The Porch Steps We Built for Mom

Sunday

The next morning was Sunday. My mother got up before I did. When I came over at nine to drive her, she was already sitting on the top step of her new porch in her church coat, with her Bible in her lap and her purse on her arm.

She walked down all four steps on her own with her hand on the rail. She did not tap them with her cane this time.

She walked to my car and got in like she had been doing it every Sunday of her life.

At church, Agatha saw her come in and put her hand over her mouth. Then she came across the aisle and hugged her for a long time, and the two of them sat together in their old place and sang alto on every verse of every hymn.

The preacher stopped in the middle of the announcements and said it was good to see Sister Clementine back with us, and the whole room said amen, and my mother turned red and looked at her hymnal.

Hollis Danby came to supper that afternoon. He brought a pie from the grocery store and apologized for it. He ate two bowls of my chicken and dumplings and told my mother about the time his wife had tried to drive a riding lawn mower into town for a part.

My mother laughed until she had to wipe her eyes.

When he left, he went out the front door and down the new steps. He put his hand on the rail the whole way down.

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at my mother’s house that year, the first time in three years. My mother sat at the head of her own table and said the blessing, and she thanked the Lord for her family, and for her health, and for “the steps,” and Calder turned so red I thought he would have to leave the room.

After dinner the whole family sat out on the porch in our coats in the bright cold, the way we used to, and my mother went up and down those steps three times just to show my cousins she could.

Calder graduated from his carpentry program a year and a half later. He works for a builder out of Prestonsburg now and does porches and decks on the side.

When people ask him how he got started, he tells them about his grandmother’s front steps. He keeps the spiral notepad with the first drawing in it in the glove box of his truck.

My mother still lives in the little white frame house across from Hollis Danby. She goes to the mailbox every morning herself, and she does not let anybody do it for her.

She says it is the only exercise a seamstress ever gets.

And the next spring, Hollis Danby fixed the steps on all three of his other houses.