TheBanyanTree: ETTA'S PICNIC

[Sharon Mack]

>From my other workshop...

Journal Prompt

Monday July 12, 2004

Write the story of a disastrous family picnic.

ETTA'S PICNIC

Carefully laying the blanket under the large oak tree, Etta remarked at the beauty of the day.  Frank nodded.  He wasn't a talkative man but Etta loved him just the same.  For fifty years she had loved him.  Loved his frame, loved his voice, loved his hands on her back, loved his hands when he touched her in bed, although that wasn't happening too often anymore.  She wondered sometimes if he loved her like she loved him but when she asked he would just look at her and shake his head slowly and say, "Now Etta, what do you think?  That I'd stay with a woman I didn't care about?"   Was "care about" the same as love?  She guessed it was.  She guessed it was because of the way he treated her in all things.  Always with kindness, always with respect, always with tenderness.  Yes, she thought, he loves me...he loves me .

Frank began whistling a merry tune as he took his seat on the other side of the picnic basket.  She'd made all his favorites.  She wanted to please him on this very special day....this day of their anniversary.  Not the anniversary of their wedding, but the anniversary of the day they had first made love.  She wondered if he knew; if he had guessed.  It was the same meadow, the same tree and the same menu.  Only the cloth was different and, of course, they weren't young anymore.  Etta giggled nervously as she sat on her side of the basket and arranged her skirt around her still shapely legs.  She kicked off her shoes and got comfortable.

"You gonna serve there, Etta, or we just gonna' look?"  Frank removed his jacket and loosened his tie.  "You shoulda' told me what you had in mind, Etta*.I woulda' wore my overalls.  What's this all about anyway?  You expectin' again?"

They laughed at that one.  Together they'd raised six children, all boys except the last.  A sweet little girl they'd named Rose Louise, after their mothers.  She had lived to the age of three and then been taken away from them, dying with the winter snows.  They'd buried her at the family grounds and Etta kept a garden of roses there for her small daughter.  She often talked to her on days when Frank was in town and she felt lonely.

"This here is some good chicken, Etta."  He drew the word 'good' out long and slow.  She knew he loved her chicken.  She filled his plate.  Potato salad, fresh sliced tomatoes, baked beans and a big piece of her lemon meringue pie, all of his favorites.  She handed him his plate and he raised his eyebrows in approval.  His mouth was full of chicken.  She smiled at him and made her own plate.

Etta couldn't remember how it happened.  She only knew it did, but somehow after all the food was put away and she and Frank lay quietly on the blanket in each other's arms letting their food digest, they began to kiss. Before long, as Frank's hands moved over her arms and then down to her legs and then up them, they found themselves doing something they hadn't done in years.  They were making love.  Etta surprised herself with the heat she was feeling and was even more surprised at Frank's intensity.  She felt young again.  She closed her eyes and let Frank have his way ravishing her with kisses and touching her in all the right places.  They began to remove their clothes.

At first Etta felt a bit shy about this.  What if someone happened upon them?  Frank assured her that it was safe.  Had anyone ever come, even when they were here so long ago?  Even when they made love then?  He did remember!  Her heart swelled and she gave in, finding the act of doing something 'naughty' only intensified her desire.

Lying naked there on the blanket, after both had spent themselves, she felt complete.  Frank DID love her like she loved him.  She knew that now.  She hugged him tighter and he kissed her neck softly.  They dozed, Frank still on top of her.  Funny, she didn't mind his weight.  She closed her eyes and enjoyed the smell of him.  

************************

She heard them before she saw them and tried to move Frank.  He had suddenly become very heavy and she felt she couldn't breath.  She tried to move him but he didn't budge.

"Frank! Frank! Someone's coming."  She whispered frantically.  "Get off!  Get your clothes!"  But he didn't move.  Suddenly she realized he wasn't breathing.  

"Oh my God!  Frank!"  She pushed at his dead weight frantic now to get to their clothes.  The voices were getting nearer and nearer.  She found she couldn't budge Frank, no matter how hard she pushed.

They found her that way.  Etta pushing at her husband, both naked as jaybirds, their clothes scattered all around them.  They stopped just short of the blanket and stared.

"Please," Etta said, sobs choking through her words.  "Please, help me.  I think my husband is dead."  She didn't care anymore...what she looked like or what they thought.  Her loss was too great.  Frank was dead and her picnic was ruined.