Colt lifted the lid.
Twelve brown eggs. Every one wiped clean. Every one set in with the small end down, the way Mom always did.
“A hen goes off laying when you move her,” Mr. Zeller said. “They gave me four the first day and three the second. It took until about four o’clock this afternoon to make the dozen. And I was not going to hand Rosalie’s daughter eleven eggs.”
I’m not a woman who cries in front of people.
I’d gotten through the visitation and the service and the cemetery with a dry handkerchief.
I cried in that old man’s yard until my son put his arm around me.
He’s taller than I am now. I hadn’t noticed until that very minute.
Mr. Zeller had the twelve hens penned by themselves, with fresh straw and their own waterer. He’d cut air holes in three apple boxes. He lifted the last hen out himself and held her a moment before he handed her to Colt.
A big old Barred Rock. Gray as a rainy day. Her red leg band had faded so much it was nearly pink.
“This one’s no layer,” he said. “I expect you know that.”
“That’s Pearl,” Colt said. His voice cracked on it. “You got Pearl.”
“I got her first,” Mr. Zeller said. “Nobody was going to want her for anything but the pot.”
I asked him to come Saturday. I told him there’d be coffee.
He said he’d think about it. Which, from a man like that, means yes.
Thirty-one hens went to roost in my mother’s coop that night.
Pearl took her place at the end by the window, where she’s slept since Colt was in second grade.
Friday morning, I went out to the back porch to see about the eggs.
Mom kept a second icebox out there. An old round-shouldered one that hummed. That was where the egg business lived. It was the only thing in that whole house Lucille hadn’t scrubbed.
I opened it.
Fourteen cartons, stacked two deep. And beside them, the bowl of loose eggs Colt had gathered since.
Mom had packed those cartons the Thursday she died. For the Saturday she didn’t live to see.
Every lid had a name on it, in fresh pencil. Pavlik, 2 doz. Schmidt. Pastor. The school cook. Fourteen names, in the same handwriting that had signed my report cards.
There was a fifteenth carton on the door shelf. Off by itself.
I heard Lucille come out behind me.
She had her car keys in her hand and her good coat on. I understood that she’d been about to tell me she was going home to Lincoln.
I didn’t say anything.
I took the fifteenth carton off the shelf, and I held it so she could read the lid.
Lu. Sunday. No excuses.
My aunt sat down on the porch step like somebody had cut her strings.
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.