The Pound Cake on Donna’s Porch

“He’ll know tonight,” Donna said. “You’ll tell him. And then the two of you will go see Jeff and Stacy together, and Mark will look Jeff in the eye like a man, because that’s who he is, and that’s who you married.”

I want to say something here about Mark, because people hear a story like this and want to make the husband the villain. He was not. He was a proud man who lost his job through no fault of his own and was terrified that his whole town would know it. He did what a lot of men out here would do. He went quiet and worked harder.

He did not know about the lie. When he found out, I am told, he sat at their kitchen table for a long time without saying anything, and then he got up and drove over to our place that same night.

That part I saw myself. Jeff was out in the shop under the truck when Mark’s pickup pulled in. I watched from the kitchen window.

Mark walked straight into the shop and stood there until Jeff slid out on the creeper. They talked for maybe ten minutes. I could not hear a word. Then Jeff stood up and wiped his hands on a rag and shook Mark’s hand, and Mark held on a second longer than a handshake usually goes.

When Jeff came in, I asked him what Mark said.

“He said he was sorry and he’d make it right,” Jeff said. “I told him I knew he would.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all there needed to be,” Jeff said. He washed his hands at the kitchen sink. “Man’s had a hard year. He doesn’t need me making it harder.”

But back on the porch, that first evening, there was still the matter of the money.

Angie wiped her face with the cuff of Mark’s jacket and looked at me.

“I can pay a hundred a month,” she said. “Starting next month, when Mark’s checks start. I know it’s slow. I know it’ll take more than three years. But I can do a hundred a month without missing, and I won’t miss.”

“Ange,” I said, “you don’t have to do that right now. Get caught up first. Get on your feet. The furnace made it this long.”

“No,” Donna said.

We both looked at her.

“No,” she said again. “Stacy, you are the kindest girl I ever knew, and I love you for saying it. But no. She pays it. A hundred dollars a month, every month, until it’s done.”

“Donna, I don’t need it that bad.”

“It isn’t about whether you need it,” Donna said. “It’s about whether she does. She needs to pay it. She needs to walk to your mailbox every month and put that envelope in and know she’s doing it. That’s how she gets to be your friend again instead of somebody who owes you. You take that money away from her, you take that away from her too.”

I looked at Angie. Angie was looking at her mother.

“She’s right,” Angie said quietly. “I want to pay it. Please let me pay it.”

So I let her.

Before I left that night, Donna walked me out to my car in the dark. The yard light had come on over the barn, and the half-strip of grass she never finished mowing stood up silver in it.

“You’ll come back out,” she said. It was not a question.

“I’ll come back out.”

“And you’ll bring her with you.”

“I’ll bring her.”