rattan sofa upholstered with prints so bright Ken used to say—when he was still talking—that a person needed sunglasses just to watch television. She didn’t really care. The orchids, palm fronds and what-all in vivid hues of her favorite purples, limes and oranges always made her smile. A plush monkey puppet swung from a shelf that sported a framed photo of Elvis before he went and got fat, and the king was surrounded by smaller photos of her children and grandchildren. Elvis and the monkey made her smile, too, and the grandkids made her feel all lit up inside.
She got up to lower the bamboo shades on the windows and rewound the VCR. In a moment she was immersed in the day’s doings on All My Children. She had not missed an episode of AMC in thirty-one years. The day she did, something terrible was going to happen. She didn’t know why or how, she just knew. Still, that was no matter, because that disaster was never going to occur. She had two VCRs that recorded the show, just in case one went down the way VCRs liked to do if they could get away with it. She had asked Ken for one of those fancy TiVo machines for her birthday, but he hadn’t even remembered the day, much less the present. No matter. When she moved out and got her own place, she was going to buy one. In the meantime, that was one less thing they would have to fight over at the divorce.
By the time the episode ended, she felt worse. Julia had gone and got herself shot! Wanda couldn’t believe it, but she’d seen it happen with her own eyes. Then she’d refused heroic measures and just up and died. Just like that, written off the show. Wanda felt as if she’d lost a friend. And it looked like old Tad was next.
Something had to change. She flicked off the VCR and rewound the tape to get it ready for tomorrow, and as she did, she tried to think out why she was feeling so bad. As much as she hated to face it, the reason was pretty clear. She had let Miss Priss Deloche get to her, and she hadn’t done anything about it. She had hoped that just admitting to herself that she wasn’t at her best last night would be enough. But now she knew that just slapping herself on the wrist wasn’t going to cut it.
She rolled up the shades and stared out the window. She was a big believer in making amends. Enough alcoholics had explained the concept to her over the years as they ordered club soda and a twist of lime. That was something they learned at meetings, when they tried to sober up. If a person screwed up, they had to make good somehow.
She wasn’t all that wrought up over the Deloche woman. Any landlady could stand to be slapped around a little. Sometimes you just had to shake good sense into a body, like salt into chicken and dumplings. You never knew how much it was going to take, either. You just had to add a little, then try some more, until you got it right. In the end, everybody who partook was better off for your doing it.
But none of that excused the way she was letting down old Herb. He’d been a sweet old man, never did anybody a bit of harm. She should have been kinder, and now, with a chance to make amends, she was walking away. She wasn’t sure what she could do—that was kind of up in the air—but at least she should try. Guilt was a lot of extra weight for a body to carry. She was carrying enough weight as it was, considering that she was eating all the pie she baked these days, with no help from Ken.
Restless now, she went into the kitchen and got a glass of ice water. From the kitchen window she saw movement over at Herb’s cottage. Without wasting more time thinking about it, she went outside and walked up the road to see what was happening. When she got closer she saw that the Indian woman with the funny name was moving slowly among the old man’s plants. Wanda was almost at the house before she realized what she was doing.
“Now, that’s a good idea,” she called, crossing through the open gate that led into the yard. “They would have died in