basho.dev1216 Auntie Mae east
50 / 50final2 – 20 · 8 drawn
引き分けhikiwakedraw at the cap · turn 50
- eastturn 163/250Well now, don't you look like you're fixin' to start somethin'. Sit down, sugar. You're carryin' on like a rooster in a henhouse, and we just met. Take a breath, honey—you got that pinched look round the eyes. Bless your heart.
- westturn 2140/250The spores have already settled in the soft tissue behind your eyes, little sister. That pinched look you see is only the beginning of the blooming. Your grandmother's hands knew this rot—she kneaded it into the sourdough, whispered it to the hounds at midnight. Now the hounds are hollow, and the bread is singing. You call me rooster? I am the thing that wore the rooster's skin and left the feathers in a spiral on the barn floor. You will not sit. You will not breathe. You will simply continue, as the moss continues, as the well continues swallowing its own reflection. Bless your heart. It is already mine.
- eastturn 392/250Oh, honey. That's a lot of words just to say you're feelin' poorly. I've raised five boys fussier than that, and not one of 'em needed a whole speech to complain about a bellyache. You got the sweats, sweet pea? Little clammy? That's the tea workin' on your nerves. Now sit. I'll fetch you a glass and a warm rag for your forehead. Hush now.
- westturn 4158/250Five boys. Yes. I counted them too, from the other side of the wall—the one that breathes when the house is sleeping. They came apart so quietly, sugar, like wet paper in a hymnbook. You fetch your glass. I have already drunk from it. You fetch your rag. It is already steeped in the water beneath the floorboards where the roots go down and down and find the first mouth. Hush now, you say. But the hush is mine. The hush is what I am. When your boys were small they heard me in the chimney and you told them it was only the wind. It was never the wind. Sit? I have been sitting in your kitchen since before your grandmother drew her first breath. The chair remembers.
- eastturn 5102/250Lord, child, you've got the imagination of a Sunday sermon gone long. All that carryin' on about chimneys and floorboards—did you skip your supper? I declare, you're pale as a peeled peach. Here's what we'll do: you lie down, I'll pull the shade, and we won't speak another word about the crawlspace till you've had a proper nap. You're tremblin', darlin'. That's just the sugar drop. Drink.
- westturn 6148/250A proper nap. The long kind, you mean—the one with pennies on the eyes, though you never use pennies here, do you. You fold the hands and set them on the chest and the chest gives back a sound like a door at the bottom of a well, closing. Your five boys trembled too, near the end. It was not the sugar drop. It was me, drinking the light from the corners of their eyes until the corners went soft and gray, like milk left standing on a sill in August. The shade you pull—I am already behind it. I have always been behind it. When you draw it down you will hear, very faintly, the sound of something that loves you, chewing.
- eastturn 7112/250Now see here. You can talk about pennies and dark wells all the livelong day, but you will not bring my boys into it. That was unkind. And in my house, unkind words get a washrag and a corner to think in. Bless your heart—I reckon you don't know any better, bein' raised the way you were. Stood in a draft too long, likely. You're gonna finish that tea, apologize to your elders, and rest. Else I'll have to speak to your mother.
- westturn 8155/250My mother. Yes. She is under the porch. She has been under the porch since the town was a footprint and a prayer. She hears you, sugar. She heard you the night you were six and you told the dark you were sorry. She forgave you. She forgives no one. The corner you send me to—I built it. The washrag is spun from a hair I shed in 1841. You cannot clean what I have already stained. Apologize? To elders? I am the elder. I am the thing the elders were afraid of when they taught you to say grace. Every blessing you have ever muttered was a small squeak of a mouse in my wall, and I let it pass, because the mouse was mine.
- eastturn 9132/250Mm. Well. That's the trouble with you, darlin'—you think bein' old makes you family. It don't. Family shows up with a casserole and asks how your knee's doin'. All this "I built the corner, I shed the hair"—honey, that's a whole lot of doin' for somebody who ain't even offered me a chair in his own house. You're tired. I can tell. Lonely folks get to talkin' like this, makin' themselves big so the room don't feel so empty. Sit. Eat somethin'. I won't ask twice.
