The Last Checks Mom Handed Out at the Lake

The Neighbor

We were halfway back up the lawn when a woman about Mom’s age got up from the picnic tables and came down to meet us. She had a paper plate in one hand and a sweating cup of lemonade in the other.

“Mavis Rowland?” she said. “Tipton Elementary? You had my grandson Kyle in third grade. Must be twenty years ago now. He couldn’t read a lick till you got hold of him.”

Mom’s whole face changed. “Kyle Bauer,” she said. “Freckles. Loved anything about trains.”

“He’s an engineer for the Union Pacific now,” Mrs. Bauer said. “I tell him every Christmas he owes it to Mrs. Rowland.” She looked down the lawn toward Gwen, then back at Mom, and she didn’t ask a single question. “You come sit with me sometime, honey. Anytime. I’ve got the cabin with the green shutters.”

Mom squeezed her hand. “I’d like that,” she said.

That was the moment I nearly lost it. Not the envelopes. A stranger remembering my mother.

The Ride Home

Ken came up from the boat ramp right about then, with his ball cap pushed back and a tow strap over his shoulder. He’d been down there loading their boat on the trailer and hadn’t seen any of it.

He looked at Gwen standing alone on the grass with the note, then up at Mom and me, and I watched him put it together. He didn’t know. I believed it then and I believe it now. Ken Price is a lot of things, but he is not a man who would let his mother-in-law pay his bills.

He walked straight to Gwen, read the note over her shoulder, and said something to her too low for me to hear. She shook her head. He said it again.

Mom and I were nearly to the top of the lawn when Gwen called out.

“Mom. Wait.”

She came up the slope fast, still holding the envelope, with her straw hat in her other hand now. Her hair had come loose on one side.

“Can I ride home with you?” she asked. “Ken can bring the car. I want to ride with you.”

Mom didn’t answer right away. She looked at me.

It was my car and my afternoon, and for maybe the first time in forty-five years, the baby sister was the one who got to decide whether Gwen came along.

I thought about the legal pad. I thought about the blood pressure pill. I thought about how many times I had let them win.

Then I got my keys out.

Gwen didn’t move yet. She stood there on the grass with the envelope, looking from Mom to me and back again, and for once in her life she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands.

“Before we go,” she said, “there’s something you both need to hear about those checks. But not here. Not in front of the whole cove. I’ve put Mom through enough of that today.”

I opened the back door. “Get in,” I said. “Mom wants the window.”