The Little Yellow Light We Left Burning After Supper

The duplex sat on a quiet street with a ditch out front and a pecan tree leaning over the fence.

Its blue porch needed paint at one corner. The screen door dragged. There were two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and enough yard for three lawn chairs.

June counted the windows.

“These all open?”

The landlord showed her how the latches worked. Lena checked the rent, the deposit, and who paid for repairs. I stood back while she asked her questions.

When she finished reading, she signed the lease.

“Six hundred fifty a month,” she said to me outside. “I can manage that when I'm back on my regular hours.”

Her job cleaning offices was waiting. Her supervisor had put her on shorter shifts at first. The hospital had helped her arrange the next visits and talk through the bill.

Nothing about the folder made the rest of her life easy. It gave her a place to start doing the work.

We moved them the following Saturday.

The man from the meeting brought his truck. Alma brought towels and a pot of red beans. The retired teacher came with a box of books, then asked June which ones she wanted to keep.

I fixed the dragging screen and checked the porch light.

The bulb was dead.

June stood beside my tool bag with her paper house.

“I have the money.”

“Let's see what it costs.”

At the little hardware shop, she set her coins on the counter. The bulb cost $1.79. With tax, her $2.40 covered it, with a little change left over.

She carried the bag home against her chest.

Lena held the ladder while I put it in. June stayed by the switch inside.

“Now?”

“Now.”

The yellow light came on under the porch roof.

June ran out, looked up, and went back inside to switch it off. Then on again.

Lena laughed until she had to sit down.

Over the next month, the loose ends took more time than moving day.

Patrice checked in with Lena and Alma, then closed her involvement after confirming that June was settled with her mother. June went back to school on Monday with her library book and both good shoes.

The bookkeeper finished reviewing Dock House's records. The board sent Lena a written finding that she had returned the money and owed nothing. Della's $900 repayment restored the fund to $18,000 before Lena's approved $2,200 was paid. That left $15,800 for other families.

There were no other missing fund payments. There were unanswered requests, and the new director began calling those families herself.

Leon sent me a refund for my $24 supper tickets. I gave the money to Lena for groceries. She accepted it after making me promise I would come eat some of them.

I did.

Della wrote Lena an apology without asking for an answer. She also wrote to me.

We met on a bench outside Dock House one afternoon. I brought the tin of letters.

“I was afraid he'd need you more,” she said.

I looked at her for a long time.

“He could have needed both of us.”

She cried quietly. I stayed until she was ready to leave. We agreed to meet again the next month. I had not forgiven nine years in one afternoon, but I had stopped letting her carry every message between us.

I read Dad's letters at my kitchen table, two or three each night.

Some were hard. He had been stubborn. So had I. But there were pages about rain, a broken cabinet, and a bird nesting above the laundry vent.

In the last letter, he wrote that he should have picked up the phone himself. He had been afraid I would hang up.

I wished he had given me the chance to answer. I sat with that page for a long while.

In one, he asked if my hands still ached after a long shift.

I put that letter in my work bag.

On the first cool evening in November, Lena invited Alma and me for supper. June set four places, then added a fifth chair beside the table.

I paused in the doorway.

“Who's that one for?”

“My school bag,” she said. “It falls over on the floor.”

I pulled out my chair and sat down.

After we ate, June showed me a new drawing. Her old paper house was taped flat inside its frame. Around it, she had drawn Lena, Alma, herself, and a big man holding a wrench.

The man had a blue shirt.

“You got my good side,” I said.

“You only have one face.”

Alma laughed into her tea.

When it was time to leave, Lena stood at the screen door while June walked me to my truck. She had stopped carrying the emergency phone numbers in her sock. They were on the fridge now, where she could find them.

“Thursday again?” she asked.

“Thursday.”

She watched until I wrote it in my little work calendar.

Then she went back up the steps. Lena held the door, and June slipped past her into the warm kitchen.

I sat behind the wheel for a moment before starting the truck.

Through the screen, I could see June taking her school bag off the fifth chair. Outside, above the blue porch, her little yellow light stayed on.