The Knock

“Sit down.  No! Don’t answer the door!”

I sat down never having mustered enough courage to do anything, but agree with her.  She sat at one end of the bright, yellow formica table banded in aluminum and I sat at the other.  We heard the knocking both choosing to ignore.  The shades were drawn making the room dark.  No one could watch us.

Before the heat of the summer, at least once a year, my grandmother would press the quarters into my hand and simply say, “Get a half-dozen.” I knew what she wanted. The walk was not far.  Rounding the corner, I passed the prickly raspberry bush on the edge of a large dirt parking lot.  At the end of the block, I crossed the street at the cross walk just as she had instructed.  As I opened the door to a jingle, I imagined my grandmother, sitting at her end of the table, drumming her sensibly shapely nails on the surface of the table.  Anticipating.

The woman behind the glass display counter heard the words, “Half-dozen,” and before I finished the order she assembled the flat brown piece of cardboard into a box.  With a fast whirl of the cone of string and a snip with the scissors, the box was securely closed and tied, perfect for gently carrying the package home to my grandmother.  No skipping, but slow even steps home, so as not to upset the cargo.

Normally, very controlled, but anticipating the annual hiatus from baking éclairs in the summer heat, my grandmother over-indulged.  Once I was home, she put three on a plate and three on another and pushed one of them toward me as I sat. “Eat,” she instructed.  I was full when I finished the first, but the training to eat everything on my plate was now instinctual.  When we both were thinking about eating the third one, the door knocked. 

With the intermittent knocking, I think she was too embarrassed to admit that we had just gorged ourselves.  The only solution was to eat and eat FAST.  The brown box was in the trash and the éclair filling was wiped from my face before we answered the door, bending at the waist to stifle the laughter, especially since it was my sister at the door.