Rosettes on the Church Steps

I stood beside her. I had on my navy quilted vest over a gray sweater, because it was cold in the shade and warm in the sun, the way October mornings are on those steps. The maple next to us was blazing orange.

At five minutes to eight, an old man in a tan barn coat and a seed cap came walking up the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets.

Tollef Haugen. He lives two doors down from Mom and has for thirty-one years.

Tollef has bought the first dozen of Mom’s rosettes every year since before I was married.

He used to be first in line at the fellowship hall door when it opened at nine. Somebody had told him about the steps.

“Inga,” he said, and took off his cap.

“Tollef,” she said. “You’re early.”

“I’m always early.” He looked at the table, at the stacked rows of rosettes white with sugar, at the blue cash box under her hand.

Something in his face changed, very slightly, the way an old farmer’s face changes when he sees a field that has come back after hail.

“One dozen, please,” he said. “And I’ll pay full price. Don’t you give me any neighbor discount this year.”

I filled a white bakery bag with twelve rosettes, counting them out loud, and handed it to him.

He reached for it with one hand and held a ten dollar bill out to Mom with the other.

Mom took the ten and put it in the cash box. She wrote something in her spiral notebook with the pencil. Then she looked up at him.

“Thank you, Tollef,” she said.

“Thank you, Inga,” he said. He put his cap back on. Then, instead of leaving, he stood at the bottom of the steps with his bag of rosettes, eating one, and every time somebody walked past he said, “Inga Thorsrud’s rosettes. Best in the county.”

The line

By eight-thirty there were six people waiting on the sidewalk. By nine, when the fall walk started and the shops on Water Street opened their doors, there were twenty.

People I had known all my life came up to that table. My old fourth grade teacher bought three dozen and said she would freeze two for Christmas.

A young couple pushing a stroller bought a dozen and stood on the sidewalk eating them out of the bag.

The bus drivers came. Every one of my drivers who was off that Saturday came by the church steps.

Most of them did not even like rosettes. They bought a dozen anyway, and they said, “Morning, Mrs. Thorsrud,” and they went on their way.

A woman from the quilting circle brought Mom a cup of hot cider from the stand on the corner and set it on the step next to her chair.

She did not say anything. She just touched Mom’s shoulder and went back down.

I made change out of the blue cash box and Mom wrote every sale in her notebook. She wrote the time, too, in her small slanted handwriting. I did not ask her why.

At about a quarter to ten, my sister Marit came walking up from the direction of the river trail.

She was alone. She stopped at the edge of the pavement and looked at Mom, and Mom looked up at her.

“Hi, Mom,” Marit said.

“Hello, sweetheart,” Mom said. “Would you hand Solveig that empty tray? My arms are tired.”

Marit came over and took the empty tray and stacked it behind the table. Then she stayed.

She stood on Mom’s other side and took bakery bags out of the carton and opened them, one after another, so they would be ready. She did not say anything else.

It was the kindest thing I had seen my sister do in a long time, and I told her so later, and she cried.