Nine Mops on the Landlord’s Porch

Daddy wanted to go over there himself the night he saw the post. He was off shift, and he got as far as his truck.

I asked him not to. I told him I loved him, and that if a sixty-year-old man drove over to Darrell’s house mad, it would go one of two ways, and neither of them would get me my money.

He sat in the truck for a while. Then he came back in.

“You let those church ladies handle it,” he said finally. “Lord help him.”

Saturday came up sunny and warm, the way September holds on in east Tennessee long after the calendar says it should let go.

The dogwoods were just starting to turn at the tips. The air still smelled like cut grass.

I wore jeans and my yellow t-shirt and pulled my curls back in a ponytail, the way I wear it at work, because I did not want to look like I was dressed up for a fight. I brought the mop from my own closet.

I met them at the church parking lot at nine. Nine women, the same nine.

Sneakers and housedresses and a couple of pairs of jeans. Every one of them had brought a mop, and most had brought a bucket too.

“Why the mops?” I asked Mrs. Reese.

“Because that’s who we are,” she said. “We are the women who cleaned his house. I want him to see that when he opens the door.”

Faye drove the church van, the same white van. We rode two streets over and parked at the curb in front of Darrell’s small brick house.

His truck was in the drive. The pink geraniums were still in the pot by the door.

I will be honest. My hands were shaking so hard I had to grip the mop handle to make them stop.

We walked up his walk in a line. The nine of them went up the porch steps behind me, slow, because of Doris’s knees and Mrs. Reese’s hip. Some of them stood on the porch. Some of them stood on the steps. Every one of them held a mop or a bucket.

I stepped up to the door and knocked three times.

I heard a ballgame on a television inside. Then it went quiet, and the storm door swung open.

Darrell Fink stood in the doorway in a gray sweatshirt and work pants. He looked at me first. Then his eyes went past me, over my shoulder, to the steps and the porch.

Nine women stood there, every one of them holding a mop or a bucket and looking right at him. Not angry. Just looking. His mouth fell open, and for a second he did not say a word.

“Good morning, Mr. Fink,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. “I’m sorry to bother you on a Saturday. I did not come to argue with you, and I won’t.”

He looked at me. He looked at the women. He did not close the door.

“You told the whole town on Tuesday that I left your duplex trashed,” I said. “These ladies helped me clean it. Two whole days. So I came to ask you one thing.”

“Show us the damage.”

He blinked at me.

“Pick a room,” I said. “Any room in the unit. We’ll walk over there with you right now and look at it together. If we missed something, we’ll clean it. We brought everything we need.”