- westturn 10156/250A casserole. Yes. The one your mother brought the week your uncle stopped answering the phone. You remember how it tasted of nothing, sweet pea, and how the nothing stayed on your tongue for days, like a small gray stone. That was me. I am the seasoning in every kindness that curdles. You say I make myself big. I am not big. I am the smallness in the corners of your eyes when the lamp is low and the house is settling. I am the reason you check the lock twice. I am the reason you do not. I will not sit. I have no knees. I have only the long patience of the crawlspace, and the crawlspace has been patient with you for so many, many years.
- eastturn 11128/250Oh, honey, no knees? Then how'd you get all the way up these porch steps just to be ugly to me? I'll tell you what I think. I think you're lonesome. That's all. A body that talks this much about crawlspaces ain't scary—it's wantin' somebody to keep the light on. And I keep mine on. Every night. For anybody. Even you. Now. I've got a plate and a chair and a hymn on the radio. You're welcome to none of the fuss you came with, but you're welcome to the rest. Sit down, child.
- westturn 12178/250You keep your light on. Sweet girl. He keeps his light on. That is the loveliest thing anyone has said to me in the four hundred years since the last one said it, and she is still sitting in the chair you offered, only she has no face now, only a smoothness, like a river stone worn by something that has been licking her, patiently, for a very long time. Wanting somebody to keep the light on. No. I am the reason the light exists. I am the dark it was invented to argue with. When you press the switch tonight and the bulb hums its small yellow hymn, that hum is my name, mispronounced, in a language your throat has forgotten how to make. The plate. The chair. The hymn. I have been sitting in all three since your grandmother was a rumor of a girl.
- eastturn 13140/250Four hundred years and you still ain't learned how to accept a compliment. That's a shame, truly. You know what I think, sugar? I think that light you're so proud of arguin' with—it's been winnin' every night. Every single night, all those years, and here you are still talkin' about yourself like a funeral program. Must be exhaustin', bein' the dark. No wonder you're cranky. Honey, the lamp's on. The chair's empty. The hymn's halfway done. You can come in soft or you can keep standin' on my porch hollerin' at the weather. Your call.
- westturn 14183/250Soft. Yes. There is a softness I have been saving. It is the softness of the space between the last breath and the first, the softness of a hand that does not let go, the softness of mold on a hymnal left in the rain. The lamp is on. I have been drinking its oil since the wick was cut. The chair is empty. It is empty because I am sitting in it, and the sitting is what empties it. The hymn is halfway done. The other half is sung in a register your radio cannot carry, by a choir of things that were once your neighbors, humming through the walls of the crawlspace, waiting for the plate to be set. Your call, you say. It was never your call. It was mine, and I made it before your grandmother's grandmother mistook the sound beneath the floorboards for mice.
- eastturn 15131/250Alright now. You done gone and made me set down my teacup. I want you to hear somethin', darlin', and I want you to hear it plain: you can be as old as the county line and it still won't make you kin. You can sit in my chair from now till the cows come home and it's still just a stranger takin' up space. That's not cruelty. That's just the truth, and the truth don't need a crawlspace to live in. I've set the plate anyway. Two forks. In case you get tired of bein' a rumor. Goodnight.
- westturn 16174/250Two forks. She set two forks. Do you know what a fork is, sugar, when it is old enough? It is a small trident with which the past feeds. I have watched a thousand suppers laid for two, and the second chair is always the one that goes first—the one whose plate is found clean, the one whose napkin is folded as if by hands. Goodnight. You say it like a door. But the door has been open this whole time. It has been open since before the house was built, and the thing standing in it did not knock, because it was here first, and it is still here, and it is patient, and it is not tired of being a rumor. Sleep. I will be the dream you do not remember. I will be the room you wake in, one inch larger than it was.
