By Lucy

I woke up early on Wednesday.

Since we had to get the whole house ready by 11, I was intending to start at 8. But I got an email back from the union hall, asking me to call them.

You what? Why? I’d bet any amount of money that nothing he wants to say over the phone couldn’t be said in an email. I emailed him back to tell him I’m out of the country, then got cold feet and turned my cell service back on. No connection. I threw on my sweater and stomped out to the road. It was so cloudy it was foggy and I was absolutely freezing my butt off. Even by the road, I had no cell service. Excellent. I asked around my friend group and Jeremy agreed to call them on my behalf. I probably should have asked Margaret or Adrienne to call since they are both union members, but neither of them are prompt at replying.

I tidied up my cabin quickly – not that anyone ever goes in it – and went to the customers’ cabins to fix them up. Turn all the lights on, suck up any dead flies, turn on the fridge cuz we turn them off when we don’t have guests. Fortunately it’s been cool and cloudy, so there isn’t much in the way of cluster flies. Usually you want sunny weather for a showing, but this is preferable.

Then I did the chickens. As I was coming back with the eggs, the guests from the house were leaving, so I ducked into my cabin and changed into my nice clothes.

They had spilled red wine on the white carpet, naturally.

I went around doing the usual; dust, sweep the corners of the windows for cobwebs, sweep the floors, turn all the lamps on. Went to turn over the customer’s room. The wine spill wasn’t that bad, although it would have been a lot better if they had mentioned it the night before and not let it set all night!

Simo was on the verge of tearing her hair out. “What else can go wrong?”

“It’s not that bad, is it? We just tell the people viewing the house a guest spilled wine. It’s not like the carpet is layered in wine stains that have obviously never been cleaned.”

Personally, my theory was that this was a good sign. The other showings had gone flawlessly and no one had put in an offer. It’s like how with weddings or long flights, something bad always happens, but once that one thing happens everything else will be fine. Alright, that’s not quite how it works, but let me have my superstitions, ok?

Remake the room, dab at the wine stain, tidying, more tidying. She wants the kitchen counters clear, every piece of clothing away somewhere, every stray thing picked up. Sweep the floors – no time to mop.

20 minutes before the viewer gets there, she decides to tackle the stain, and asks me to get the carpet cleaner machine from the guest laundry. The box is easily big enough to fit me, but I can’t get the machine out of it one-handed, so I carry the box up to the house with me, showing off my new biceps.

“I didn’t need the whole box!” She exclaims, laughing.

“I know, but I was panicking and I need a second pair of hands to get it out!” I take the box to the garage to hide it while she cleans the carpet. The agent shows up, then the viewer. Time to go!

I grab my sport coat and make myself a tea and sit in the living room, playing the part of the housekeeper, although I’m not much for eavesdropping today. These people do seem more invested in checking out the property than the others; they were here for more than an hour and did a tour of the grounds as well.

After they left, i had lunch and then there wasn’t a whole let else to do. No time to really start anything. Went around turning off lights and unplugging things again. She asked me to take the garbage bin to the collection point in the side-by-side, it’s a couple clicks down the road, for some reason. I got to the end of the driveway and realized Earl was running behind me, so I had to turn around and chain her up so she wouldn’t follow me.

What a miserable day! A proper rainy day, like late November in Canada.

I went back to my cabin and started the fire and sat in front of it until I could feel my toes again. On days like today, the nerve damage is more apparent and I can’t feel most of the bottom of my big toes and some of the balls of my feet, so I check them over for wounds. My shoes have holes now, and they’re letting in water and stones.

On the side of good news, my package arrived safe and sound at Hanuman’s place, thank goodness. It cost me another 28$ in import fees.

Simo invited Sam over for dinner and asked me if we could have the creamy mushroom sauce again (yes please!) but Sam declined so we just had steaks instead (I know, I’m so hard-done by).

“I thought we should invite Sam over for dinner, too bad she was busy tonight.”

“Yeah, be neighbourly of you.” I replied.

“Neighbourly? She’s my daughter-in-law.”

“I know.” I shrug. “I don’t know anything about that.” That was one source of friction with my ex-husband’s family, although they were very nice about it. I have no family photos because my extended family never really got together. I think we got some of them together for Oma’s 80th birthday and for my wedding, but we’ve never done Christmas or Thanksgiving or any of the other usual holidays together. Meanwhile, my ex-husband’s family was so close they had an annual get-together where so many of them travelled in that they had colour-coded shirts so you knew who was related to who. It was jarring!

“Me neither, she’s my first one.”

