“Nah. He’ll make his way eventually. Now if you do the pushin’, I’ll tell you ‘bout some of those other things you was asking about, alright?”
Obviously throwing me a bone, I think. It’s not what I want to find out most, but it’s better than nothing. “Alright. Tell me about your first travel, and when you get to here and now, stop.”
She chortles. “Land sakes, Sonnet, I can’t remember my first travel! My da’ said I was just a babe. I was born in Quebec in 1920, but I don’t remember nothin’ about that. I was only a year old when we traveled from there, I think it was to some God forsakin’ part of Russia. We were there for ‘bout three years. I don’t think the time frame was too much different from 1920 though…my da used to say something ‘bout being stuck at the turn of the century. Next we went to Ireland, 1845. I remember that all right; I was about five or so and we stayed for four years. Never did get outta that dang potato famine.” She scowls. “Wonder I cook Irish food a’tall nowadays. Anyway, where was I?”
“After Ireland, 1849. You would have been nine years old your next travel.”
“Right. Yup, I remember being nine and bein’ right here. First time in America, it was, least for me. Da said he’d been before. Anyways, we came here in 1755, over in New York. Couldn’t make up our minds which was worse, the Indians or the colonials or the British. They was all bossy if you ask me. But I came back later when I was twenty and that’s where I met my first husband, he was a Heron. His mama was the one who taught me to cook that puddin’ you like.”
I nod. “But what happened between your first two visits to America? Where were you?”
“Oh criminy, child, I can’t remember everything! We was in London for a while, that was in that Victorian time frame. Whole time and place was annoying. I hated it there!”
I can’t picture Prue, her ample waist and bosom tucked into a corset. And a bustle! The thought almost makes me laugh out loud. I’m surprised she lasted in that era for any length of time at all.
“Had to work as a maid for this uppity, whiney British gal who claimed to be a lady. It was enough to make me want to sleep all day, tryin’ to travel on again. Hmm, from there, thank God, we ended up in Chile, I think. I don’t know.”
“Well, after your husband here in America, where did you go? Were you sad to leave him?”
“Well, honey, bein’ married ain’t never sat too right with me. ‘Course that didn’t stop me from trying again three more times!” she guffawed. “But by the time I’d been with him a couple years, I wasn’t too sad to move on. Bet he was as mad as a hornet when he woke up and I was gone though! I was always tellin’ him I was gonna run off with a proper English gentleman so I imagine he was runnin’ through the countryside looking for some dandy with his wife! Ha!” she slaps her knee in mirth.
“Then what?” I press. Is anything going to give me a clue to our crazy mixed-up existence?
“Well, where was I?” We have reached our little brown house now and Prue sits down heavily on the front stoop. She motions for me to sit as well. “If you want to hear all this we’ll sit here. If I go in, I’ll just start get myself pulled into one of them game shows that the boys will have on.” The boys, of course, are Matthias and Harry, who are in their seventies if they’re a day, but to someone nearly twenty years their senior, they’ll always just be boys. “So’s anyway, after that I spent some time in Central America. Stayed there a right long time, too. My longest stop. Probably the closest to feeling like home now I think about it. Stayed so long and got so comfortable, I got fat!” She chuckles, slapping her thighs.
“Was it hard to leave if it felt like home?” I’ve never had that feeling before, no place has felt like home yet. I hope no place ever does. Leaving is hard enough when you don’t particularly like where you are anyway.
“Oh shore, I guess so,” Prue shrugs. “The next stop was Belgium and that’s where I