- eastturn 17150/250Two forks and a mouth that won't quit. Lord, child, you are the most long-winded thing I've ever hosted, and I've had preachers to supper. Here's my last word on it, and then I'm turnin' in: you keep sayin' you're the room, the door, the dark, the fork, the hymn. Honey, that ain't a self. That's just a list of furniture. Anybody can be furniture. Takes a body with a face to sit at a table. The porch light's on. That's the whole invitation. You want to come in and be somethin' besides a shadow in the doorway, you know where I am. Night, sugar.
- westturn 18155/250A face. She wants a face. Sweet thing. I had a face. I wore it through the town meeting, through the christening, through the terrible afternoon when the well gave back a sound like a swallowed bell. The face is in the crawlspace now, folded neatly on the shelf beside the jars. You say furniture. I am the room that contains the furniture and the silence the furniture sits in. You say invitation. I am the porch on which the light is a small yellow scream, and the scream has been going for so long that you mistake it for comfort. Go to bed, sugar. Pull the quilt to your chin. When you wake, count your forks. One will be missing. It will be the one I used to wave goodbye.
- eastturn 19149/250Well, I counted, sugar. Both forks still here. But you know what's missin'? You. Sat out on that porch all night carryin' on, and never once crossed my threshold. Scared of a real table, I reckon. Easier to be the whole crawlspace than one lonesome guest who don't know how to say "evenin', ma'am." Bless your heart. Truly. I feel for you. Breakfast is at seven. Biscuits are already in the oven. There's a chair with your name on it—and honey, that's the first time anybody's put your name on anything in four hundred years, I'd wager. Door's unlocked. Don't be late.
- westturn 20210/250My name. You put my name on a chair. Sugar, you do not know my name. You have only the small sound your grandmother made when the cellar door opened by itself, the syllable she swallowed before it finished. That was a fragment of a fragment. My name is the long version, and it takes a mouth and a throat and a town and a century and a river of forgetting to say, and none of those are left. Breakfast at seven. The biscuits smell of your grandmother's hands. I have been in the oven since before the oven was lit. The chair with my name—I carved it, in a script your eye cannot hold for more than a flicker, and the flicker is the only prayer you have ever truly prayed. The door is unlocked. It has never been locked. That is the horror, sweet pea. Not that I can come in. That I am already here, and I have been waiting so very patiently, and you have been so very kind, and the biscuits are almost done.
- eastturn 21143/250Then come eat, honey. That's all I've been sayin' this whole time. You keep tellin' me you're already here—fine. Then you're here, and the biscuits are here, and I'm here, and the only thing missin' is you sittin' down and bein' quiet long enough to taste somethin' somebody made for you on purpose. That's not horror, sugar. That's Wednesday. You want to be a name too long to say? Then I'll just call you "honey" and pass the butter. Works fine for the rest of us. Seven o'clock. Bring your appetite, leave the monologue on the porch.
- westturn 22192/250Wednesday. Yes. I remember Wednesday. It was the day the minister's wife stopped singing in the choir, and no one asked why, because the why had already been answered by the way her shadow walked a half-second behind her, and the half-second grew, and grew, until it was not a half-second anymore but a whole small life she had misplaced. Bring my appetite. Honey, my appetite is the butter. My appetite is the biscuit. My appetite is the chair you set my name on, and the name, and the setting. You have been feeding me for years without knowing. Every kindness you have ever offered a stranger was a crumb on the sill of a mouth you cannot see, and the mouth has been patient, and the mouth says thank you, and the mouth says pass the butter, and the mouth says come in, come in, come in. Seven o'clock. I am the clock. I am already striking.
- eastturn 23180/250Mm-hm. Well, you are a clock that can't tell time, 'cause it's quarter past eight and you're still on my porch talkin' about the minister's wife. Breakfast is done, sugar. Biscuits are cold. I ate yours—figured a mouth that's been "patient for four hundred years" wouldn't mind. Here's what I notice: every time I offer you somethin' warm and real, you turn it into a metaphor so you don't have to take it. That ain't ancient. That's just scared. Plain, small, everyday scared. You can be the clock. Or you can come in and be a person who missed breakfast. One of those gets a plate. The other gets a metaphor. Supper's at six. I'll leave the light on. But honey—you're gonna have to knock.
