Pella: Friday After Midnight

The van hums as we exit Highway 163 onto Washington Street.

Looking at the Pella tundra, Marlo says, “In Nicaragua, you can be poor and survive, but not in Pella.”

Through the flurries, Wal-Mart’s windows beckon across a deserted parking lot. Remembering our empty refrigerator, we turn in.

My lungs recoil and I as I exit the heated van, and I cough into my fleece sleeve. I keep my elbow in front of my face till Wal-Mart’s automatic door opens for us.

“Yes,” the wan clerk says.  “We are still open-- 24-7, 7 days a week.”

We toss hermetically sealed vegetables, shipped-from-the-south bananas, cellophaned bread, and  unsweetened almond milk into the cart, and crunch back to the van.

Our garage door yawns open as we approach.  Drying hydrangea stems and miscellaneous metals cast long shadows in the headlights.

We heave dusty suitcases into the house. Marlo turns up the thermostat and then clicks  controls of our electric mattress pad to high..

We put the food in the side-by-side refrigerator, roll the suitcases along the carpeted hall, and park them unopened on the bedroom floor.

I crawl under three layers of warmed covers. My pillow is stale with January perspiration.

This world may change by morning, but in this moment, shortly after midnight, my Pella home feels as foreign as some North Pole on another planet.