On the porch, as we were leaving, Mrs. Hartmann took hold of my sleeve.
“Eleven years he brought it,” she said. “I made him a pie every single time. And every single time he said, ‘Mrs. Hartmann, you didn’t have to do that.’ And then he ate half of it standing up in my kitchen.”
She held onto my sleeve.
“I have not got a pie tonight, Rebecca.”
“You don’t owe me a pie.”
“I owe somebody one,” she said. “I will work out who.”
On Sunday, after church, we loaded the second cord and took it to Donna Peterson.
Donna tried to give Cole a twenty-dollar bill. He wouldn’t take it.
We took the third cord to Marlene Olson. We carried it all the way into her back entry, one wheelbarrow load at a time. So she’d only have to walk ten feet with her bad hip to get to it.
Marlene had a pie already made.
She said she’d baked one every Sunday in October. Just in case. And had been eating them all herself.
We took the pie. Those were the rules.
That left one cord, out of the four, for my own stove.
And thirteen or fourteen more cords still lying in rounds along my fence.
Sunday night, I sat at the kitchen table.
In Jim’s chair.
I had Dale’s receipt smoothed out flat in front of me. And an index card from the recipe drawer.
I wrote four different notes. I threw away three of them.
I’m not a spiteful woman. I want that to be true. So I’m careful about it.
I did not write one word about Dale on that index card.
What I wrote was this.
Free split oak for any widow or shut-in on Otter Creek Road who needs it before snow. Split Saturdays on Jim Thorson’s splitter. Call Becky Thorson.
And my phone number.
Every word of it was true. And there wasn’t one word on it I’d have minded reading out loud in church.
Specialty: Emotional Turning Points
Rachel Monroe writes character-driven stories about betrayal, second chances, and unexpected resilience. Her work highlights the emotional side of family conflict — the silences, the misunderstandings, and the moments when someone quietly decides they’ve had enough.