Chapter 7: The Porch

My aunt Dot's house stood on the east side of a square full of live oaks.

It was three stories of pale brick with a green door.

The porch swing had not been painted since the nineties.

She drove me there in a station wagon that smelled like cat, because she refused to let me take a cab.

"You look like a wrung-out dishrag," she said, turning the key in the lock.

"Thank you, Aunt Dot."

"I'm not being mean. A dishrag does good work."

Inside, every flat surface had a plant, a cat or a casserole on it.

Four cats watched me carry my suitcase up the hall.

"Your old room's the one with the yellow door."

"Don't mind Bandit," she added. "He bites ankles, but he doesn't mean it."

"He means it a little," I said, and Bandit hissed at my shoe.

Dot laughed so hard she had to hold the banister.

I stood in the old room under its sloped ceiling.

For the first time in a week my shoulders came down from around my ears.

Dot knocked on the doorframe.

"Supper's in ten. Pot roast. Fair warning, I invited the doctor."

"Which doctor?"

"My tenant, Ward. He lives out back in the carriage house."

"Aunt Dot."

"He eats my roast every Tuesday, because his own cooking could strip paint."

"Aunt Dot."

"He's thirty-five and he has all his teeth. Don't make that face."

"I'm not looking, Aunt Dot. For a year. No men. That's a rule."

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