I stood on the steps with the box of Blue Willow dishes in my arms. I’d been holding it the whole time. My arms were shaking, and I honestly didn’t know if it was the weight.
Dad stood at the top of the steps for a long minute.
Then he walked over to the porch swing. And he sat down on it.
On the other end. The end June used to sit on.
He hadn’t sat on that swing next to my mother in twenty years. I’m not sure he’d sat next to her anywhere in twenty years, except one row apart at June’s funeral.
Mom looked at him. Then she picked her coffee up off the rail and sat back down on her end of the swing.
She had a thermos on the porch floor by her feet. I hadn’t noticed it before. She unscrewed the lid, poured coffee into the cap, and handed it across to him.
“You still take it black?” she said.
“I take it however it comes these days.”
She laughed. Just a little, through her nose.
It was the first time I’d heard my mother laugh at something my father said since I was in grade school.
Then she reached down beside her on the swing and picked up the Saturday paper. She had it folded open to the classifieds. She slid it across the swing between them and tapped one ad with her finger.
I went up the steps and looked over their shoulders.
Part-time yard help, Miller Lumber. Forklift experience a plus. 24 hours a week. $14 an hour. Apply in person.
“You drove a forklift thirty-one years,” Mom said.
“My back,” Dad said.
“It says yard help, Dennis. Not lifting core boxes. Pulling lumber orders on a forklift for contractors. Sitting down.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You’ve been sitting down for six years. You can sit down for money.”
Dad looked at the paper. He looked at her.
He didn’t say anything.
But he didn’t hand it back, either.
I carried the Blue Willow into the kitchen and unpacked it into June’s old cabinets, one plate at a time. When I came back out, they were still on the swing.
Not talking. Just swinging a little, the two of them, drinking their coffee and watching the leaves come down.
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