Edna in the Desert by Maddy Lederman Page A

trees. Looking for flat rocks was a great way to waste time. If anything was a sin in the real world, it was wasting time, but at the cabin that was all she did. Maybe the real world was too hectic. She’d become much more likely to snap than she used to be. Her therapist should have thought of this. It was decided: the first thing Edna would cut out of her routine when she got home would be those futile therapy sessions. Talking about everything did not always help. Sometimes Edna was sure that not talking about things would be better, but then she was accused of “avoiding” and told she needed more therapy.
    The sun was getting low, and Edna had done tons of chores to keep from being bored. Doing nothing felt like falling—out of what and into what she didn’t know, but every afternoon it took a while before she stopped trying to think of things to do. All the laundry was folded. There was no point in sweeping any more. There were no more dishes until after dinner. She’d already been a Tibetan monk three times that day, and even though that literally meant doing nothing, she just couldn’t do it anymore.
    Grandma would make dinner soon. She was tired of checking on Edna by that point, so sitting with Grandpa in the late afternoon was the best part of Edna’s day. The wind picked up by then and became an invisible beach ball tumbling across the sea of creosote bushes and wafting over their smoky smell. The long afternoon shadows swayed in a rhythm that calmed Edna, and the breeze cooled her. If she’d had been told a week ago that the best part of her day would be sitting next to Grandpa on the porch staring into the desert, she definitely would not have believed it.
    Edna also wouldn’t have guessed that she’d miss the nightly dinnertime interrogations from her mother and the constantly fidgeting mess of Brandon. Dinner was terrible here, offering unfamiliar foods that were high in sodium. It created an interaction with Grandma unbuffered by chores or logistics. Edna was discovering new things about herself in exile, and one of them was that she didn’t like being alone with a person who never had anything to say, if that person was capable of talking. Grandpa had an excuse, though Edna wasn’t sure what it was, and she liked being around him better. She hated being around Grandma. Grandma’s silence felt like rejection, and Edna’s comments that “it was a beautiful day,” “I saw a jackrabbit” or “I might paint the porch” were given a word or two back and then, instead of being nurtured into a conversation, left to wither. Edna thought about making up a tray and eating outside with Grandpa, but by the time dinner rolled around, sitting with Grandpa was not exactly something worth fighting for. It was hard to eat with such a big lump in her throat, but soon Edna got used to it, and then it went away. Her mother’s incessant questioning would be forever less irritating. It had only been six days, but watching her family drive away in the Audi felt like a hundred years ago.

9
DELIVERY
    Edna decided to acquire a taste for coffee as another thing to do for the summer. She found it bitter and absolutely hideous, but celebrities were always pictured with a coffee in their hands, and she wanted to know why. It was tolerable if she put enough sugar in it. She couldn’t believe this was what adults craved every morning, and it gave her all the more reason to question authority in the future. Edna stepped onto the porch with her mug for the first time of the day. She would probably step onto the porch fifty more times throughout the day before her late-afternoon sitting session with Grandpa. The only thing that ever changed much was the angle of the sun and the occasional lean of a cactus.
    But this morning a line of dust rose in the distance, which meant a vehicle was coming. The dust moved north along the ridge until it turned and made its way east. It was coming toward the cabin. Edna guessed it was