Yard Sale Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

Patrick

 

‘Buzzzzz’. I felt Ellen stir beside me, swatting my shoulder to make me shut off the awful droning noise that filled the air. With my eyes closed, I extended my arm and reached outside the nice warm covers to push my hand down multiple times at air until I found the source of the buzzing. It was the alarm clock. Ellen sighed with relief once the noise ceased, and I could feel her body relax beside mine. My arm went limp and hung over the side of the bed, my eyes still closed.

‘Grandma, Grandpa, wake up!’ an excited little voice shouted as she tried her hardest to climb onto the queen sized bed. I groaned, knowing that she was going to jump on the bed again. I heard four year old Kate make three attempts to gain access to the tall mattress before pulling herself up by grabbing the duvet. I held the corner of the blanket firmly as she did so. It was a common occurrence for Katie to wake us every morning, no matter what day it was!

My daughter Patricia, tried to get to Kate before she hoisted herself onto the bed, but she wasn’t quick enough. Once she was up, the kid started jumping all over the place screaming, ‘yard sale, yard sale, yard sale!’ in her sweet little register.

When Ellen sat bolt upright, I suddenly felt a foot hit me where no man wants a foot digging into him. I was bent over in two, my hands cupping my groin.

‘Are you alright dear?’ Ellen asked as she tried to get Katie to stop.

‘Yes’, I said in a high pitched voice. It was an often occurrence, one which made me wonder if I should start wearing a cup in bed.

Patricia moved as quick as she could to retrieve her little cherub.

‘Sorry guys!’ she said with a grimace after seeing me writhing in pain…again.  

‘We slept in!’ Ellen shouted, me still nursing his nether regions, my eyes open slightly.

‘What?’ I asked, the pain in my voice apparent.

‘The yard sale is today!’ Ellen panicked.

‘It’s ok mom!’ Patricia tried to reassure her. You still have three hours until it starts!’

Patricia got Kate to think she voluntarily got off the bed by offering her her favourite cereal. I was furious, being the third time this week the child kicked me in the nether regions. I didn’t sign up for that when we said our daughter, her husband, and four kids could move in as the renovations on their new house was being completed. I love them to bits, but the only thing I was worried about was my bits!

‘Three hours,’ Ellen shouted as Patricia was leading our own personal alarm clock out of the room. She lept out of the bed and pulled the navy and green plaid linen duvet cover off the bed. She shook it a few times before letting it settle. Then it was time to fluff the pillows to make them all soft and cozy for the night to come. It was the same routine every morning. Moving over to my side, me still in pain from the soon to be kicker in the NFL, was whooshed out of the bed with a thud as I landed on the floor.

‘You could have killed me woman!’ I said nursing my elbow. In fairness, it took the attention off my manhood.

‘The yard sale is in three hours!’ Ellen was panicking! She quickly fluffed my pillows and properly put the duvet on. Then she took the decorative cushions from the blanket box at the end of the bed. God forbid she would have a normal looking bed if anyone entered. It had to be perfect, as if the bedroom was a show house.

Everything in Ellen’s life had to have an heir about it. The cushions on the bed had to be placed just so, the throw on the couch had to be a triangle, the layout of the magazines on the coffee table had to resemble a fan, it just all had to look…well… perfect!

Although she was never diagnosed with it, Patricia often thought her mother to have OCD. I didn’t really think about it as that. When I thought of OCD, I imagined a lot of hand washing and not stepping on cracks in the pavement. It wasn’t until the arrival of the grandchildren in the house, using it as if it were theirs, that I saw what my daughter was talking about.

I noticed Ellen take a lot of deep breaths lately. Her family room was now a place where the kids played. There were toys everywhere, and wires to beat the band. She just looked at the state of it and I could tell she wished to shut the glass panelled double doors, but that was never something she ever did, and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself every time she passed by it either. Of course she wanted her grandchildren to play and have fun whilst staying with us. Instead of plumping the cushions, she began to pick them up off the floor. She was relieved if they were on the couches in the first place. She could live with sacrificing that room, but she was never going to give up on making everything perfect in the bedroom. It was her fortress of solitude and no one, not even me, could take that away from her!

