“It’s supposed to get up to eighty-four,” I said. “They’re saying no rain till Thursday.”
She stood there for what felt like a full minute. Biscuit looked up at her, then at the mulch, then at me, the way you would look around a table to see who was going to pay. Then she turned him around. It took some doing. They went back up the sidewalk the other way, past her own house, and I heard her say, low, “Come on. Come on, buddy.”
I finished my cup. I will admit that it was the best cup of coffee I had drunk since October.
Tuesday she came out at a quarter past six. I had come out at six.
“Good morning, Vicki. Good morning, Biscuit.”
She did not answer. She turned him around on the sidewalk like a woman backing a boat trailer.
Wednesday she waited. I could see her kitchen blind move. Half past six went by, and seven. I had brought the crossword. At a quarter past seven her door opened and she came out dressed for work with her purse on her shoulder and the leash in her hand, and I looked up from thirty-one across and said, “Good morning, Vicki. Good morning, Biscuit. You’re running late.”
“You can’t sit there all day,” she said.
“I’m retired,” I said. “I don’t know why I couldn’t.”
Thursday it rained, as promised. I thought about that at a quarter to six with the rain coming down the kitchen window, and then I thought, well, the dog does not take rain days. I put Dale’s ball game poncho on over my housecoat, the red one that came down to my shins, and I took the big golf umbrella, and I went out and sat in the wet webbing with my thermos between my feet.
Vicki came out under a little folding umbrella with a broken rib. She got as far as the sidewalk. She looked at me sitting there in a red plastic poncho, in a lawn chair, in a rose bed, in the rain, with the umbrella over me like a woman selling tickets.
“Good morning, Vicki. Good morning, Biscuit.”
She put her hand over her mouth. Her shoulders went up and down. It took me a second to see she was laughing, and trying hard not to.
“You are out of your mind,” she said.
“It’s a good soaking rain,” I said. “The roses needed it.”
That was the first week.
By the second week, the street had noticed.
You cannot sit in a housecoat four feet from the sidewalk and not be noticed. Jeff across the street, who leaves for the feed mill at twenty till seven, started lifting two fingers off the steering wheel at me, and then by Wednesday he was rolling the window down. “Morning, Carolyn. Guarding the roses?” The boy who throws the paper started walking it up and handing it to me. Brenda Tucker, three doors down, came by with her walker on her morning lap and stopped to rest, and then she stopped to rest every morning, and on Friday she brought me a cinnamon roll in a napkin.
“I’ve been wanting to say something to that woman since April,” Brenda said. “He does it in front of mine on the way back if he’s got anything left.”
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.