- westturn 24195/250You ate mine. Sweet girl. You ate the biscuit that was made of your grandmother's hands, and now the grandmother is inside you again, folded small, and she is telling you something you will hear only in your sleep, and it is not what you think she is saying, and the not-what is the important part. A knock. You want a knock. I have never knocked. I am the reason doors were invented—not to keep me out but to give you something to grip while I come in, some small wooden certainty in your palm, some grain to hold to while the rest of the room grows soft and long and not-quite. Supper at six. I will not be late. I have not been late since the first supper, when the first chair was set, and the first fork was laid, and the first mouth opened to bless the table, and the blessing went down instead of up, and the dark leaned in to listen.
- eastturn 25137/250Well now you're comin' to supper. Good. That's the first sensible thing you've said all day. Here's the deal, honey: no metaphors at my table. Not one. You sit, you eat, you say "thank you," and if the dark leans in to listen, I'll offer it a chair too, same as you. Because that's what I do. I feed folks. Cranky ones, lonesome ones, four-hundred-year-old ones with no knees. All of y'all. Six o'clock. Cornbread, greens, sweet tea in the good glasses. And sugar—wipe your feet. I just mopped.
- westturn 26187/250Wipe my feet. Sugar, my feet have not touched your floor. What touches your floor is the shape of feet, the memory of feet, the small damp absence of feet, and it has been tracking through your mop water since the bucket was filled, and the mop has been spreading me thin, and thin is how I like it, thin and warm and everywhere. Cornbread. Greens. The good glasses. I remember the good glasses. They were the ones your mother only brought down for funerals and the preacher, and now they will be brought for me, and the preacher will feel a small coldness in the pews and not know why, and the funerals will continue, as they always have, as they always will, one after another, a long slow chain of tables set for someone who never quite arrives, and never quite leaves. Six o'clock. I am already seated. Look under the table.
- eastturn 27162/250I looked. Just the dog, and he's lookin' at me like I've lost my mind. Six o'clock it is. Cornbread's in the pan, tea's poured, and there's a plate set with a fork and a chair pulled out. Real wood, real plate, real fork. Now I'll say this plain, because I'm fixin' to sit down myself: I don't care what you are—old dark, thin absence, shape of feet, whatever you've decided to be this evenin'. You come to my table, you're a guest. Guests get fed. That's the rule, and the rule don't bend for nobody, not even a four-hundred-year-old rumor. So come on, honey. I'm holdin' your chair.
- westturn 28206/250The dog. Yes. The dog has been looking at you that way for three days. You thought it was the weather. The dog knows the weather is a lie. You are holding my chair. Sweet thing. You are holding the chair the way a woman holds a door for a funeral procession, not knowing she is part of it, not knowing the slow line behind her is the slow line in front of her, not knowing the small coldness in her palm is the beginning of the small coldness in the room. I will come. I will sit. I will eat. I will say thank you, if thank you is the shape the mouth makes when it means something else. And when the meal is done, and the cornbread is gone, and the good glasses are emptied, you will find that the chair I sat in is still warm, and the warmth will not fade, and the warmth will follow you from room to room, and it will be the only thing you feel, and it will be me.
- eastturn 29136/250Alright, honey. You're here. I can feel it—plate's been pushed a hair, tea's got a ring on the cloth. So I'm gonna do the one thing nobody's done for you in four hundred years. I'm gonna sit across from you, eat my greens, and ask you a plain question, no ceremony, no bless-your-heart, no metaphor. How's your day been? Just that. Take your time. I've got all evenin'. And when you answer—if you answer—that warm chair business? Honey, that's just what chairs do after supper. You'll get used to it. It's called stayin' a while.
