Serendipity

The York House

I had never been to such a beautiful home. It was huge and had the greenest grass I’ve ever seen, it looked more like a fancy hotel then it did a home. It made me miss my little mud house and my smiling family that was always busy inside and for a moment all I could think about was how much I missed my cousins. “Sara! Watch out!” Addy screamed at me.

I was brought out of my daydream of screaming kids and the smell of home cooked food by a sharp pain in my left foot. I had stepped in a metal spike that was sticking out of the grass. I hadn’t realized I was walking forward until Addy screamed at me. The spike tore straight through the worn sole of my favorite pair of red Chuck Taylors.

She had pulled me away from spike just in time to save me from a lot of pain. Our feet got tangled together in the rush to get way and we tumbled to the ground together. I was laying on the floor laughing and she was yelling at me

“Sara, are you okay? Why are you laughing? What’s wrong?!” Addy asked in alarm.

I sat up still shaking from the laughter of falling then I announced proudly“yeah I’m fine” I had to stop to catch my breath “Did you see that?! That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen! I wish we had a video camera!”

“SARA! How could you say that was funny?! Your foot nearly gets impaled on a metal spike and you want a video camera to document the moment?!” she yelled at me, her British accent sounded funny when she was angry.

“All right dude calm down! I already got a mom remember? I’ve had worse than a spike nearly going through my foot. I’m from a rez remember? I used to walk around bare foot in the middle of July in Arizona. I can handle pretty much anything when it comes to my feet.”

Thinking about summer in Arizona I was reminded yet again how much I missed my home and all the people there. I planned on calling home the minute I was alone.

“Well regardless I can’t have my best friend limping all over town with me now can I?” she thought for a moment “at least not on your first day here!”

Then she as flashed her ‘Don’t-do-anything-crazy’ smile at me. I had to laugh one more time when I saw her face. Just then some people came out of her house, they were all dressed in similar clothing, so I assumed this was her ‘staff’ to help us with our luggage. I only had one duffle bag and a backpack while Addy’s things took up most of the trunk. She introduced me to her ‘staff’.

“Everyone this is Sara” She waved her hand grandly over me like I was some kind of prize and she was a game show hostess “treat her like you would any member of this family!”

I smiled and waved half-heartedly hoping they didn’t see how uncomfortable I was having people waiting on me. I didn’t want to be rude but it was still hard for me to see them carrying my things inside for me.

Addy wrapped her arm around my waist and lead me inside. The first person I saw was a thin, short, red haired woman with beautiful green eyes standing by the grand staircase. I immediately knew it was Addy’s mother, she looked just like her, they could be twins. She had her hands open in a friendly way that reminded me of the way my mom welcomed people in to our home.

“Darlings!,” her voice even had that same welcome home tone I always would hear in my mom’s voice, “Ah and this must be the lovely Sara I’ve been hearing so much about!” she hugged me and Addy tightly to her chest. Addy threw me an apologetic look over her mothers shoulder.

“Thank you Mrs.-” I began.

“Oh no, none of that ‘Mrs.’ stuff here, love! You can call me Anna.”

I felt awkward, I didn’t really like calling my friends parents by their first names, but I didn’t want to offend her either.

“Anna, Thank you for having me in your lovely home, however I’m a little uncomfortable calling you by your first name. Do you have a nick name or a surname I can call you by?” I asked.

She laughed lightly and said “Anna is my nick name, my full name is Annemarie.”

I smiled and instantly felt better about calling her Anna. Just then a tall, burly man with blonde hair and brown eyes walked in the front door talking on a cell phone, more like yelling.

“I DON’T BLOODY CARE WHAT YOU DO! JUST TAKE CARE OF IT BEFORE MY DAUGHTER’S WEDDING DO YOU HEAR ME?!” he paused to hear what the person said on the other line. “YES, yes all right that will do just fine. Thank you very much! Good day to you!”

Then he snapped the phone shut without waiting for a reply. He looked up to see us all standing there and smiled. He walked over and kissed Addy on the forehead and did the same to his wife.

“Hello Sara! You can call me Tom! I’m Adelaide’s father.” The man siad

I smiled and held my hand out to shake his; he smiled as he shook my hand and said

“Wow you’ve got a nice firm grip! You know you can tell a lot by a person’s handshake? Most women have a soft and delicate handshake. That most of the time means they are girly-girls and tend to be taken care of.” As he said this he looked meaningfully at his daughter.

I looked at my hand and wondered what my handshake told him. I was just about to ask when he continued, “A nice firm hand shake means you know who you are and you know what you are doing. Now when a girl has a nice firm hand shake it means that you can take care of yourself, I believe I also felt some small clauses on your palms and fingers, which means you work hard too or that you prefer to take care of others.”

I laughed and said “Well Tom it seems you know more about me then I do myself.”

We all sat down in the sitting room and talked for a little while. Then Addy had to leave to go pick up her sisters at boarding school and she left me to get to know her parents. Then as the sun was beginning to set, Tom suggested that we go sit outside on the patio to wait for Addy’s future husband. I was a little shocked to realize that I had never met my best friend’s fiancée; in fact now that I thought about it I didn’t even know what his name was. Well I would find out soon enough, he was coming in as a surprise for Addy, she didn’t know that he was coming at all let alone today. So we waited and waited, her parents were hoping he would come in before she came back. They wanted to see the look on their daughters face when she saw there were four people waiting for her instead of three.

As we were waiting I thought of Rob, I missed him so much and I would try to call him tonight. He has been so busy at home we’ve hardly gotten to talk to each other. Just then a black limo pulled up, I figured it was Addy’s fiancée. I suddenly felt scared and my heart felt like it was being twisted, like there was some sort of impending doom coming for me. I was getting light headed and I felt like I was going to faint. Addy’s parents stood up to get a better look at whoever was getting out of the car. I stood too but just to be polite then as he was getting out of the limo, all I saw was a black veil fall over my eyes. The last thing that my brain registered was the one face that I could never forget, the one person who was all ways on my mind. My love, my life, my Rob...