1 – A week before I thought I should write this down
I am not a good person. Abby was at my door. My reaction when I saw her should have been more charitable. She was young and cute and needy, but all I wanted was a nice relaxing day at home. When the police questioned her, I should have let them take her away. Jail would have been tough, but it would have been better for her than coming to me. Now she was here, and I will always regret what I would do with the Q-tips.
It was unexpected when she rang the doorbell, the pretentious Big Ben sounding “bong” in that small foyer. Never invited to visit, but, still, here she stood on my doorstep. From the Walmart sign where Abby spent her days, my house was visible. It was one of those hot and humid Georgia days reflected on her face. She was flushed and feverish looking. Something was wrong.
“I need a shower.” Not a flirtatious schtick, it was the tone of someone at the check-in desk of a hospital. Robert was in jail. At times, he would sit on the rock with her at the Walmart sign, but now he was gone, and she was living alone in their tent in the weeds.
“Are you okay?” And with that, like I always do, I invited another complication into my life.
2 – Three months before I thought I should write this down
Abby’s spot by the Walmart sign was her place of business, her and Robert’s. Ride a loop through the neighborhood on a bicycle, and most mornings, she’d be there on what became her corner. That’s how we met. I never regretted the conversations we had; after my estranged daughter and my ex-wife left, I enjoyed those little chats. It wasn’t love. It was a time machine. An old man instinctively talking to a young woman.
Of course, some conversations are driven by desperation and calculation. We all do something like that according to our circumstances. Every conversation has at least two charted courses—one person has a direction, simple or complicated, and the other person has something different. Maybe you want to affirm a friendship with a gentle exchange of trivial nothings, or maybe you need money for drugs. None of it is ever the whole story. When Abby paid attention, she was a surprisingly good listener who was smart but not cunning the way one would expect from a person living on the side of the road. Sometimes her brain would be somewhere else, but when she was there, she was smart, funny, and bewildering.
Morning, 8:30 a.m. Abby was out with her sign. Strange, they would have such early hours. Early mornings always
seemed connected to hard-working
