The ladies came off their porches.
I didn’t expect that. I thought they’d stay inside in their air conditioning, peeking out the curtains. But they came out one by one. Slowly. With canes and walkers and folding chairs.
Mrs. Dorothy Banks came out first, with a plate of oatmeal cookies wrapped in plastic. Then Mrs. Margaret Halloway, who’s eighty-six and still drives a 1994 Buick to the Piggly Wiggly every Tuesday. Then Mrs. Irene Kessler, who’s ninety-five, wheeled out to the end of her driveway by her great-granddaughter.
Then Mr. Archie Coleman, with his white cane, tapping his way down his front steps.
“Where’s that Marine?” he hollered. “I want to shake his hand. I can’t see him, but I want to shake it.”
By the fifth yard, they’d set up folding chairs in a little row under the big oak tree in Mrs. Banks’s front yard. All of them. Like they were at a parade.
Loretta kept the tea coming. Mrs. Banks kept the cookies coming. Every time I came to the end of a row near the oak tree, someone handed me something. A cookie. A cold washcloth for the back of my neck. A slice of watermelon.
And they talked.
They talked to each other, mostly, but loud enough for me to hear over the mower. They talked about their husbands.
“Clarence would’ve had this yard done by seven a.m.,” Mrs. Halloway said. “He used to wake up the whole street with that old Toro.”
“Herbert used to edge with a pair of scissors,” Miss Edna said. “On his hands and knees. I thought he was crazy.”
“Walt Gaines had the prettiest yard in Cedar Ridge,” Mrs. Banks said. “Three years running.”