When I finally managed to get myself off the floor, after using the chest of drawers as an aid, my age showed, my joints creaked, I jumped as clothes were thrown in my direction. My lovely wife always wanted the neighbours to think of us as well put together people. There was going to be everyone and anyone at this yard sale, and she wanted to make a good impression. She wasn’t stuck up, no, she was just… particular.

After getting dressed, I started to put on my allocated shoes. I looked up for a second and noticed a fabulous fitted floral pink summer dress on my childhood sweetheart. I was wearing chino’s and a polo shirt. When I realised I had placed the wrong shoe on my left foot as I looked at my darling, I couldn’t help but think of her as a very attractive woman. The spark in the bedroom was more than alight, plus, Ellen did look so beautiful in that dress that I became flustered.

We walked down the stairs, bypassing the family room. I heard Ellen taking in a deep breath, as the kids were being wild after a certain sugary breakfast cereal. ‘Morning mom and dad!’ Mike, our son in law, said as we entered the kitchen.

Mike had been in our family for what seemed like forever. Sadly, he lost his parents in a horrific car accident when he had just finished college. He was left all alone as he was an only child. He had an aunt, but she passed two years later from cancer. The day he married my Patricia, I told Mike to call us mom and dad. He felt like a son, so why not? I told him in my speech at the wedding, and saw how much it meant to Patricia as I said it. My heartstrings tugged the first time he called me dad. It meant so much to me especially. He looked after my Patricia well, so well that my princess was treated like a queen.

I was a little perplexed when Patricia took Mike home that first time. He was a little older, but his maturity stood to him as Patricia was a very mature woman for a twenty year old. Both of the guy’s she had previously brought home were just not right, but the first time I met Mike, I knew he was someone special.

The night Mike came to me, asking for my daughters hand in marriage a few years later, I was ecstatic! She couldn’t have found a better mate. After four kids, and one on the way, she was still his queen! Mike was a good egg. He never raised his voice, well maybe towards the dog when he cocked his leg in the house, but never towards his family. He believed that talking and reasoning, especially to the kids, were the best weapons in his arsenal!

‘You ready for the yard sale kid?’ I asked Mike as he tried to get Kate to stop washing her barbie’s hair in the milk of her cereal.

‘Sure am dad!’ he looked up and smiled, ‘I’ve everything ready to go in the garage!’

I looked at him and couldn’t help but be surprised. With a massive grin on my face, I knew that he had either stayed up last night, or got up very early this morning to put the final touch to the preparations we had made over the past week. He was always good like that. He helped around the house as much as he could, and, knowing that Ellen’s toleration towards the kids was growing thin, he put the family room back together every night before bed. Well, he picked up the toys and put the cushions on the couch. That simple act screamed how much he appreciated us letting his family stay under our roof until the construction on his new house was finished.

Myself and Ellen loved our grandkids to death, but knew that the ages they were made them more sullen and moody. I had bribed them with $10 each if they helped out with the yard sale. That seemed to pick up their enthusiasm towards it, staying up until bedtime pricing everything two nights in a row.

‘Dad,’ Mike said as I sat down with my cereal. It was a ‘healthy breakfast’ according to Ellen. I would have sooner ate the same as the kids, but knew I would have gotten an earful for the pleasure.

‘Hmm,’ I answered, a spoon of bran flakes in my mouth.

‘I just sold that last piece from the house,’ he smiled, ‘managed to get you $250 for it’. I stopped chewing and looked at him with awe. I swallowed hard.

‘You did?’ I sounded surprised. In fact I was amazed!

‘Yea, someone from New York bought it. I just have to pack it and send it!’ Mike answered with his signature cheeky grin.

‘So how m…’ I began to say, Mike anticipated my question.

‘$11,975’ he smiled, proud as punch. It was Mike who had the initiative to meticulously go through nana’s stuff and pick out what he knew would bring in some dosh. I let out a cough, a part of my breakfast after going down the wrong way!

‘WOW!!’ I said in awe. ‘Who would have thought that some of that crap was worth anything!’

‘I know…right!’

Just as I placed another spoonful of that fibrous goodness in my mouth, my bowl was swiped from the table.

‘I was eating that!’ I said with food still masticating my food.

