The Day Mom Took the Front Bedroom

The porch swing

I stood on the steps with the box of Blue Willow dishes in my arms. I had been holding it the whole time. My arms were shaking, and I did not know if it was the weight.

Dad stood at the top of the steps a long minute. Then he walked over to the porch swing and he sat down on it. On the other end. The end June used to sit on.

He had not sat on that swing next to my mother in twenty years. I am not sure he had sat next to her anywhere in twenty years, except one row apart at June’s funeral.

Mom looked at him. Then she picked up her coffee off the rail and sat back down on her end of the swing.

She had a thermos on the porch floor by her feet. I had not noticed it before. She unscrewed the lid and poured coffee into the cap and handed it to him.

“You still take it black?” she said.

“I take it however it comes these days.”

She laughed, just a little, through her nose. It was the first time I had heard my mother laugh at something my father said since I was in grade school.

Then she reached down beside her on the swing and picked up the Saturday paper. She had it folded to the classifieds. She slid it across the swing between them and tapped one with her finger.

I went up the steps and looked over their shoulders. It said: Part-time yard help, Miller Lumber, forklift experience a plus, 24 hours a week, $14 an hour, apply in person.

“You drove a forklift thirty-one years,” Mom said.

“My back.”

“It says yard help, Dennis. Not lifting core boxes. Pulling lumber orders on a forklift for contractors. Sitting down. You’ve been sitting down six years. You can sit down for money.”

Dad looked at the paper. He looked at her. He did not say anything, and he did not hand it back, either.

When I came back out, they were still on the swing. Not talking. Just swinging a little, the two of them, drinking their coffee and watching the leaves come down.