Disaster

The sisters clean house every Thursday, and every Thursday they bicker. Rachael believes in ‘keeping up with things,’ her sister Grace hates to clean something that isn’t dirty. They shift knickknacks and dishes, swipe a damp cloth through the stones and mica flakes in a chipped dish, over the bolts and key chains they’ve picked up from the road. They ruffle the curtains made from old floral sheets and wash the pillow cases stitched from flannel shirts. They don’t vacuum until Sunday.

Rachael eats peaches. Grace eats pears. They secretly order crates of oranges and tangelos from Florida.

Whenever the floods come, or the frost hits early, or the summer storms rip through Rachael is always out in her boots with her sleeves folded over three times until they sit snug on her forearms. She hauls broken branches, ties down vines, secures weak trees against posts. She pushes a blue rusted wheelbarrow, brings a shovel, an oak-handled post-hole digger, a collection of pruning shears, a hand saw. Though she hates the idea of a chainsaw, with its wicked teeth and sharp smell of oil and gasoline, the sound of its growl—zipping and roaring—always makes her blood flow a little faster.

-from Disaster