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“Oh my! I’ll call the exterminator first thing in the morning, dear. How awful that that happened to you!” Mrs. Ketchens stood on her stoop and made a sour face at her visitor.
“It’s really, OK, Mrs. Ketchens. I shouldn’t have bothered you with this tonight. I can just run to the store and pick up some mousetraps,” Jarrod said, feeling embarrassed.
“Nonsense, young man. There is no reason at all that my tenants should have to put up with an infestation. Right there in the -- in the shed, was it?”
Jarrod looked at his shoe laces as he replied, “Yes, I saw it in the shed.”
“Right there in the shed! Imagine! And how many did you say you saw?” Mrs. Ketchens looked at Jarrod over her wire rims.
“Well, um, just the one. I’m sorry, Mrs. Ketchens.
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Harris. No, we’ll get this all cleared up in the morning. In the meantime,” Ketchens said as she clutched his cold hand, “I insist that you let me make it up to you with a cup of tea.”
She tugged Jarrod across the threshold with surprising force, and she closed the door behind him before he could protest.
“Well … hehe … maybe just a quick cup.” The room was warm in the glow of the
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He could hear Mrs. Ketchens rattling dishes in the next room, and she emerged from the darkness after a couple of minutes.
“Here we go, dear.” She carried a dingy platter with cups, a creamer, and a sugar bowl to the coffee table near the fire.
By the flickering light, Mrs. Ketchens poured boiling water from the copper kettle into the cups, causing the tea bags inside to bob up and down, pulling at the strings that flopped over the brims.
“There, now. Just a few minutes and we’ll have some soothing tea to take our minds off that unpleasantness at your house,” the old lady promised. “How do you take it? Milk? Sugar?”
“Um, no, black is fine.” Jarrod just wanted to get this over with.
After some stilted talk about the weather and plenty of awkward silence, Mrs. Ketchens moved to the table once again and bobbed the tea bags up and down a few times.
“Oh, that’s so nice!” she called out and then carried the steaming cups to the couch and handed one to Jarrod. “Here you go, dear. Enjoy!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ketchens,” Jarrod replied as he wrapped his fingers around the cup.
A few sips in, Jarrod had to admit that he was feeling better. Maybe that Ketchens knew what she was doing after