New and Old Collide

Photo by Maria Tyutina on Pexels.com

As Joe fought to catch his breath, the strikingly beautiful lady at the door announced her name, “Hi, I’m Lydia,”  her dark brown eyes danced.  “I’m so sorry, it looks like I have caught you off guard.  Clearly, I am early, but I didn’t want to miss the showing.  I need a place right away and I have a strong feeling that this house is the one.”

Joe was in complete awe of how much Lydia resembled Maria.  In fact, if she had a twin sister somewhere in the world, Lydia would’ve been it with her curly, auburn hair, petite stature and her wide-toothed smile.  Joe couldn’t help but be reminded of his own twin girls, who both looked so much like their mom.  “Please come in,” he stuttered.  “I was just finishing up some things before heading out.  I’ll call Brook and let her know that you are here to see the place.”

Lydia sat down in the quaint little living room taking note of the pair of rocking horses which were carefully placed beside the door.  Very sweet, she thought.  Joe returned stating that the agent was on her way over.  “Can I make you some tea?” he offered.

“If it’s not an inconvenience, that would be lovely.  Whatever kind you have is totally fine.  I’ll take one lump of sugar, please.”

Hmm… exactly the way he had made it for Maria all of those years.  As Joe got the kettle going, a funny feeling came over him.  Somehow, it was as if old and new were coming together in a strange juxtaposition, each pulling him in opposite directions.  Lydia’s presence was calm and welcoming as if he was the one being put at ease as a visitor in his very own house.  Well, their house really.  After all, it was only mere hours ago (you could hardly count them as days) that Maria was curled up beside him in bed.  Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that things were about to get even more complicated and quickly so.

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The above instalment is number 10 of my Short Story Series. Although each story part is a continuation of the last, I have designed each storyline so that they can also be read separately. I’ve purposely kept them short for quick, easy reading in response to a writing initiative that I was presented with awhile back.

Previous instalments can be found under the category, “Short Stories” on the right-hand sidebar of my blog.