Debbie Does Drivel

Her name is Rebecca. I try to visit her once on week, on Sundays. She lives nearby, in a one-room apartment complex made up of active seniors.
She has only one chair outside her door, so people stopping by don't settle in and start endlessly talking about cancers, polyps, and liver spots.
She rarely invites someone in for a visit. She prefers her own company to that of people who feel sorry for themselves.
She tells me that a one-hour chat is enough. After that, it's time to go.

Once, she made me rice and curried vegetables. That time, I stayed for almost three hours, her time limit for guests forgotten.
We talked about her four husbands, her life in San Francisco with Hilton, a musician whom she loved very much. She told what she saw at Haight Ashbury firsthand. She tells me how she came to be a Christian Scientist, and that logic will save you.

She reads only non-fiction, yet indulges me by reading my book-in-progress out loud, one chapter each visit.

Once a week, she sends in a column to a local Macon, Georgia newspaper. The last column she wrote spoke of a house abandoned by a friend's family in the 1920s. The family just left the house one day, with all of its innards intact. Furniture, food, bed linens, everything stayed in the house while the family moved 50 miles away. Rebecca's friend talked about this house for decades, but couldn't remember how to get there, as it was in the middle of the woods. One day about 40 years ago, when Rebecca was 47, her friend and several others, went on a wild goose chase to find the house. They just drove into the woods, and it all came back to Rebecca's friend. She pointed out the tiny dirt roads they'd need to take to get to the house. About an hour later, they were snaking up the driveway. The woman still had the key to the door, a key she'd carried with her for many dozens of years.

When they'd all made their way inside, Rebecca's friend saw that everything was the exact same as she'd remembered it. Dishes on the table, beds unmade, curtains closed. Nothing had been touched.
Except, when she looked out the window into the yard, she noticed a dogwood tree was missing.

Later, after Rebecca had read me this story, it was time for me to go. She had paid $3 for a hotdog lunch, being served in the activity room. Normally, Rebecca dislikes these group functions, since they seem so child-like and silly, but she had decided to go this one time. Still, she tells me, she'll only keep one chair outside her door.