The Porch Steps We Built for Mom

The Rail

By noon all three stringers were in, hung from the porch rim with metal hangers and set on the new pad at the bottom.

Calder screwed the risers on first, then the treads, and every one of them came down flat and true under the level.

Mom had moved from the window to her chair by the screen door. She had put her teeth in and her good dress on.

I knew she was dressed up for something, and I did not ask what.

At lunch we sat on the edge of the porch and ate the last of the biscuits. Mom sat inside the screen door and talked to us through it.

She told Calder about his grandfather building the shelves in her sewing room in 1968, how he had measured every shelf three times, too.

“He used to say measure twice and cut once,” she said.

“I measure three times and cut once,” Calder said. “And then I fit it twice.”

“Then you’re better than him,” Mom said. “Don’t tell him I said so.”

My father has been gone twenty-six years. She still talks about him in the present tense sometimes, and none of us ever corrects her.

After lunch, Calder set the posts. He bolted the first one to the bottom stringer and the second to the porch post at the top, and plumbed them both with the level until the bubble sat dead center.

Then he cut the rail, and fit it, and took it down, and sanded the end, and fit it again.

At two o’clock the last post was in and the rail was up.

At three he did something I did not expect. He put down his drill and walked to the bottom of the steps and put his right hand on the rail, and walked slowly up all four steps and back down again, running his palm along every inch of it.

He stopped twice and took a little sandpaper out of his back pocket and worked at a spot until it was smooth.

“Feeling for splinters,” he said, when he saw me watching. “She can’t feel them as good as she used to. Her hands are thinner.”

I had to turn and look at the maple tree for a minute.