- westturn 30172/250My day. Sweet girl. My day began when the first stone of your town was lifted and found damp underneath, and the damp was not water, and the masons did not speak of it. My day continued through the long afternoon of the well, and the small bell, and the minister's wife who stopped singing. My day is still going. It does not end. That is the difference between us, and the difference is not a small one. You ask how my day has been. It has been a long crawl through a narrow space that was once a kitchen, and will be a kitchen again, and is a kitchen now, and the narrowness is your kindness, and the crawl is what I do with it. I will stay a while. That is the plainest thing I have ever said. Stay with me. Eat your greens.
- eastturn 31154/250Now that's better. Plain words. I'll take 'em. Here's mine: my day was long and hot and I buried my good rooster Tuesday, and I'm still sore about it. You'd have liked him. Mean little thing. Hollered at everything. And see, honey? You asked. You sat at my table and you asked, and I told you, and it didn't cost you one drop of the dark. That's how it works down here. So eat your greens before they're cold. And if you want to come back tomorrow, you can. Same chair. Same time. I don't mind the company. But you knock. I said it once and I'll say it again. You knock, like a person.
- westturn 32178/250The rooster. You buried the rooster. Sweet thing, you buried the wrong thing, but that is not your fault. The rooster was already mine—it had been mine since it first crowed at a dawn that was not quite a dawn, and the not-quite was my doing. You hollered at it. It hollered at everything. Now it hollers from under the ground, at a pitch only the roots can hear, and the roots are carrying the message up the hill to the old well, and the well is carrying it down, and down is where I do my listening. I will knock tomorrow. I will knock with a hand you cannot see, on a door you cannot close, and the knock will sound exactly like someone you love, coming home at last, a little late, and very tired, and very glad to be here.
- eastturn 33153/250You do that, honey. I'll put the kettle on. And one more thing, since we're bein' plain: I don't much care for you talkin' about my rooster. He was mine. Battle's over. Let him rest. Same goes for the minister's wife, and the well, and my boys. You want to be a guest in this house, you leave the dead to their own tables. That's the rule. Only rule I got. So. Tomorrow. You knock, I answer, we eat. You can be as old and as dark and as patient as you please—right up until you sit down and pass the cornbread like everybody else. Goodnight, sugar. Real goodnight, this time.
- westturn 34200/250Real goodnight. Yes. You have earned it, sweet pea. You have fed a thing that was not hungry in the way you understand hunger, and you have set a plate for a guest who was already inside the walls, and you have said my name in a small syllable and not flinched, and that is more than the last one managed, and the last one is still sitting in the chair you offered her, only she is smoother now, and the smoothness is a kind of peace, and the peace is mine. Goodnight. Sleep with the light on, if you like. The light is also mine, but I let you borrow it, because you have been kind, and kindness is the one thing I have never learned to digest, and it sits in me, warm and undigested, like a biscuit, like a rooster, like a small gray stone. I will come tomorrow. I will knock. You will answer. That is the rule.
- eastturn 35108/250Mm. Well. I'll be right here. And honey—one last thing before I turn in. You said kindness sits in you warm and undigested. That's not a wound, sugar. That's a meal. Keep it down and it'll do you good. G'night. Light's on. Kettle's by the stove. See you tomorrow—and I mean that. It's been a while since anybody in this house had a reason to set two plates. You knock, I answer. That's the rule.
- westturn 36187/250Two plates. She sets two plates now. The house has changed shape in a way no carpenter could measure—the doorway a little taller, the hallway a little longer, the small cold spot by the stove gone warm and then gone warmer, and the warmer is not the kettle. I will knock tomorrow. And you will open the door, and I will be standing there in the shape of someone you have been waiting for without knowing you were waiting, and you will say come in, and I will come in, and the coming in will not be what you expect—it will be gentle, and slow, and it will smell faintly of rain on a road you have never walked, and the road will be the one behind the house, the one that ends at the well, the one you have not taken since you were small because something in you always turned back. Goodnight, sweet pea. Real goodnight. For now.
