Windows
By: Noe, Lisa Arana
Tags: Social Distancing, LGBTQ, Community, A Cornered Gurl, Nonfiction

Image by videaki from Pixabay

Yesterday, I offered my neighbors, Rosie and Al, the two fresh eggs that our newly adopted ducks laid that very morning. Rosie grew up on a farm. Al used to own a body shop. When he was in his twenties, he was a “Greaser” who used to race a candy-apple red Chevy down the main street of this town. That was when few cars were on the roads after dark. Sometimes, in the right light, I can still see that fearless young man with his slicked-back hair, a starched white T-shirt and steely blue eyes.

My neighbors are age ninety and ninety-four. Al is the younger of the two and they joke about how that was a somewhat scandalous thing, back then.

The woman who had owned this house before us, Marjorie, had lived in this home until she was ninety-seven. Rosie tells me how she would bury her vegetable scraps in the yard, way before that was thought to be a sensible thing to do.

Rosie’s face saddened as she told me of the night when Marjorie was taken away with flashing lights and a siren that faded into the distance. They had been neighbors and best friends for over five decades.

The house sat empty as a shell for six long years as the weeds grew as tall as children in the fertile soil that Marjorie had left behind.

When my wife and I purchased the old farmhouse and moved in three years ago, my neighbors were not sure what to think of us. Al scratched his head and Rosie looked a little wide-eyed as we waved from the moving truck and walked over to introduce ourselves, all toothy grins in overalls.

At first, Al just squinted but then, Rosie smiled and extended a nervous but friendly “Good to meet you! How do you do?”

Our kitchen windows face out into the wide street, right across from theirs and we cook dinner at about the same time, on most nights. Still, the Winters are long and cold here and have a way of keeping would-be-friends as strangers. Spring is much the same, in the way of rain. It comes down on all of us in indiscriminate sheets for days that stack like sullen documents of grief. But eventually, a warm summer evening arrived, better late than never, and it brought us out with new excuses to be kind.

As our garden grew, the fresh blueberries seemed to soften suspicions like pie.

Then, one night, Rosie went off into an ambulance, leaving an aching stillness behind. The window hung open and bare. We let out a sigh of relief to see Rosie holding Al’s arm as he steadied her in the morning, easing her out of the car. Rosie was shaken but still standing with Al by her side.

That’s when we started to bring freshly baked bread and that’s when we began to understand each other . . . and Al’s dry sense of humor.

Their daughter, Lori, wandered over one afternoon when she had become frazzled during a long day of caretaking. She had traveled across the country to help out. Rosie’s right side still had a mind of its own at that point. Lori looked as if she might cry but we found a way to lighten the heaviness with sugar cookies and extra strong coffee. She talked about how it can be difficult to sleep in your childhood bedroom and to awake as memories fade into the present day. I nodded and imagined her parents as a young couple, raising three towheaded children back when this entire block was a cherry orchard.

We sat at my 50s era table and looked across the street to her mother’s kitchen window. Lori tells me that we are their “television” and they are always talking about “what those girls are up to.” We let out a gentle laugh together and I blushed a little, thinking about the days I checked the mail in my pajamas, not even bothering to brush my hair.

The Trump years have worn on me, in ways I can’t explain.

Before I brought the duck eggs over, I sanitized the counter. I washed the eggs carefully with warm soap and water. I scrubbed the clean bowl and wiped it down again with alcohol before placing the eggs gently therein. I called Rosie on the phone to let her know I would be stopping by and her voice sounded like the first birds of Spring. I offered to bring over the fresh eggs and I could hear her face brighten.

We had all been “social distancing” for over two weeks and the street was beginning to feel wide as an ocean. I assured her that I had scoured everything, twice, and then a third time, for luck. Finally, I wiped the doorknob with rubbing alcohol and walked over to set the bowl down onto their porch chair.

Rosie and Al grinned and waved, safe behind the window glass. I bent my knees and did a silly little jig for them, just to see them laugh. I returned to my kitchen as they fetched the eggs to fry up for breakfast.

The next day, Lori called and told me that she had a hard time finding oats for her father because all the stores were out but this was one of the few grains her dad could eat. She explained that she had finally managed to place a bulk order on-line directly from the mill and mailed in twenty-five pounds to them. She explained how much her parents wanted to share them with us since they were organic oats and they knew we didn’t use plastic “and all that unhealthy stuff.” And I guess I had mentioned once how my wife eats oatmeal every day for breakfast before she starts her rounds at the hospital. I think that might have been a turning point in our friendship: lesbians eat oatmeal, they must be okay . . . or something like that.

We don’t know how long we will have a hard time finding oats. We don’t know how long it will be before we can share eggs without scrubbing everything down until it squeaks. We don’t know how long we will need to sew masks for the nurses and other “essential workers” in town. We don’t know how long we have to wait to share a hug or a simple cup of coffee. We don’t even know if we are all going to survive this COVID-19 nightmare but those oats meant a lot to me . . . an awful lot.

I remember when Al had looked at me, on a grumpy day, saying no one was ever gonna make him stop hating “some people” and I smiled to think that he decided, all on his own, to give love a chance.