The Porch Story Hour

The first Thursday

Our house is an old farmhouse that was Josh’s grandfather’s, white once, with a porch that wraps around two sides and a roof deep enough to keep off a good Arkansas downpour. It sits back from the county road on a gravel drive, with a cattle gap at the end and a green pasture beyond where a neighbor runs a dozen head of Angus.

Josh’s mother had given us her rocking chair when she moved into town. It was oak, with a seat of wide slats, one of them replaced. I pulled it to the middle of the porch.

I laid an old patchwork blanket on the floorboards, the one that used to live on the back of the couch. I baked two dozen oatmeal cookies from the recipe on the Quaker canister, because it was Thursday and I did not know what else to do with my hands.

The potted mums along the rail were Josh’s mother’s idea. She had bought a half dozen at the feed store and said a porch ought to look like somebody is expected.

At ten o’clock, nobody was expected.

At five after ten, Lori came up the drive.

Lori goes to church with us and teaches Sunday school to the four-year-olds. She had heard from somebody who heard from somebody. She came with her two girls, six and three, both in rain boots though the sky was clear.

“I hope this is all right,” she said at the foot of the steps. “Cassie has been asking where the library lady’s books went.”

“The library lady is my sister-in-law,” I said.

“I know,” Lori said gently. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Sit down. There are cookies.”

That made three children and Truman. I sat in the rocker with my mustard yellow sweater pulled around me because the morning was cool, and I opened the first book, a picture book about a bear who can’t sleep, and began to read.

Truman sat close against my knee with the rabbit in his lap. When the first page turned, he began to hum.

Lori’s girls looked at him. The three-year-old tipped her head. I kept reading.

By the third page the older girl had started humming too, quietly, just to see. Truman glanced over at her, and for a second I thought he might be bothered. Instead he hummed up a half step, like he was making room.

Nobody shushed anybody. That was the whole thing. I read that bear to sleep, and nobody shushed anybody.

After the last page Lori sat with her hands in her lap for a moment. “That was the first time Cassie has sat still for a book since June,” she said. I did not know what to say to that, so I passed the cookies.