And I had just received the call — foreclosure had officially begun.
The woman on the phone was kind about it, which somehow made it worse.
Ninety days.
I stepped outside because I couldn’t catch my breath.
That’s when I saw Mrs. Higgins.
She was 82, newly w*dowed — her husband, Walter, had passed in March; I’d taken over a casserole and left it on the step because I didn’t know what to say — and she was struggling to push a rusted lawnmower through grass that had grown nearly to her knees.
I should have gone back inside.
I had enough problems of my own.
But I didn’t.
I walked over, carefully took the mower from her, told her to sit down, and spent the next three hours mowing her lawn.
Three hours because the mower kept dy*ng.
Three hours because the grass was so high I had to do every pass twice.
My ankles were swollen, my clothes drenched, and more than once I had to stop just to breathe through the pain.
She sat on her porch step the whole time.
She didn’t go inside for water.
She didn’t go in for shade.
She sat on a concrete step in ninety-five degrees for three hours and watched a pregnant stranger cut her grass, and I remember thinking, dimly, through the heat: she’s watching me like she’s checking something.
When I finished, she held my hand.
Her hands were very cold, which I thought was the air conditioning.
“You’re a good girl,” she said softly. “Don’t forget that.”
I didn’t think much of it.
I went home, drank a liter of water standing at the sink, and slept badly.
Then, early the next morning, sirens woke me up.
Right outside MY house.
My heart dropped.
There was a sharp knock at my door.
When I opened it, a sheriff stood there.
Behind him were two patrol cars.
