My Nephew Set His Eviction Notice Beside My Sister’s Funeral Flowers

Quincy put the flowers in the sink so his papers could have the whole table.

My sister had been buried less than two days. There was still a white ribbon caught on the pump house door.

Esther had died in Wareham, a few miles from the bogs she had refused to sell.

"Uncle Amos, this place isn't safe for you anymore."

I was a tall, lean Black man of sixty-nine, with close-cut silver hair, a white chin beard, and a left knee that would not straighten.

My nephew looked at that knee while he spoke.

The crew sheets had called me Amos Reddick, cranberry-bog pump keeper, for thirty-six years. Retirement had ended my wages. It hadn't made me forget which ditch fed which bed.

Quincy Reddick was a broad Black man of forty-four, with a shaved head, a neat beard, and polished brown shoes that never seemed to touch mud.

He had parked those shoes on Esther's rag rug.

"I kept these bog pumps running thirty-six years," I said. "I know where the floor is weak."

"That's exactly my concern. You're retired. Let someone look after you."

He said concern the way other men said hurry.

I rested my hand on the polished brass valve wheel mounted across my ash walking stick. It had come off the old south pump. Esther had paid a woodworker to fit it after my knee gave out.

Three light taps on the floor. That was how I asked the knee to wait.

Quincy set down a copy of her will.

"She left me the operation. Land, buildings, equipment. Everything."

"She left you what she owned."

He smiled at that, as if I had repeated myself at supper.

Outside, rain made rings in the tailwater ditch. Beyond it lay the flat cranberry beds, dark vines under a low October sky. A truck hissed along the road toward Wareham village.

"I've arranged a room for you," he said. "First month paid. Nine hundred dollars. You'll like having people around."

"I have people around."

"You have growers asking favors."

He pushed a second sheet toward me. MOVE-OUT AGREEMENT sat across the top. Friday was three days away.

Below that, in smaller print, I would give up all claims to occupancy, use, access, or control.

"Why does a move need four different words for leaving?"

"Standard form."

"Then it can wait for a standard lawyer."

His mouth tightened. He had made a living buying tired properties and selling bright plans. He was good at putting a soft voice on a hard demand.

"Mom let you stay because you helped her," he said. "I can't carry that arrangement forever."

I looked at the patch above the stove. I had opened that wall during the freeze of 2004. A cracked line had sent water through the room while Esther sat in a hospital waiting for heart surgery.

My savings had paid the repair crew. My hands had rebuilt the intake rack. Esther had kept every bill.

She had also driven me to a lawyer in Plymouth.

"Charity doesn't usually come with a registry stamp," I said.

Quincy lifted the will.

"This has a lawyer's name on it."

I let him hold it there.

There was a narrow cabinet behind my chair. Inside it was a blue envelope with a book and page number written in Esther's square hand. I could have reached it without standing.

Instead, I asked, "Have you read the water schedule?"

"The consultant is handling that."

"Lucille starts her west bed Thursday. You can't pull the holding pond below the red mark."

"I'm not discussing pumps. I'm discussing your future."

That was when I knew he had not read enough.

He left the notice beside the sympathy cards. At the door he stopped.

"Don't make this expensive, Uncle. Mom wouldn't want that."

After his car left, I took out the envelope.

The copy inside had grown soft along its folds. LIFETIME USE AND WATER-CONTROL RIGHTS. Esther's signature. Mine. Two witnesses. A recording stamp dated twenty-two years earlier.

The large survey sheet was missing. A note on the back named the survey office that had kept the signed original.

Esther had written one more line beneath it.

Make them show the whole drawing.

I sat with that sentence until someone knocked three times.

Lucille Barros stood outside holding a covered pot. She was sixty-six, Cape Verdean American, and had grown cranberries across our ditch since before Quincy learned to drive. Her gray braid hung over one shoulder. Rain shone on her rubber boots.

"Soup," she said. "And no, a cracker is not supper."

I moved the eviction notice so she could put the pot down.

She read it without touching it.

"He gave you three days?"

"He paid for a room."

"How generous with money that buys him something."

She opened the lid, then went still at a yellow sheet under Quincy's will.

"Where did this come from?"

"His folder, I expect."

It was a work order. West Outlet Regrade. Deposit paid: $6,200.

Lucille tapped the little map at the bottom.

"Amos, why is his new property line running through my holding pond?"