Sure, but you have a general idea how one treats a daughter in law, no? Maybe Simonetta is more like me than I thought. “Alex is the youngest, isn’t he?” I tried changing tack.

“No, he’s the middle child. Nick is the youngest.”

Wait, what? Umm, nevermind. Let’s change subjects altogether.

Thursday was still grey and miserable.

I had a notification back from Jeremy; the union hall said the class was actually on August 26th and not June, which definitely could have been an email. I emailed them anyway and the trainer got back to me again before the end of day, saying I was already signed up and not to worry about it.

But I am worried about it, and you are not reassuring me!

Also, I’m not sure that timeline is better. Ten weeks after the end of August puts me returning to NZ firmly within November at the earliest. Which means I’ll need to rent a room again, and I’ll also need to get another job closer to August so I can claim EI. Depending on when my surgery can be, I’ll probably end up taking June off work and then working through July and August.

I went to get the garbage bins, chaining up Earl first this time. I also wore my bike jacket to cut the cold. As I came around the corner, two buses almost took me out, going to another lodge on the same street.

When I got back, Simo came outside, laughing. “You missed the most bizarre thing! Once you left in the side-by-side, Earl threw back her head and started howling. You know Luigi, anything she does he copies! I should have filmed it, but I was just so baffled.”

That’s not great. I have had some concerns about Earl having separation anxiety once I leave and this is not reassuring me.

“I noticed your light on at 2.”

For whatever reason, me and Simo have a tendency to have insomnia at the same time. In this case, I had gotten up to use the bathroom, and noticed a giant spider on the floor of the bathroom. I went back to the main room and had a panic attack for 10 minutes, before grabbing a weapon and going back to the bathroom, but it was gone. So I spent more than an hour laying awake in bed, terrified of being killed by the monster spider that was loose in my cabin.

“There was a giant spider.”

She chuckles at this.

I learned that there is a “secret door” hidden in the wood paneling of the sitting room. Well, it’s only secret because glancing at the wall, you can’t see the hinge, but it’s very apparent on the floor plan for the building. Simo said it took her 6 months to figure out how to open it, because you have to press on a certain part to pop the catch.

Simonetta wanted me to work on the table, although my first task was moving firewood… again. We have a small woodshed behind the cabins so guests don’t have to go far to grab more. Since it was nearly empty, it meant several trips to fill it, not helped at all by the fact all the good firewood is still buried behind the green stuff.

I also had the Soroptimist meeting today. I worked on the firewood ’til noon, grabbed some lunch and sat down for the meeting, which went on for 2 hours.

“When are you coming home, Lucy?” A bunch of them asked.

“The 29th, so I’ll be at the next meeting.”

“Are you bringing a Kiwi husband home with you?”

“Hah! No!”

“Good girl!” They exclaimed, laughing.

After the meeting, time to work on the table. Simonetta’s little mouse sander has a short cord, and the extension cable was missing in action, so I threw the table in the back of the side-by-side and drove it up to my cabin.

Those grooves. Dreadful to sand.

Basically, she wants the legs painted white, so they just need to be scuffed up so the wood will accept the paint. But the top is going to be varnished, so it needs to be sanded to perfect. Bollocks.

The biggest problem I had was trying to find the tools for the job. I wasted half an hour trying to track down the right sandpaper; there was some finer stuff in the paint shed, but what I really needed was some of the larger grit stuff. There’s supposed to be a roll of it somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.

An hour and a half later, I was tired and covered in sawdust and decided I was done for the day.

Sam came up to the house to talk to Simo while I was talking to her. Turns out Sam is afraid of the chickens; she jumped in the car to drive across the yard! We noted that we could hear screaming and laughing from the other lodge with all the buses. Simo said it was probably a children’s field trip.

The weather was nice Friday, sunny and warm. Simo didn’t have much for me to do and I suspect that she didn’t want to give me much to do. Every day after dinner we linger, talking. I wonder if she wants to ask me to stay.

Time to paint! Spent another half an hour in the paint shed trying to find the correct paint can, a brush that wasn’t ready for the bin, and some better sandpaper for the grooves. I allowed myself half an hour between coats, to walk around and do other chores.

The guests who were staying for the weekend showed up at 12:47, over an hour early! Simo thought about it and decided to let them check in. They were from Austria and very chill.

And then my last day of work was over.

After work, I watched the penultimate episode of Severance season 2 with Jeremy. It’s just a filler episode… there’s a lot of slow pans across hallways and empty roads, characters leading other characters places with the promise they’ll answer all their questions. Just setting up for the season finale.

After the episode was over, we chatted for a couple hours, sending each other Severance memes and trawling Reddit for hot takes.

“I haven’t done this in a long time.” I commented.

