He Calls It Love, She Sees It as Home novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: First Tuesday

Dottie Chesbro's flatbed came up the drive an hour early on the first Tuesday of the month.

I heard her engine from the kitchen.

Iris was at the table with her chin on her hand, reading the seed catalog and eating toast.

"That's Dottie," she said happily. "She's early."

"Eat your breakfast."

"Can I go out and say hello?"

"She'll come in."

She always did.

Dottie stayed forty minutes every month, because she had loved Martha, and because I had never found a polite way to stop her.

I had put the padlock on the road gate on Monday.

Dottie had leaned on her horn at it, and I had driven down in the truck to let her through.

The flatbed was already at the barn, and Dottie was already walking toward the house, tall and broad in a canvas jacket, reading glasses pushed up in her grey hair.

"Iris, honey," I said. "Go and wash the flour off your arms."

"There's no flour."

"Go anyway."

She went and rinsed her arms at the sink, humming, and came back with her sleeves pushed up.

Then she dropped her spoon.

She slid off her chair and ducked under the table to fetch it.

The oilcloth hung nearly to the floor on every side.

I watched her disappear under it, and I knew from the look on her face as she went that she hadn't dropped it by accident.

She put her palms on my knees from below.

"Iris," I said, very quietly.

"Shh," she whispered. "Dottie's coming."

Dottie knocked once on the door frame and walked in.

"Morning, Jack. You've got the coffee on, I smell it."

"Sit down, Dottie."

"Where's my girl?"

"Out in the garden," I said. "She'll be along."

My voice was nearly even.

Dottie sat across from me and poured her own cup.

Under the table my zipper went down.

I laid my hands flat on the oilcloth and kept my face still.

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