I opened my mouth. Closed it. Forced a smile.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
She didn’t believe me. I could tell. But she didn’t push, either. Instead, very slowly, she loosened her grip on the handle, then let go entirely. She lowered herself onto her porch steps with a long, grateful sigh.
“Thank you, Ariel,” she said softly. “You’re a lifesaver.”
I set the bills down on her porch railing, yanked the pull cord, and the old mower coughed back to life.
The first few passes weren’t so bad. Then the heat started to climb inside me. The grass was thick and wet at the roots, and my sandals squelched with every step. My belly pulled the mower’s handle toward me at an awkward angle. Sweat rolled down my spine. A wave of dizziness rose up, then faded, then rose again.
But I kept going. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Every time I turned at the end of a row, I caught Mrs. Higgins watching me from the steps. There was a strange, thoughtful look on her face. Not pity. Something deeper than that. Like she was working out a puzzle she’d been given, and she was getting close to the answer.
About halfway through, my breath caught in my throat. The world tilted a little. I stopped, leaned my whole weight against the handle, and pressed my forearm to my face.
When I lowered it, Mrs. Higgins was standing beside me with a tall glass of lemonade, ice clinking, the outside of the glass beaded with cold water.
“Sit,” she ordered. “Right now. You’ll make yourself sick.”
I didn’t argue. I followed her to the porch and sank onto the top step, gulping the lemonade so fast it made my teeth ache. My pulse was racing.
Mrs. Higgins eased down beside me. For a while, she didn’t say a word. She just reached over and patted my knee, twice, the way my grandmother used to.
After a minute, she asked, “How much longer for you?”
I looked down at my belly. “Six weeks. If she lets me go that long.”
“A girl,” she said, and something in her face softened. She smiled, a little wistful. “I remember those days. My Walter was such a nervous wreck. He packed the hospital bag a full month early and kept checking it every night, like the clothes might have wandered off.”
I laughed. It surprised me how good it felt.
Her hand trembled slightly as she lifted her own glass to her lips.
“He sounds like a good man,” I said.
“Oh, he was, Ariel. He was the best.” She was quiet for a moment, gazing out at the half-mowed lawn. “It gets lonely, you know. When you lose the one person who remembers all your stories. Nobody else knows the beginning of the jokes anymore.”
Then she turned and looked straight at me.
“Who’s in your corner, Ariel?”
The question hit me harder than the heat. I stared out at the street and willed myself not to cry. I lost.
“Nobody,” I said. “Not anymore. My ex, Lee, walked out when I told him I was pregnant. And this morning, the bank called. They’re starting foreclosure.” My voice cracked. “I don’t know what happens next. I really don’t.”
Mrs. Higgins didn’t gasp or cluck her tongue. She just studied my face, very carefully, like she was reading something written there in small print.
“You’ve been doing all of this by yourself,” she said.
I gave her a watery half-smile. “Looks that way. I’m stubborn, I guess.”
“Stubborn is just another word for strong,” she said. “But even strong women need somebody to hand them a glass of lemonade once in a while.”
For illustrative purposes only
