Lucille and Charlie

The grass hurt Lucille’s feet. The summer heat had turned the grass to hot pins. She curled her toes into the burnt grass and leaned forward in her yard chair. The house, a one-story rambler, looked almost beige in the harsh sunlight. Lucille’s chair was perched in front of the two-and-a-half step stairway leading to the house, two of its aluminum legs resting on the cement of the walk and two of its legs buried in the dry lawn. Having shifted her weight to the front of the chair, Lucille’s back and the backrest of the lawn chair formed an obtuse angle. A boy of about five was standing over an upturned sprinkler. A pool of mud was at his feet.

“Charles,” Lucille said. The child’s eyes were closed and his whole face was twisted into itself as if he were trying to hide from the sun. Though he was standing over the sprinkler his blue and yellow swim trunks were dry. “Charles, turn the sprinkler over. It’s so hot. The water would feel nice.”

Charles didn’t flinch. He stood perfectly still, eyes closed, hands at his sides, head tilted slightly back. He was facing the sun.

Lucille made to get up from her chair but her toes unfurled and found only dry, sharp grass. Instead she removed her red cat eye sunglasses and squinted into the yellow haze of the yard. “Or would you like to go in?”

Charles opened his eyes and stubbed his toe on the sprinkler in the same movement. He high stepped, for the pain of stepping on the grass or for putting weight on his toe, to the steps and cleared them in one wily leap. The screen door slammed shut and Lucille fell back into her chair.

She let the sunglasses hang on the tips of her fingers and closed her eyes against the sky. Her whole body felt hot, even her breath felt hot. She decided it was time for her to go in, too.

Charles was sitting on the sofa with three rotating fans humming around him. Lucille suppressed the urge to scold him for his laziness. He had spent the morning outside with her and he looked comfortable. That, and the idea of a nap in a dark room seemed attractive.