the heel press

Plopping down into the car seat Judith couldn't keep her concentration. The dry, hot, musty smell of a car that has been sitting in a sun-donned parking lot all day flooded her nostrils. Just like Grandpa's old Cadillac that squeaked and puttered down the road, doing twenty-five in a forty. She let out a deep sigh and reluctantly turned the ignition. With her foot off the break she began to go. Judith hadn't been to her Grandparents' house in over ten years. The death of a Grandfather could scare any child away. The sight of a loved one's cold, blue-tinted body lying on a hospital bed, the eyes unfriendly, the mouth unsmiling. And now, with her Grandmother's fall and instatement in the hospital, she was forced to go.

She quickly slammed her foot onto the brake, almost running a red light. She let out a breath of relief and closed her eyes. Must stop thinking about the past. She looked around out the car window at the playground on the corner. She watched as the children chased each other and played in perfect ignorance of the gruesome world awaiting them in their future. She used to run around the old creaking house when she was a child, waiting for Grandma's incredible chocolate chip cookies to finish baking, letting the fragrance of the rising cookie dough fill her nostrils as she played. Bobby was such a bully back then. A green light. Go.

Judith accelerated the car speedily down the interstate. The sooner the arrival and the quicker it's over with, the better. She could see smoke off to the side of the road. Farmers were burning their fields. Grandpa used to let the children go into the backyard and watch him burn the orange, rustic leaves that had fallen off the trees in the fall. Sometimes he would even let me light it. Watching the flames dance around the leaves, consuming them entirely, was entrancing. A loud blast of sound. A horn. Judith quickly spun the steering wheel as she almost careened off the road. She had been staring down the road at a pair of headlights. Must stop thinking about the past.

She pulled up in the driveway of the old house full of memories. It was blue, with the paint flaking off. Some of the roof tiles were in the yard. Judith looked at the front window, at the empty chair. It was the chair that Grandma used to always sit in and wait for them to arrive. Slowly turning the key in the lock, she gave the door a shove and it crept open, creaking loudly as it went. It always creaked. That was the signature of Grandma and Grandpa's house. The old, stuffy smells invaded her senses and made her remember coming here as a child, except then it was the overly warm temperature that old people always kept their houses at, and now it was cold, deathly cold. Walking over to the sofa, she picked up an embroidered pillow. She traced the stitching with her hand. Grandma had finished this pillow the day before Grandpa died. Judith collapsed onto the sofa and began to cry.