Free Write -- The Cane

For this week's free write we were back at L'Hostalet. I had French breakfast tea and Rick decided on chocolate chaud. Of course there were the bite-size muffins. The prompt was an elderly woman walking by the music school using a cane and pulling a wheeled shopping cart.

THE CANE

Rick's Free Write

She resembled a female Johnny Cash. The man in black: black dress, black grocery trolley, black cane. She trundled through the square where the night before there had been music, dancing, drinking, levity. Couples having fun on their holiday by the sea.

But Evangeline wasn't on holiday, and she hated the sea, though she had lived in the village 57 years. It was her late husband's idea. Gilbert loved to sail in his little dingy, bobbing on the water close to shore as she sat in what little shade the palm trees offered.

They'd had no children to play in the water. He wanted them. She didn't. And since the burden of carrying and the pain of childbirth would be hers, she repeatedly declined until Gilbert finally gave up.

He'd started a small sailing school for youngsters, at first borrowing boats from friends, but eventually building a fleet of six boats, which he kept in a shed at Racou Beach.

Evangeline saw less and less of him over the years until one day a neighbor appeared at the apartment door to tell her Gilbert had drowned.

One of his students had drifted too far from shore, and Gilbert had raced to save him. But after directing the boy's boat toward shore, Gilbert got a severe cramp in his aging leg.

As the boy watched in horror, he disappeared under the waves and never came back up.

 D-L's Free Write

Marie-Joseph's cane clip-clopped on the stone plaza. She pulled her shopping cart.

She was on the way to the fish monger's and hoped he had a good selection of crevettes, her daughter's favorite. Even better if they were already cooked. She could buy some aoili, some salad and present a good workless lunch.

She didn't want Anna to think she was slipping. She'd seen the assisted-living brochure Anna had left on her last visit.

Marie-Joseph didn't want to leave her home, her parents's home and her grandparents's home. The family history was written in the walls, the fire place used to cook before a stove had been bought in the early 20th century.

She had watched the news on France2 so she would have something modern to say.

She was careful which stones to put her cane down where she wouldn't slip -- the blue and pink flowered cane proving she still cared about her appearance.

No! No assisted living for her or her cane.