Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Because Aaron wanted to host, and we used up everything tonight that we would have had tomorrow.”
“I don’t care. I can go to the store in the morning.”
“No. We’re going over there.”
“I refuse.”
“Tough,” I insisted. “You’re going.”
“Man,” he whined.
“Mrs. Kage, would you like a cup of coffee and a piece of pie?”
“Finally somebody offers,” she said, smiling at Harper. “Thank you, dear, I would love both of those things if the pie isn’t berry. If it’s berry, I’ll just have a piece of coffee cake.”
“We have coffee cake?” Sam asked me.
“We always have coffee cake,” I told him, squinting. “Your mother always says you should have something baked for company. Though I cheated and got one from Malone’s.”
“Oh, Malone’s, where they have those heavy yeast doughnuts?”
“That’s the one.”
Harper put a cup and saucer down in front of her, along with the creamer and a napkin and spoon. He then made a trip back for a piece of coffee cake. “The key lime pie got annihilated, and all we have left is cherry.”
“Do you need sugar, Mom?” Sam asked her.
“Your mother doesn’t take sugar,” Harper and I said at the same time.
After a moment, Kola said, “Nana doesn’t take sugar.”
“You don’t?” Sam asked her.
Her eyes narrowed at her son. “No, Samuel, I don’t,” she said and then turned and beamed up at Harper. “Your mother is a wonderful woman, and even though I knew that before, she raised a very thoughtful young man.”
“I’m totally telling her that,” he said, returning to the sink as Hannah and Jake came walking back in the house, Jake carrying Dobby, both of them flushed, with leaves in their hair.
“Oh, Nana, can I get you some coffee cake?” Hannah asked without looking at the table. “We only have cherry pie, and I know you don’t like berry.”
Regina’s humph was loud.
That’s it, all. Again, happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, and I’ll see you all in July.
JULY 2024
Hello, all, and welcome to He Said, he said for July 2024. I hope you’re all having a lovely summer so far. It’s been, well, hot is what it’s been here in the humid city. You walk outside into, like, an oppressive wall of wet heat. It’s simply gross. But the good news is that our air conditioner did not die, which I was terrified about.
I woke up last Thursday morning and it was warmish inside. That’s never good, since we keep our house normally at seventy all summer long. As soon as I walked out into the hall that leads from my bedroom to the guest room, the large bathroom across from it, and then to what used to be, and technically still is, Kola’s room, and finally Hannah’s room further down, with the window looking out to the front of the house, I found myself facing a ladder.
“Hello?” I called up.
Sam was suddenly looming above me, looking both flushed and sweaty. And hot, but in a different way. I found myself staring at my very sexy husband. After a moment, he glared at me.
“What’s happening?” I asked, taking a quick breath.
“There’s a backup in the primary drainage line, which led to an overflow in the drip pan, which is causing a leak beside the back deck.”
Now, I know that might not make a lot of sense, but that’s mainly because two things happened at the same time. One, I didn’t really understand all the things he explained to me—there was something about a condensation line—and two, I just woke up, there had been no coffee, so I was also not grasping all the words that were being spoken. What I did know was that he had his air compressor up there with him and he was using his scary ladder that could either be used, as it was now, as one of those triangle ones, or it could be used as a really long one that he leaned against the side of the house to get up on the roof. It did not just open like the light aluminum one that I use to put up wreaths and get ornaments to the top of the tree during Christmas. I never put up the star, that was Sam’s part, and the lights of course. I didn’t do the lights. There had to be seven strands inside and nine on the outside. I am a big fan of a well-lit tree.
But I digress.
He was using his super heavy-duty ladder that, again, had multi-uses, and as far as I could tell, there were sixteen things to turn and push and pull before it could be made to contort into whatever form it needed to be. And it didn’t have the normal thin side and thick step sides, but instead both sides were equally thinnish. I was not a fan. But when he was carrying something heavy, that was the one he needed. So he had gone up and down the ladder several times already and finally carried up his air compressor that weighed a ton. Plus, it was awkward. Worse, in the attic, there were joists—I learned that word when I almost fell through the ceiling years ago—that he had to balance on. I guess I should say, it’s not the attic. The attic is where my Christmas stuff is. Easter, Halloween, you get the idea. He was in the area between the roof ceiling and the roof where it was very hot, where the insulation was, where he checked to make sure, every year, that we had no bats, squirrels, racoons, or any other creatures. I had seen it from the ladder, but I was not allowed to go up and walk on the joists.