Chapter 23: Open It

By nine o'clock everyone had gone home except Neil, and Gene had gone to bed with the tablet on his chest.

Tressa had left with dirt on her knees and her kids asleep in the back seat.

She had stopped at the gate to say "Thank you for having us," in the voice of a person reading a sign in a language she was learning.

Rob had hugged his father for a very long time, and Gene had patted his back twice with the flat of his hand.

I sat on the front step with a blanket over my shoulders and a mug of tea gone cold.

Neil came out of the house with another mug and sat down one step below me, as he always did.

"Can I stay out here a while?" he asked.

"It's forty degrees."

"I have a coat."

"You have a very thin coat."

"I have you," Neil said, and then closed his eyes. "That was worse out loud."

"It was bad."

"I'd practiced a better one in the truck."

I laughed, and the street was quiet enough that the sound went all the way to the corner.

The porch light came on, on its timer, and drew a yellow circle around the two of us and the ramp.

The new garden lay dark in the back, and I could not see it, but I knew exactly where each crown was.

"Can I ask you something," I said.

"Yes."

"I'm good at being needed. I'm the best at it in three counties."