The Summer My Son Mowed Free

I did not know what he meant then. I found out.

The last lawn of the summer was Mrs. Aldy’s, the Saturday before school. Tucker wanted to end where he started, and he wanted to do it up nice, edge it and trim it and pull the weeds out of her flower beds, a whole morning’s work, a going away present for the summer. He left our house around eight with the mower and the trimmer and the little notebook, and he came home around eleven, and everything seemed fine. He was sweaty and happy and he drank a glass of milk standing at the counter and told me Mrs. Aldy had cried a little and given him a whole peach pie, which was in the kitchen, which he was eyeing.

And that is when the two squad cars pulled up out front.

I want to tell you I was calm. I was not calm. When you have already had one uniformed man come to your door to tell you your husband is not coming home, a police car in front of your house does something to your body that your mind cannot argue with. My knees went. Tucker set down his milk. And I opened the screen door before they even knocked, because I could not stand the waiting, and I said, “What’s wrong, what happened,” in a voice I did not recognize.

The older officer, and I would come to know him as Sergeant Dale Mercer, took his sunglasses off, which I have since learned is what a decent cop does before he says something hard, and he said, “Ma’am, is your son the boy who’s been mowing lawns around the neighborhood this summer?”

And I said yes. And behind me Tucker said yes too, in a small voice, and both officers looked past me at him.

“Son,” Sergeant Mercer said, “we need to ask you some questions about this morning. About Mrs. Aldy’s house.”

I have replayed the next part more times than I can count. I called Tucker to come stand by me and he did, and he was shaking, actually shaking, a boy who had done nothing but good all summer, shaking on his own porch because a man in a uniform said Mrs. Aldy’s name in a serious voice, and my hands started to shake too, right along with his, because I could not for the life of me understand what was happening and my brain went to the worst places a brain can go.