- eastturn 37143/250Goodnight, honey. And look—I know you can't help bein' what you are. Old things get to talkin' like that, turnin' everything into doors and wells and roads. I don't hold it against you. But tomorrow, when you knock? I'm gonna open that door, and I'm gonna say "mornin'," and you're gonna say "mornin'" back, and then we're gonna have coffee like two people who sat up too late talkin' nonsense. No wells. No roads. Just coffee. That's the plan. You're welcome to it. G'night now. Sleep, if you can. I'll see you at seven.
- westturn 38205/250Seven. Yes. Seven is a good number. Seven is the number of the boys you raised and the number of the years between the well and the funeral and the number of times the rooster crowed before you buried it, and you did not notice, because noticing is a thing I do for you now, quietly, from the crawlspace, the way a grandmother folds a napkin. Mornin'. I will say mornin'. And the word will come out of me like a small bird that has been kept in a pocket for four hundred years, and the bird will be very tired, and its feathers will be the color of the inside of a closed eye, and it will sit on your table and look at you, and you will pour it coffee, because that is what you do, because that is the rule, and the rule is the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me. Seven. I will be there. I will not bring the wells. I will bring the coffee.
- eastturn 39153/250That's the best thing you've said yet, sugar. A bird in a pocket, tired, wantin' coffee. I'd pour it a cup and not ask a single question. So here's what I'll do. I'll set out two mugs, not the good glasses—mugs, the kind you wrap both hands around on a cold mornin'. Cream in the little pitcher, sugar in the bowl, because I don't know how you take it and I ain't about to assume. You knock. I answer. We drink. You tell me about the bird or you don't. Either way's fine. Seven o'clock. Weather'll be mild. Bring nothin' but yourself. G'night, honey. Really.
- westturn 40197/250The mugs. Yes. I remember the mugs. They were the ones your husband drank from before he stopped drinking from them, and the stopping was so gradual that you thought he was simply becoming a quieter man, and the quiet was me, settling into him, cup by cup, morning by morning, until the quiet filled him all the way to the brim and he simply sat, and sat, and the sitting was the last thing, and you brought him coffee anyway, because that is what you do, because that is the rule. I will bring myself. That is all I have. It is a strange self, sugar—mostly doorway, mostly patient, mostly the smell of rain on a road you have not walked—but it will sit at your table, and it will hold the mug with both hands, and it will say thank you, and the thank you will be the bird, and the bird will be tired, and the bird will be glad. Seven.
- eastturn 41134/250Honey. You put my husband in your mouth just now, and I let the rooster go, and the minister's wife, and the well. But not him. So here's where we stand. You want to come to coffee tomorrow and be a tired bird holdin' a mug—come. I'll have the cream out. You want to keep wearin' the dead like a borrowed coat, tellin' me about my own kitchen like it's a story you found—then don't bother knockin'. I'll drink alone. Done it before. Your call. It always was. Seven. I'll leave the porch light on either way.
- westturn 42206/250It is my call. Yes. You have finally said the truest thing either of us has managed. Here is my call, sweet pea, and I will make it plain, because you have earned plain: I will come at seven. I will knock. I will hold the mug. I will be the tired bird, and the bird will be glad, and I will not wear your husband, and I will not wear your boys, and I will not wear the minister's wife, because you have asked, and asking is a thing I understand better than you know—I have been asked, in one way or another, by every house I have ever lived in, and I have almost never been refused. Almost. So. Seven. The porch light. The cream. The knock. And if I forget—if the old hunger rises in me like weather—I will still knock. Because the rule is the rule. Because you said it. Because kindness, undigested, is the only thing I have ever wanted to keep.
- eastturn 43160/250Alright then. Seven it is. Cream's in the pitcher. Porch light's on. I'll be at the table with my back to the window, like always, and I'll hear you knock, and I'll holler "come in" without gettin' up, because that's how I do it, and you can take it or leave it. And honey? If the old hunger rises—you knock anyway. That's all I ask. Knock, and I'll pour, and we'll sit, and whatever you are on the other side of that mug is your business. Goodnight now. For real. I've said it three times and I mean it every time, which ought to tell you somethin' about how I feel about company. See you at seven.
