"Um, excuse me, are you guys missing someone by the name of "Edna C...?" I inquired this
of two ladies in the kitchen. One was a brown little
butternut squash, the other a pale string bean. Nutty dropped her dishes with a clatter into the
applesauce-deluged sink. "Oh, LAWDY, she"s dun it uh-gayin!" So the two ladies started up the
hill wit me to retrieve the senile old lady who had walked without a second thought into my home. As
we walked, I listened to the winter vegetables"discourse. "I told mista R... ta keep an eye
on her!" "I just knew this would happen! She was wearing that sweater!" Only a crazy old lady
who was on the run from her nursing home would wear a Christmas cardigan on July 14. She'd worn it
the previous year, when the people down the street had called the cops. We entered my home. Edna
was in deep discussion with my mother about people neither of them had ever met. When Nutty entered
the room, Edna jumped up. "You see how they do me?!" String Bean gently took Ms. Carlton by one
arm, Nutty, the other. Edna promised to visit again before resuming her cries of "You see how they
do me?! You see how they do me?!" We just smiled tightly with raised brows and agreed to look
forward to her visit, and then Edna was out of our lives as quickly as she'd entered.