Warming Up

Now that summer’s over, school and a new job have started, it’s time to get back into a writing schedule. I’m always a little anxious starting at the beginning, so I like to warm-up with a book called Kicking in the Wall by Barbara Abercrombie. Writing warm-ups are a lot like those first few minutes when you start to exercise; they’re there to let your body loosen up for the real work that’s around the corner.

Here’s prompt #54: “Write a scene in which your character cooks breakfast and makes a discovery.”

He lights the gas and the stove clicks and puffs fire and the pan is settled on the iron plates. He swirls a pat of butter with a knife around the pan, pivots, and goes to get the eggs and bacon out of the fridge.

He opens the eggs and cuts the plastic on the bacon, but doesn’t put them in the pan. Instead, he picks up his mug of tea; the Notre Dame mug filled with Earl Grey and milk. It smells like lavender and maybe Ireland. The butter is starting to sizzle and he leans against the counter sipping his tea.

“Maybe I’ll get a fridge for the garage,” he thinks and looks to the back door, to our little yard that leads to the garage. Both doors to the garage are open, plus the screen of our back door and thick August air steams our kitchen up along with the butter frying in the pan. He’s left the doors open because the girls are sleeping upstairs and I am on a run. He was in the garage working, and didn’t want the girls to wake up and not know where he was.

He’s building a table for our kitchen. That’s why he’s in the garage this morning. He’s put together three planks of wood on steel legs and soon it will be in our kitchen, and I will put my Grandma’s tablecloth on it sometimes and daisies on it other times and the four of us will have breakfast and dinner and do homework and answer emails and look at magazines and books on it.

But he’s leaning against the kitchen counter looking through the garage to the retention pond behind us, to the town center that’s being built and he’s thinking of a fridge for the garage while the pan gets hot. “With shelves next to it,” he thinks, “so we can put things like coffee beans and water bottles on it.”

He puts his mug on the counter, though the tea is not finished. He never finishes his tea. He cracks an egg, two eggs, then goes for the bacon.

I’ve come home, walking into the garage, past the table that’s standing in the center freshly  sanded and ready to be stained, and into the kitchen.

“Smells good,” I say and grab my water bottle. It slips in my hand because I’m sweaty.

“How was your run?”

“Awful,” I say and take a drink. “I’m old.”

I stand at the door, my back to the kitchen and stare at the yard, at our garage, at the table, and the construction in the field beyond our home.

“This morning I saw a little girl and her dad playing catch in the field over here,” I point to the grassy spot beyond our garage. I drink my water and say, “It seemed like a nice place to play catch.”

“You want toast or hash browns or both?” he asks.

“Both,” I say and fill my glass up again. “I think once the construction’s done that spot will still be there. The spot where the little girl and her dad are playing catch. I think there will be plenty of room for that sort of thing once the town center is built.”

I start my coffee while he flips the bacon and the eggs. When it’s brewed, I pour myself a mug, the one I got in Seattle eleven years ago. “I don’t mind it so much here,” I say while I pour.

I walk to the stove where he is, nudge him and say, “You didn’t finish your tea.”

“On to other things,” he says, pushing the yoke of one of the eggs slightly to make sure it’s cooked. I can’t stand runny eggs. He doesn’t mind them.

I sit on the counter next to him and drink my coffee, holding my mug until all that’s left are brown rings that line the bottom.