I called Rick at six Friday morning and told him I needed the day.
Rick has owned Hollis Heating and Air for thirty years. He doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t need answered. He just said he’d move the Hendersons’ heat pump to Monday.
“Give your mother my best,” he said.
Amy’s brother Jeff brought his flatbed trailer and his own dolly. The three of us were at Mom’s apartment by seven.
She had coffee made. She’d been up since four. And she’d labeled every single box in black marker in her careful school-cook printing.
Kitchen, everyday. Kitchen, good dishes. Bathroom. Winter clothes. Church.
And one small box, sitting on the counter all by itself, that said only one word.
June.
By eleven, the trailer was full. On the way out, Mom stopped at the leasing office and handed the young woman at the desk her keys and a typed letter.
“That’s my notice,” she said. “I’ll be out by the thirty-first. You can keep my $500 deposit or mail it to me. Either way, I’m going home.”
The young woman blinked at her. “Yes, ma’am.”
By noon we were on Persimmon Street.
Dad wasn’t home. His truck was gone. He spent most days at Tammy’s sister’s place now, out on the county road past the grain elevator.
I had a key. I’d always had a key. I’d never once used it without knocking first.
I knocked anyway. Nobody came. I unlocked the door.
Mom stood on the porch for a long minute before she came in.
She put her hand on the white porch swing, the one June used to sit me on with a pan of green beans, and she gave it a little push. She watched it go back and forth.
“He kept it painted,” she said.
“Every spring.”
She went inside.
The front bedroom had been Dad’s junk room for six years. Boxes of old foundry paperwork. A broken treadmill. A recliner with the stuffing coming out of one arm. And about forty empty coffee cans he was saving for no reason anybody on earth could name.
Jeff and I hauled it all out to the garage.
By three o’clock, it was a room again.
Mom’s quilt on the bed. Her dresser between the two windows. Her recliner in the corner. Her Bible on the nightstand next to her reading glasses. Her housecoat on the hook on the back of the door.
The box marked June was still in the truck. Mom hadn’t let anybody carry it. When I asked where she wanted it, she said to just leave it in the cab for now.
So I did.
Jeff went home around three-thirty. Amy came over with a pitcher of sweet tea and sat on the back step.
And at four o’clock, I heard Dad’s Silverado pull into the driveway.
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