The Porch Full of Oak

Mom was standing on the porch by the screen door. She had on her navy cardigan over the floral blouse she wore to church, and her blue jeans, and she was holding her coffee mug in both hands. Her short white hair was lit up in the sun.

The split oak ran along the whole porch wall, as high as the windowsills. Bark up. Ends square.

I do not think my father would have found anything to fix in it. Well, maybe one or two pieces. He always found one or two.

I was on my way up the steps when I heard a truck on the county road. Everybody on our road knows the sound of everybody else’s truck. I knew whose it was before I turned around.

It was Gerald. He was coming slow, slower than anybody drives that road. He slowed almost to a stop at the end of the drive, and I could see him through the windshield, looking up at the porch.

He looked at it for a long time. I stood there on the bottom step with the oak in my arms.

Wade stood at the tailgate with a split piece in each hand. Neither one of us moved.

Across the road, the door of Arvella’s house opened. The neighbors came out on her front step with their bowls of chili, one at a time.

The dairy farmer. The two boys. The woman from church. Arvella herself, in her apron.

Nobody said anything. They just stood there and watched Gerald’s truck sitting at the end of Mom’s drive with the engine running.

I thought he would drive on. I think most men would have. It would have been the easy thing, to step on the gas and go on down to the highway and never look at that porch again.

Then Gerald turned into the drive.

The gravel popped under his tires. He pulled up behind our pickup and shut off the engine. For a minute he just sat there with both hands on the wheel.

I could see how old he looked. He had lost weight since the funeral. His face was gray.

Wade set his oak down on the tailgate. He did not walk over and he did not say anything.

He just stood there with his gloves on, and I loved him for that. He let it be Mom’s.

Gerald got out of the truck. He had on his old trucking company jacket, the one with the name worn off the back.

He walked across the gravel toward the house, slow, like his knees hurt him, and the whole road watched him do it.

He came to the bottom of the steps where I was standing. He looked at me. He looked at the oak in my arms.

Then he looked up at the porch, at the stack, at Mom standing by the screen door with her coffee.

I stepped aside. I did not decide to. My feet just did it. I went up two steps and set my armload on the end of the stack and stood there against the porch post, and I left the steps for him.

He had to climb them. Four wooden steps, in front of all of them, with his brother’s wife at the top.

I have thought a lot about those four steps since. I think they were the longest walk Gerald ever made.

He stopped at the top. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. He was looking at the wood, not at Mom. His hands were shaking a little.