“Mrs. Gable,” Norma said. “She said her garden was too much for her this year, so she had me pull the dandelions along the fence and clean out her porch swing.”
I knew Mrs. Gable had three grown sons in Columbus who could have cleared her yard in an afternoon. It was pity, plain and simple, though I did not want to say the word out loud to my daughter.
“We do not need their charity,” I said softly, my voice barely louder than the hum of the old refrigerator.
“It is not charity if I pull the weeds, Mom,” Norma said, her eyes flashing with a sudden, quiet heat.
She stacked the bills back into the shoebox, her fingers moving with a fierce, quiet speed that made the dry paper crinkle.
“Your father would not have wanted you walking yourself to pieces for a prom dress,” I said, tracing the edge of the wooden table.
Norma stopped her counting, her thumbs resting on the edge of the cardboard box.
“Dad would have wanted me to look like I belonged there,” she said, her voice dropping into a quiet murmur.
I looked at her small, determined face, seeing so much of Joe in the set of her jaw and the stubborn rise of her chin.
“We will find a way,” I said, though my voice lacked the certainty she wanted.
By five-thirty, the soapy water in the double sink had gone lukewarm. I stood washing the dinner plates while Norma stood beside me with the flour-sack towel, her slender shoulders bowed over a stoneware bowl.
“Bob called while you were at the grocery,” Norma said, drying the bowl with quick, jerky strokes.
I stopped my hand under the suds, the warm water soaking into my wrists. “Which Bob?”
“Bob from the motel,” she said. “He said his sister needs her back hill cleared of those wild blackberry brambles before the rain comes on Thursday.”
