A knocking came resonating from the door to echo across the high ceiling of my room. “Thea, I’m coming in.” The double doors parted revealing Emma with a large white comforter overflowing from her small grasp. I pulled myself from the large expanse of my window to help her before she tripped over herself.
    “Thanks sweetie, but you should really get outside,” with a great heave she tossed the comforter across my oversized bed, “the weather is so nice.”
    “I would much rather stay inside with you,” I embellished and she giggled.
    “Oh, you flatter me to much.”
    Emma was neither portly nor thin. She was in my opinion just right; sturdy for the kind of work she was assigned. Her blonde hair was usually pulled from her face in a loose bun that always, by the end of the day, had come almost completely undone, but she didn’t mind it, so neither did I. When I once asked her how old she was she giggled and replied, “As old as I want to be,” so I didn’t think it was important, but nevertheless I knew she was capable and that was all that mattered; that she could take care of me.
    I helped change the bed sheets which became sort of a ritual between the two of us every week. We would pull the old sheets off the bed, like we were unwrapping a present in excitement, until it became a bare and naked mattress. Then we would take the new sheets and launch one end across the bed to one another and with both sides in hand we would lift the sheet into the air until it landed soft and slowly upon the bed.  And with another swift movement of the arms we would lift it once again until it had landed exactly where we wanted it to.
    With precision and haste we would tuck the under layers underneath the mattress. A funny little art that was so enthralling that it made me forget how angry or sad I really was.
    When we put the last of the pillows in place we both stepped back and admired the magnificence of our hard work.
    “I believe Miss Thea that today’s bed-making was a wonderful success don’t you agree?” she said in a lowered voice that resembled the villa’s crabby old caretaker. I laughed.
    She lowered to squeeze me in a bone-crushing hug that my day wouldn’t be complete without. I loved how Emma smelled like lilacs and laundry soap, but even more so, I loved that her arms were so inviting and warm, how I imagined my mothers would have felt like.
    “Alright sweetie, if you need me I’ll be in the kitchen preparing lunch, and make sure you get outside today. It would be a shame if the good weather was wasted.”
    She closed the double-doors behind her and I returned to the window to stare at the sickeningly good weather, remembering how much I resented how the sun should be so bright. There was a subtle glint as the light reflected off of the water of the small stream that used to provide water for my mothers garden, but now only passes by with no purpose other than to incite nostalgia. I wish my mother were still alive.