She sliced carefully into the top sugary crusted layer of wild blueberry bread, careful to retrieve any errant crumb which might tumble onto the counter. She placed the thick slice gently on to the blue and white plate. The coffee was boiled and sufficiently layered in sweet cream right down to the bottom of the ceramic mug.
The porch was already heated and the baskets of pink bubblegum petunias swung happily in the breeze, shedding the occasional petal over chair cushions and railings.
‘What do I want?’ She sat down in the chair. ‘What do I really want?’ She murmured the words carefully while staring out over the ripening lawn and flowering bushes. The tiniest bird hopped and pecked on the sidewalk, looking up at her curiously and then went back about his business. The neighborhood was silent.
‘I want this’ she said out loud to no one. ‘I want silence’…
690 Saint Paul 