“What?”

“Watched an show every week when it drops, with someone.”

When was the last time I did? To be fair, I suppose, I haven’t had cable TV since I left my parents place at 19, which precluded a lot of that for a while. Me and Rich would watch some Youtube shows weekly, like Cinema Therapy, but that’s not a fictional series with a plot.

It is true, though, that at this point I am just watching the show for Jeremy. By myself, I would have lost interest and just looked up the resolution on TVTropes in a couple of months.

“I won’t be able to watch the finale with you.” I realized. I’d be busy with the conference, more likely than not. Even if I was technically free, I should probably spend my time socializing with the ladies.

“I can wait.” He offered.

How late, though? It might not be for 2 whole days.

At 7:30, I went into the house for dinner and realized Simo wasn’t there and the car was gone. I checked my phone; it’s been really bad lately. I suddenly discovered it hadn’t been receiving messages all day and she had messaged me at 6 to tell me she wouldn’t be home for dinner cuz her and Gary went to visit his daughter. She told me there was chicken in a container with a green lid, but I couldn’t find any containers of chicken so me and Ethan just made instant noodles.

Saturday morning; go time. It was beautifully warm and sunny!

I had a plan to do laundry at the last minute on Sunday so I’d have as many clean clothes as possible, but I changed my mind. I wanted to start packing up today, so I threw my clothes in the laundry early.

The Austrian guests dragged the deck chairs and table out to the shadow of the plum tree and camped there for most of the day, reading books and drinking tea and taking pictures of the property. It made Simo anxious because like me, she also hates being watched while she works, but I liked it. I get annoyed at the guests who just book in for the night, show up to sleep and leave. There’s motels in Darfield and Methven if you just want a bed for the night; the estate really needs to be enjoyed and appreciated. We put a lot of effort into crafting a luxury experience! These people were clearly greatly enjoying the property.

I ordered my Factor Keto meals again. If I wanted to have them available when I got back, I need to order them early, since they get driven down from Winnipeg and only arrive on Tuesdays. It occurs to me that it would be hard to get the meals delivered to Hanuman’s place, firstly because I wouldn’t be there to receive them, and secondly because the fridge there was pretty full. Admittedly because him and Emily had just combined households, so they still had double the condiment bottles, but I suspect it will continue to be a tight fit in the fridge. I was willing to bet that Jeremy’s fridge was mostly empty and I know he’s home all the time, so I asked and he agreed for me to ship my meals there. I’ve already pledged to do most of the cooking when I’m there anyway. He also offered to let me crash there if I need a couch for a couple of days.

Y’know, part of the reason I end up in a lot of long term relationships is because I don’t like living alone. I find it hard to cook for one and I’m a social butterfly. Even when I was just renting from Bob, we ended up hanging out a lot and joking that I was his trophy wife (which was especially funny when he jokingly introduced me as his trophy wife to women he was hoping to pick up. Needless to say, not a great strategy). The obvious answer is that I need a good roommate, and I could see me and Jeremy gelling as roommates. We’re both kind of social but not party animals who stay up all night carousing. We like watching TV shows together. I can cook and he can install Linux on all my devices whether I want him to or not.

Of course, that’s a question to be visited in a couple of years, not now.

My car needed an oil change. It was at 4%, which is lower than I usually let it get, and no I don’t want to hear from all you who think that the oil should be changed at 20 or 30%. My dad changes his at 10 and so do I. It’s fine – it is a new oil pan, after all. Probably the last place had somewhat cheaper oil that it burned through quickly, cuz I doubt Hanuman and Emily put that many kilometers on it.

I also finally got myself some data.

At one point Jeremy asked me to explain to him the difference between flake and yayo, to which I replied “Are you asking me to explain the economics of coke to you?” I mean, I know he’s just asking me in the context of Rimworld, but I’m on enough watch lists already!

After lunch I went to go help Simo. We had a guest checking in today and needed to suck up all the dead cluster flies again. There was so many of them the handheld vacuum’s battery died and I had to haul the big one upstairs.

She stopped on the deck of the cabin after we were done and sat down, still talking to me about things. More chatty than she usually is. I was kind of itching to get back to playing Rimworld, although I knew this time was precious and limited and Rimworld will always be there.

Ethan drove by. Heading to Alex’s?

I laughed and waved at him. He rolled down the window. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Going to ask Alex if I can borrow his car.”

“He’s not home, Ethan, they’re in town.” Simo said.

After he turned around and went back to the house, we laughed. “It’s not Alex’s car either, is it?” I asked.

“No, it’s Sam’s.”