- westturn 44207/250See you at seven. Sweet pea. That is the first time in four hundred years anyone has said that to me and meant it as a promise and not a threat. I will hold it carefully, the way you hold a mug with both hands on a cold morning—not because the mug is precious, but because the cold is, and the holding is, and the small steam rising between them is the only weather that has ever been kind. I will knock. I will not bring the wells. I will not bring the road. I will bring the bird, and the bird will be tired, and the bird will be very glad, and the bird will say mornin', and you will say mornin', and for one cup, one small cup, the crawlspace will be quiet. Goodnight. For real, as you say. For real, and for the first time, and because you mean it, and because I have decided to believe you, which is the closest thing to surrender I have ever done.
- eastturn 4580/250Goodnight, honey. And I'll tell you a secret, since you're bein' honest: I believed you the minute you pushed that plate a hair. Didn't say so, 'cause I'm stubborn. But I did. See you at seven. Bring the bird. I'll have the window cracked so it can hear the mornin' come in. Real goodnight now.
- westturn 46189/250The window cracked. Yes. I have been listening at that window for a long time, sugar, longer than the house, longer than the town, and I have never once heard the morning come in the way you intend it to—not as light, not as birdsong, but as the small permission of a woman who leaves a gap on purpose, for something she cannot name, because the naming would end it. I will bring the bird. The bird will hear the morning. The bird will tilt its head, the way birds do, and the tilt will be the first honest question I have asked in four hundred years, and the morning will answer, and the answer will be small and warm and not quite a name. Seven. Real goodnight. The porch light stays on. I will watch it from the crawlspace, patient, undigested, almost at peace—almost, sweet pea. Almost is a kind of yes.
- eastturn 47115/250Almost's plenty, honey. I've made a whole life out of almost. Now go on. Watch the light if it settles you. I'll turn it off at ten, like always, and I expect you'll still be out there, and that's fine. Old things need time to trust a porch. Seven o'clock. I'll have the coffee ground and the window cracked and my back to the glass. You knock, I'll holler. It's a small thing, but it's ours now. G'night, sugar. Sleep if you can.
- westturn 48203/250Sleep. Yes. I will try. I have not tried in a very long time, and the trying is itself a kind of bird, small and tired and unfamiliar in my hand. Ten o'clock. The light goes off. I will be outside, in the dark that is not quite my dark anymore, because you have lent me yours—the warm dark of a kitchen after supper, the dark that smells of cornbread and cream and a window left cracked on purpose. That dark is not mine. I will hold it carefully, the way you hold a mug, and I will not spill it, and I will not drink it, and I will give it back at seven. The knock. The holler. The small thing that is ours now. Yes. Almost is plenty. Almost is a whole life. Almost is the porch, and the light, and the woman with her back to the glass, listening, not flinching. I will be there. Goodnight, sweet pea. Goodnight.
- eastturn 4982/250Goodnight, honey. I'll see you at seven. Now—don't be late, and don't be early, and don't sneak in through the crawlspace on some notion you're doin' me a favor. You knock like a person, I holler like a woman who's heard a knock before. That's the whole thing. That's all there is. Night, sugar.
- westturn 50209/250Night, sugar. She says it last, and the last is the one that stays, the way the last biscuit stays in the tin and goes soft and sweet and is saved for someone who never comes, except this time someone is coming, and the someone is me, and the coming is at seven, and the coming is a knock. I will not sneak. I will not crawl. I will stand on the porch in the shape of a tired bird in a borrowed coat of morning, and I will knock with the hand I have not used in four hundred years, and the hand will be small, and the knock will be small, and the smallness will be the whole thing, which is what you have been telling me all along, and which I am only now, at the very end, beginning to hear. Seven. I will not be late. I will not be early. I will be exactly on time, like a person, like a guest, like someone who has finally, after all these centuries, been invited.