‘Here you are eating and we have a yard sale in almost two hours!’ my darling wife reminded me. ‘We have to put all the stuff onto the lawn…and fast!’ Clear of my orders, I got up, and took a sneaky bite of Kate’s cereal as I went. I chewed it once then pulled a long, blonde, synthetic hair from my mouth. I went to the counter and spat the rest of the ‘nice’ cereal onto a tissue, and put it in the bin.

Mike got up and was about to ask Ellen to keep an eye on Katie. She pre-empted the question as she nodded and pointed towards the garage as I looked up.

We left the room together. On our way out, we gathered the troops from the family room by Mike standing in front of the tv, me asking, ‘you want your $10?’ We got moans for a response. ‘C’mon so,’ I continued, ‘were setting up the tables and that now!’

The five of us walked towards the neatly kept shoe rack, Mike behind his three sons, me in front. They put on their shoes with grunts and groans. We remained silent.

 

With the garage open, boxes marked by the contents monetary value, all we had to do was unfold the many tables we got from the football coach, and place the contents of the boxes on each one. Being a yard sale, the most expensive items were $8. Mike could have traded more of them online, but he was lucky to have sold what he did in the first place.

Myself and Ellen wanted to just give the contents of the garage to a charity shop, but, being a math teacher, Mike could see the potential in the nick-nacks.

I was surprised that it was Ellen who convinced us to conduct the yard sale. She had been against it, but she never wanted her mother’s prised possessions go to the dump. Determined to make sure nana’s stuff went to a good home, a home where someone would either use or admire the goods, just as nana did, meant the world to her. I wanted to put them all in the trash, it would have saved a lot of hassle!

Nana, Ellens mom, sadly passed three months prior to our little yard sale. She was old and had contracted cancer. She only lived for six weeks after being diagnosed. Her big heart finally gave out. She lived her life with generosity in her bones. Her heart, we always said, was bigger than anyone you would have ever met. She loved us, being her only remaining family. We, well mainly Ellen, looked after her for those six weeks, after we moved her into our house.

As she lived next door to us, and had a bit of land to boot, land that had planning permission for a two story extension, she decided when revising her will, that the house should stay in the family. It was a big house, one which I tried to encourage her to sell years before and get a smaller, more practical place for her. Every time I brought it up, saying how it was too big for her to maintain, she always came back with one word, ‘Gerald’!

Gerald was the man who cleaned nana’s house five times a week. I thought it unusual for a man to be a cleaner, but it was really nana doing Gerald the favour.

She put up a sign in the paper looking for someone to help with the house a few years back. Gerald was one of the three who responded to the ad. He was the only male who to boot.

Initially, she only wanted someone twice a week, but after interviewing all three who asked for the job, she found Gerald to need it more. I remember being in all of the interviews but his stood by a mile. He was just about to become homeless, unable to afford his rent after being made redundant, and found it hard to find another job.

He had dropped out of high school at fourteen because he had fallen through the cracks…he couldn’t read. That piece of information shocked me. I didn’t think that sort of thing could happen in this day and age. He worked hard to stay on the straight and narrow, but selling drugs was easier money, and, to cut a long story short, he ended up in the big house. He did two years in prison, and was a model citizen ever since.

After him telling us all of his woes, we both had tears in our eyes. He was a single father with two kids. He was clinging onto a one bedroomed apartment in a dodgy neighbourhood for dear life. He wanted better for his boys. He was fearful they would fall into the life he tried to avoid. Nana got him into a better housing neighbourhood, his kids into a good school, and taught him how to read. Because of nana, Gerald managed to get his GED. They became good friends, and the house was always spotless.

Gerald was left $10,000 in nana’s will, something I presented him with it. He sobbed like a baby when he noticed how many zeroes were on the cheque. Gerald was like family, there was no way nana was going to leave him out!

Nana left Patricia and Mike the house, knowing they had outgrown their four bedroomed semidetached home. She wanted all the kids to have a room for themselves, and when she heard Patricia was pregnant with their fifth kid, she knew that they would be in a position to build an extension after they sold their current house. She called the children ‘little ones’. She believed they needed a nice sized area to run around with their friends, for bouncy castles or even a pool. She was good like that was nana. She thought about everyone. Even us, even though we were very comfortable. Nana had a huge heart.

It was ironic that in the end she died of a heart attack whilst fighting the cancer. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. If I was ever to go suddenly, that’s the way I’d choose!