They Laughed When I Left, So I Came Home the Town's Doctor novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Leaves

I went out in my mother's old parka and my work boots, with my hair half down.

The frost had come in the night.

Every blade of the lawn was white, and the leaves from the maple lay in drifts along the fence.

Tuomas had already cleared the strip by the sidewalk.

He saw me and stopped with the rake in both hands.

"Good morning," he said.

"It's five a.m.," I said.

"Five-ten."

"You're in my yard," I said.

"The terms say you're there at school events and public places." He tipped his head at the street. "Your mother's front lawn is visible from the road. I checked."

"That is not what public means."

"It's what it means at five a.m. in a town of twenty thousand."

I bit down on my own mouth so I would not laugh.

He saw it anyway.

Something in his shoulders let go, and he went back to raking.

"I'm not coming in," he said. "I'm not asking anything. These leaves were going to kill your grass, and I had the rake."

"You have forty employees."

"They don't rake."

I stood on the porch step with my arms crossed and watched him work.

He raked the way he did everything, without hurrying and without stopping.

I told myself it was not a pleasant thing to watch.

At six the porch door opened behind me and my mother came out with two mugs.

She handed one to me and went down the steps with the other.

"Mom," I said.

"It's coffee. It's not a treaty."

She put the mug in Tuomas's hand.

He looked at it, then at her.

"Mrs. Lahti, I'm not supposed to come in."

"You're not coming in. You're standing on a porch step that happens to have a heater." She turned him by the elbow. "Sit. You're giving the neighbors a show."

He sat on the step below mine.

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