The Pies On The Station Steps

The first pie

We spent that winter in the little rental by the Methodist church while the men rebuilt our back rooms. Walt could not do much at first. His lungs had taken a beating and the doctor kept him down for months.

I kept thinking about those volunteers. Not one of them was paid a dime. They left their own warm beds and their own families and drove out into a killing cold to save a man they had never met.

I wanted to thank them. I baked a pie, an apple one, and I drove it to the station on a weekday afternoon and I stood in the open bay with it in my hands.

There were three of them in there working on the truck. They were kind. They thanked me. One of them, an older fellow with a gray mustache, said, “Ma’am, you did not have to do that.”

And I got so flustered being thanked for thanking them that I about dropped the pie, and I drove home with my face hot and told Walt I had made a fool of myself.

That is when I decided I would never hand them another pie in person again.

I would just leave them. Early, before anyone was up, so there was no standing around, no thank you, no fuss. Just a pie on the step the way the Lord leaves good things, quiet, with no name attached.

The first Sunday I did it I was so nervous I nearly turned the car around twice. I set two pies on the step, because two felt more like a gift than one, and I drove off before the yard light even found me.

The next week the tins were sitting rinsed and stacked by our mailbox, clean as a whistle, with a little note that said only, “Whoever you are, thank you. It was the best thing any of us ate all month.”

I did not write back. I just filled the tins again.