The Kitchen Dishes

She wasn’t crazy. But people were talking about Rosie like she had lost her mind. Her honest reputation had turned against her as the towns folk swallowed up rumor after rumor.

‘Did you hear about that girl Rosie? She’s broke into her own house to collect insurance money.’

‘I heard she’s taking advantage of that Good Samaritan, Carter. He lets her sleep in his house! Poor man’s being robbed blind.’

‘Her mind is messed up… she’s got multiple voices up there talking and she can’t figure out which one to listen to.’

It had been two weeks since the store clerk and market cashier had identified her as the one leaving sunflowers on parked cars and buying brown hair dye. Rosie didn’t dye her hair, she never had. But the clothes the woman had been described as wearing belonged to her, except she hadn’t seen them since her house had been burglarized.

She’d even had instances where she thought she might be crazy, though she was pretty convinced she wasn’t. A crazy person wouldn’t wonder if they were actually crazy, would they? she often thought.

Last week she was in the kitchen at Carter’s place, he was out, and she’d made some eggs. She’d put the pan in the sink to let it cool and went to eat her breakfast in the den. When she came back into the kitchen, the pan was back on the stove. I probably didn’t put it in the sink, Rosie thought.

She thinks someone is in the house undoing all the things she does… what a nutcase. I’ll tell you who’s putting the dishes back on the stove- voice number two in her head.

A few days ago, in the guest room closet where she kept her remaining wardrobe, Rosie saw her navy blue blazer hanging alone. It was that blazer that the clerk and cashier witnessed the look-a-like wearing. And now it was hanging in the closet like it was never stolen.

That girl Rosie tried to tell the cops her jacket was stolen from her house… it’s been in her closet the whole time! She’s got a screw loose, just like her mom. Doesn’t the saying go, ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?’

That rumor was partially true. Rosie’s mother, Claire, had cracked a few years ago and was living in a nursing home outside of town. Rosie had since fallen out of grace with her mom and hardly ever went to visit.

This morning though, she had a missed call from the nursing home and a message to call them back.

“Ms. Lawrence, we called this morning because your mother kept insisting she needed to tell her daughters something. Do you have any siblings?” the woman from the home asked. “She seems very insistent that she has two daughters.”

“I’m an only child. She’s probably just remembering something her mother said. Mom had a sister that died in a car accident when they were teenagers,” Rosie said. She could tell the nurse was calling from her mom’s room because of her voice in the background.

“Let me talk to Rosie! I have to tell her something. It’s important!” Claire often grew impatient with the staff and frequently requested to speak to Rosie directly.

“Hi Mom, how are you feeling today?” Rosie asked when the nurse put Claire on the phone. “Are you doing okay? The nurse said you had something to tell me.”

“I’m fine. I should have told you this sooner and I’m so sorry, Rosie,” Claire said. “I see you on TV and you look so worried.” Today her mom sounded coherent and lucid. Other days she sounded lost and confused.

“Mom, I’m okay. The police are just looking into who broke into my house. Remember when the nurses told you about that?”

“Yes, yes I remember. I have a brain, you know. It still works.” The irritability in Claire’s voice was growing and Rosie could tell her mom was about to slip into her twisted reality. “Rosie?”

“Mom.”

“Tell your sister I’m sorry. I should have kept her too.”

“I don’t have a sister,” Rosie said. I knew she was talking about her memories, Rosie thought. “You had one, Mom. Her name was Beth.”

“You have a sister, Rosie. She’s your twin. I named her Jane.”