest, they disagreed with what he did with the part of my heritage, selling for investing in shareholding, and not very successfully, it's what they said at least. I don't know anything about the money, so I must say I trust him, and whatever happens you respect your husband, which I did.
My boys died. One playing tennis with his son. We should not practice sports, it's something wrong for the body and the heart. The second, Rob, did loose a lot of weight because of his new second wife that was an hostess, unfortunately, it killed him while skiing. The third one, my little JC, they didn't tell me, but I know they have hidden the truth to protect me. Oh I know, he committed suicide, which won 't make him able to be close to God. Then, it was too much for me, I decided to die if God would agree, I heard the doctor saying I had a bad pneumonia and a very healthy heart. I heard one of my daugthers deciding to unplug me to avoid more suffering, not sharing the decision. I heard the two other sisters mad at her later, but I was already aloof, looking at the lake and the mountains.
Later my elder died. He was exhausted. His wife lost her mind, and forgot all her souvenirs. I think they call it Alzheimer. She only remembered one song, and liked to purchase bread in the morning, a lot of bread because she forgot.
I remember the pictures with Jean as a photographer. He was angry as we did move to much. He spent hours putting them by order. And then, clic, the picture, I was so glad to see their little faces in the same frame.
I liked a lot the "pique nique" near the river, under the big trees. We drank a little Porto in a crystal glass, then discussing about my grandchildren with my daughters and my daughters in law. The men were playing balls. Serious as if their life was depending on their number of points. Yelling, hugging, betting.
We had a lack of food during the war. I remember the woman helping me cutting the head of the chicken, and he was running without it and the girls shouting of fear. My elders ate all the biscuits in the box, when I wanted to use it to receive guest, it was empty except the first layer. I was upset, but they made me laugh, and they were hungry my tall males.
I spent a lot of time thinking to them, praying for them, to make them happy for life and for the other. I loved to listen to their stories, drinking my tea and carefully listening to them, looking at them in their eyes, their love stories that turn bad, the success of one of the boys at the engineer exam, a baptême, a wedding,…
Life is like a blink of the eyes. Then there is the infinity. Eternity.
You know. They'll soon be with me and Jean, close to Marie. I'm sure of it. God bless you. Amen.
Tuscany August 2015
The driver
The century was walking on his feet since fifteen years now.
A fresh new start.
I'm younger than her by the same amount of years of ther age. She's what we call an assertive woman. She's used to talk loudly, has a short "carré" as an haircut, she begins loosing her hair, I could guess it in the bathroom carpet but it's tabou to discuss it, and she has taken weight, another discussion to avoid.
It was three days we had arrived from the snowy and windy Chicago to the sunny and foggy San Francisco. From the begining, it was an exceptionnal weather : crispy blue in the sky, nice temperature, although it was June the worst season with the summer in SF.
The day before, the narcissic and solid CEO had taken his troups to Alcatraz that had been privatized for all the partners of the worlwide consultancy company. For sure, his connections with the government and political world should have helped him.
I must be honest, I don't like this guy. Full of himself, proud and selfish. The ceremony to thank the oldest partners was embarrassing in all speeches. In a way, the older you were, the better it was for you to go out of the company, else people began to say "Poor, X (first name), he was bright and talented and came with a lot of businesses a long time ago."
"La roue tourne", as they say in French, you can be at the top and then nothing except a burden.
Alcatraz was impressive. To be alone or nearly alone in the cells, thinking that the island is surrounded by the sea, cold and hostile, is something you understand in your flesh. Some of the guys tried to escape, I don't know if they managed.
While people were drinking and eating, I was feeling bad to be in a prison and attend a cocktail party, so I spend an hour to look at the sunset, watching the birds and the bridges. I was peaceful. At the end of the hour, I looked at my smartphone and I had ten messengers from Pat, looking for me with her teenage daughter.
Frankly speaking, I don't like the girl. I'm not sure Pat is aware of it, as we never discussed it. I remember the first time she met me and gave me her hand to shake instead of accepting the kiss on the cheek. I felt awkward and she did it on purpose. I think she's a nasty girl, the kind that never speaks and think a lot of things and negative ones about you.
It's now three minutes that we wait for the driver. We take a mini bus to go and visit their tech partner that lives in Oakland and want us to have diner at his house. The group of people are the different partners that did the training in London first, with neuroscientist and coaches, and then Mumbai, visiting slums, indeed the goal of the operation being mysterious to me. I know them by a big album of instagrams pictures that they took in India, Pat purchased it for two hundred and fifty dollars, which sounds a huge amount to me.
; There is a beautiful spanish woman that has done to much job to her face and especially our upper lip, she seems in love with a robust guy with a shirt open on his hairs, he seems proud to show them.
Then, a thin Indian guy, the youngest partner of them, apparently freshly married to a tiny and thin woman, and with two noisy children.
An Italian man, well dressed, so coming from Milano or around, a Korean guy, making a lot of noise too with his nose, like having something to reject to breathe easily, but still smiling as the usual stuff. A Japanese man with his shy wife, in their late forties for all of them. A French couple.
As Pat didn't introduce ourselves to eachothers, I stayed quite, and looked at them.
The driver finally arrives and we evaluate the time to go to the house to one hour and a half. He's Asian looking and doesn't speak english.
We take the motorway, then a bridge and another bridge, then we can see "direction Berkeley" and we turn right for Oakland, then we see less pleasant landscapes, the big houses have disappeared for poor buildings, and streets with tags on wall, and railways. Suddenly, it becomes hilly and we begin hearing the noise of the motor of the mini bus, as overused by our weights and the speed.
People talk in the bus to spend the time, and the