The House My Son Wanted Signed Over

The Front Porch

Which brings me back to the front hall, and the suitcase, and Brad smiling, with his silver pen in his shirt pocket and my signature folded inside his jacket.

I got my purse off the hook. I got my Bible and my glasses and my pills and Walt’s picture from the den, which was everything left in there that I cared about, and I put them in my purse, where they fit just fine.

“Ready,” I said.

Brad picked up the suitcase. He grunted a little. She had put my winter boots in it.

He opened the front door.

And he stopped, right there on the sill, with one foot out and one foot in.

There were nine people on my front porch and down my front walk, ten if you count the baby.

Amy was in front, eight weeks out from having that little boy, holding a sugar cream pie in both hands. Mark was beside her with the baby on his chest in one of those slings, and a casserole dish balanced on his other arm with a towel over it.

Behind them was Linda, with a roll of packing tape on her wrist like a bracelet. Dale, out of uniform. Ray from over the back fence. Pastor Jim. The two Yoder boys from the feed store with a piano dolly and a stack of moving blankets, and their daddy’s stock trailer hitched to a pickup at the curb, hosed out clean.

And behind the trailer, with the engine running and the window down, was Jo in her old blue Ford.

Nobody said anything for a second. A cardinal was going in the maple.

“Morning, Brad,” Amy said. She has a second grade teacher’s voice, bright and clear, and it carried. “Are we too early? Marilyn said nine, but we all got excited.”

Brad looked at the pie. He looked at the dolly.

“Too early for what?”

“For the piano,” said the older Yoder boy. “Ma’am, is the front door still the best way, or do you want us to go around the side?”

“The front,” I said, from behind my son. “It came in the front.”

“What piano?” Brad said. “Nobody’s taking the piano. What is this? Mom, did you call these people?”

“I did.”

“We have to be in Fort Wayne by noon.”

“You might,” I said. “I don’t.”

He turned around. He still had my suitcase in his hand.

“Mom. I don’t know what you told them, but this isn’t the time. Folks, I appreciate it, but my mother is going into care today, and she’s a little bit mixed up about some things, so if you could all just…”

“Brad,” Amy said.

He stopped.

“She’s not mixed up. She’s moving to the lake. We’re here to help her, and then Mark and I are going to start bringing a few of our things over this weekend, if that’s all right. We’ve been trying to stay out of your way until she was ready.”

“Bringing your things over where?”

“Here.” Amy shifted the pie. “Brad, we bought the house. Mark and I. In March.”

“Bought what house?”

“This one,” Mark said quietly. “Six months ago. Your mom asked to stay through the summer, and we were glad to have her.”

Brad laughed. It was the same tired laugh from the top of the stairs.