Let’s see if this one works.
She climbed into the car and Raymond stood beside her, at the open door. The engine ground and turned over and tried to start. She looked up and he nodded. When she tried again it ground and sputtered and popped and finally started, a burst of black smoke blowing out from behind the car.
Give it a little gas, he said. It needs to idle a while.
Thank you, she said. Thank you so much. What a nice thing for somebody to do. What do I owe you?
You don’t owe me a thing.
Of course I do.
No, he said. Well, how about just making me a cup of coffee? We’ll call it one of these after-Christmas bargain deals. I just thought you might want to run around town someday. I’ll take this old battery back to the co-op and they’ll get rid of it for you.
He shut the hood and put the dead battery in the bed of his pickup while she stood in the street watching him.
Won’t you come in now? she said. It’s cold out here.
If it isn’t no bother.
Good Lord. Of course it isn’t.
They went inside and he followed her into the kitchen where the late afternoon sun was streaming through the back window. He took off his hat and set it on the countertop, then pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. His iron-gray hair was dented at the sides where the hatband had pressed it. She moved to the stove and put the kettle on. Would tea be all right? she said. I only have instant coffee.
Whatever you got’ll be fine.
She took down a variety from the cupboard. Red containers and little square boxes decorated with pictures and round canisters of loose tea. What would you care for? she said.
Oh. Just something regular.
I’ve got green tea and black tea and all of these herbal kinds.
It don’t matter. You pick it out.
But I don’t know what you want. You have to decide.
Just one of them. I don’t hardly drink much tea.
I could make you instant coffee.
No, ma’am, tea’s fine.
Now don’t start calling me that again, she said.
The kettle started whistling and she poured boiling water into a large brown mug and put in a bag of black tea. He watched her at the counter, her back to him. She made herself a cup of green tea and put spoons in the mugs and brought them to the table. Do you use sugar?
I don’t believe so.
You sound so tentative. She sat down across from him.
No. I don’t reckon I’m too tentative.
But is something wrong?
Raymond looked around and fixed on the window over the sink. I just never been in a woman’s kitchen before. Only my mother’s.
Haven’t you?
Not that I can recall. And I believe I’d recall it too.
Well. You just have to relax. It’s okay, you know. You’ve done me a great favor. This is the least I can do.
He stirred the tea with his spoon though he had put nothing in it, then put the spoon on the table and sipped at the mug. The tea bag came up and burned his mouth so he fished it out with his spoon and put the spoon back on the table. He sipped again and looked at it and set the mug down.
She was watching him. You don’t like it, she said.
No, ma’am, he said. I’m just going to let it cool a little. He looked at the pictures displayed on one of the walls, there was a young girl standing beside an oak tree. Who’s that you got captured in the picture there?
That one?
Yes.
Well, that’s my daughter. Rebecca.
Oh. I didn’t know. You never mentioned a daughter before.
Oh yes. That’s one of my favorite photographs of her. It was taken when she was much younger. We don’t talk much anymore. She doesn’t approve of me.
Doesn’t approve of you. How do you mean?
Oh, it was something between us back in Cedar Rapids. After her father left.
Did you two have a fight?
You mean with Rebecca?
Yes, ma’am.
Sort of. Anyway she left the house and wouldn’t come back. That was two years ago. I don’t think about it much lately. She laughed sadly. Not too much anyhow.