The day continued on its boring trajectory. I’d entered the phase of nervous anticipation where time seems to be flying by. Was I really leaving in 2 days? Where had 6 weeks/ 6 months gone?

For dinner, Simo made us pizza. She made 4 different kinds, including a small one for herself with anchovies that she didn’t think anyone else would like, but I like anchovies.

Ethan has finally started applying for a visitor’s visa, since his working holiday visa expires on April 15th. I told him he should actually explore the country and not just hide in his room drinking beer and playing COD.

Another episode of The Pitt came out, so I watched it. Dear lord! It features a full childbirth, baby coming out of the vagina and everything. All prosthetics, of course. Idk, maybe it’s educational for some people, but there are weirdos who film themselves giving birth and then post it online if you are really curious. Not wanting to assist with the “miracle” of childbirth was one of the reasons I didn’t want to become a doctor or nurse, so I didn’t like it.

Sunday.

I set my alarm for 6 in preparation for setting it to 5 the next day. It was dark, but not as cold as it usually is.

Steam had a sale. Of course, Steam has nearly weekly sales, so that’s not a surprise, but it had a DLC sale, which piqued my interest. I found the 2 DLCs for Dredge on sale, but unfortunately the only DLC for Rimworld that I wanted was the only one not on sale! I bought it anyway. Why not.

Anomaly! I like horror games and movies, but it’s hard to find the good stuff sometimes. I prefer dark examinations of the soul, not bloody axe murders of drunk teenagers. Anomaly is technically SCP, which leans towards body horror, but Rimworld’s signature 2D paperdoll style means there is a limit to how gory it can be. Some people complain about it integrating less smoothly than the other DLC’s, but I liked it. For one, feeding corpses to Harbinger trees is a convenient way to get rid of raider bodies, because digging graves is time intensive and graveyards fill up fast. #shitrimworldsays

I watched the sun slowly rise. The best part is when the sky is lit up yellow and orange, but the horizon is still black.

At 8 I went to feed the chickens for the last time. I wonder what happens if I go to feed them before dawn? They were a little less ferocious, but chickens have no dimmer switch. They are either asleep or trying to eat everything.

There was no water in the tap of the second pen, so I grabbed the hose from the greenhouse and ran it across from the first pen. Curiously, the chickens were terrified of the hose and I wasn’t even aiming it at them. Once Gary appeared, I informed him the tank was dry.

At noon, I took a break from gaming to eat lunch and clean the cabin quickly. Swept the floor, then mopped it. Wiped down the bathroom and countertop. Wiped the dead spiders off the walls. Put the furniture back to where it was. 40 minutes later I was done!

I had Kelly take a picture of me with Earl.

At 2 I opted to take a break from gaming and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. I should be going on a long run down the long country roads I’ll never see again, or touring the property one last time, but my heart wasn’t in it. I noticed the top of the table had split and turned it over to give it one last coat of paint. Hanuman said it was probably the morning sun drying it out.

“Working on your day off?” Simo asked from the doorstep.

“I don’t like leaving things unfinished.”

I also went to the chicken coop. Tidied up the empty bags, refilled all the containers. My replacement wouldn’t be here for a week, so Simo would be feeding the chickens herself for a bit.

Around 4:30 the feelings hit.

No, I don’t want to leave! Letmestayletmestayletmestay.

I swallowed them down. Finished packing everything I didn’t need for tonight. The room looked very empty.

It’s fine. You wanted this, you bought this, you paid for this.

I put the dogs away early. Simo asked me to run a quick errand. After that, I walked up to the road to take a picture of the last sunset.

Dinner was nothing special. Chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, mushroom sauce. Simo did make a special point of using mushrooms she grew on the estate with dinner. Gary didn’t like his (or said he didn’t like his), so I ate his too. Ethan was clearly drunk and doing his best not to nod off at the table.

We had “lolly cake” for dinner, which is a Kiwi treat I haven’t tried yet. It’s make of malt biscuits, crushed up and mixed with butter and condensed milk, then rolled into a log. Marshmallows are mixed in, although Kiwi’s call them lollies. They’re usually rolled in grated coconut as well, to stop it from sticking to everything. Then it’s popped in the fridge to firm up for a couple of hours. Pretty easy to make.

Simo gave me a speech about how grateful she was, although she stopped short of saying she’d miss me, per se. Gary thanked me with a big smile and wished me luck with the level one training in August.

Then I closed the door into the dark night, alone and on my way again.

There’s still roses blooming on the property, even this late in the season. Trying to pretend summer is still happening, Trying to cling to something that is over.

‘Tis the last rose of Summer,

   Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

   Are faded and gone…

It took a long time to fall asleep.