“Aunt Bea talked about you on the phone the night before she died.”
That surprised me.
“What did she say?”
Her niece smiled.
“She said the baby next door was going to be okay.”
Three weeks later, I stood in my nursery with one hand resting on my belly.
For the first time in months, there were no foreclosure notices on the kitchen counter.
No boxes waiting to be packed.
The room was small. The crib was secondhand. One wall still needed paint.
But it was ours.
My daughter was born five weeks after Mrs. Whitcomb died.
When the nurse asked whether I’d chosen a name, I looked down at the tiny face against my chest and thought about a hot afternoon, an old lawnmower, and an eighty-two-year-old woman who had asked me who was in my corner.
“Maeve,” I said.
The nurse smiled.
“That’s beautiful.”
I looked toward the hospital window.
“An old friend helped me choose it.”
I still mow the lawn next door sometimes.
Mrs. Whitcomb’s family hasn’t sold the house yet, and nobody has asked me to. I just don’t like seeing the grass get too high.
And every time I push the mower past her porch, I remember the last thing she asked of me.
Not to repay her.
Just to notice someone else when my life finally became easier.
I’m not there yet.
But for the first time in a long time, I believe I will be.
