Beautiful Stranger. Ruth Wind

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      Midmorning, he took a list—one that Crystal insisted on preparing every week—to the grocery store. When he returned, she popped her head out of the kitchen, grinning happily. “Hey, Uncle, come look what I did for you.”

      He followed, dropping his bags on the counter. The room was fairly large, with a big window looking out toward the mountains, and all the cupboards, stove and refrigerator on one wall. A small windowed alcove had previously held a small breakfast bar and two stools, where they usually ate. But she’d dragged the breakfast bar into the kitchen below the window and dragged the old Formica-and-chrome table into the alcove.

      “You shouldn’t have been moving this stuff, babe. I would have helped.”

      “I used my butt,” she said with a grin. “Look at what I brought in, though.” She opened the drawers set into the alcove one by one. “All your stuff, so you can have a good place to work.”

      “Ah, Crystal, this is so good,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. The drawers had held miscellaneous kitchen junk before, which she’d sorted out and moved. From his bedroom, she’d carried all his jewelry and glass supplies, and carefully organized them by type, even fitting the drawers with cardboard dividers to keep things neat. Touched, he kissed her head. “Thank you.”

      “I know you gave up your workroom to give me a place to sleep,” she said. “This will work pretty good, don’t you think?”

      “It’ll be even better. Look how much great light there is in here.”

      “Okay.” She slapped her hands together—that’s that. “I’m going to get my sheets. Then will you show me again how to do those corners?” Now that the weather had warmed up, she loved washing the sheets and hanging them out on the line to dry.

      “Sure.” He put the groceries away, then followed her to her room when she came in with an armload of sweet-smelling linens. On her narrow twin bed, he illustrated the army corner, tight and smooth, then pulled it loose. “You try.”

      Adroitly she did it, but he saw her trouble was in the fact that she couldn’t quite bend well enough to get it tight. “Let me help, babe.”

      She straightened, laughing a little, her hand on her round belly. “It gets harder to do things, and I forget.”

      It startled him, that happy, girlish laugh, especially in reference to her pregnancy. Trying not to make too much of it, he knelt and tucked the corners tight. “I don’t want you to move anything heavy anymore, got it?”

      “Yes, sir.” She saluted.

      “You really love cleaning, don’t you?”

      “My mother thinks it’s crazy, too. She never stuck to routines—but it makes things so cheerful when they’re clean, don’t you think?” She looked around with a little smile.

      Robert straightened and looked at it through her eyes. Sunlight streamed in through the clean windows with their pressed, clean curtains. No litter of beer bottles or ashtrays sat on the coffee table, only a nice arrangement of plastic fruit that appalled him, but Crystal had picked out. She washed it every week and patted it dry.

      He’d rented the place because it was the right size for him, a little box with a kitchen and two small bedrooms and a living room that opened on to a small wooden porch. It sat at the outskirts of town, so he didn’t have to deal with neighbors much or any lawn to speak of, just the omnipresent meadowlands with their offerings of columbines and long-stalked grasses. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a great house.”

      “You should have a cat or something.” She plumped her pillows vigorously and slid one into a crisp pillow-case.

      Aside from little requests like the feather duster she’d gone nuts for at Kmart, and the plastic fruit, it was the first time she’d even obliquely asked him for anything. “You want a cat?”

      A shrug.

      It struck him forcefully that he was no longer alone. After years and years and years of eating dinners by himself in front of the television, and getting up to everything exactly the way it had been the night before. He had somebody to talk to when he was blue. He had someone to say, “Hey, look at this,” when there was something on the news. Somebody to share chores with, eat meals with.

      He’d only done what was necessary when Crystal showed up; he’d made room for her, done the best he could. But now he realized how much she’d done for him. “Maybe we oughta go see if they have any at the pound.”

      Her face glowed. “Really?”

      “Sure.” He tugged on the end of her braid. “I like cats. Maybe we can get two, one for me and one for you.”

      “They have to be inside cats, though. No going outside. I don’t like that.”

      “Okay.” He wandered to the door, pulling his T-shirt over his head. “I’ll jump in the shower, then you can have it. Maybe we could have lunch first somewhere.”

      “McDonald’s?” she asked with hope.

      “Ugh. No. Someplace better.”

      She grinned, looking impossibly young and pretty and sweet, the way she should. “Grown-ups are so boring.”

      He tugged the rubber band out of the bottom of his braid and shook out his hair. “Look who’s talking.” He threw his T-shirt at her. “McDonald’s is not high cuisine.”

      “Yuck!” She threw the T-shirt back at him. “And don’t use such fancy language.”

      “It’s good for you.”

      The doorbell rang, and Robert picked up his shirt from the floor. “Get ready and we’ll go.” Probably the paperboy, who showed up at the dot of eleven every second Saturday. He stuck his hand in his pocket and found he only had a five. “Hang on!” he called, and went to the bedroom for a ten.

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