Delores Parker's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

Monday morning Delores was hanging laundry when the neighbor came up the fence line. He walked slow, hands in his pockets, the way people do when they've been working up to a question for a week. "Delores." "Morning." "I've been meaning to ask." He nodded toward the property. "Those old Fords. How many you got back there now? Four? Five?" "Six." His eyebrows went up. "Six. Huh." He scratched his jaw. "My wife was saying it looks like a junkyard from the road. I told her I'd come see for myself before Labor Day. You folks are having people out, I heard." Delores set the clothespin down. She knew the tone. It was the tone her sister used. It was the tone that turned into talk at the grocery store, then talk at church, then a call from the township about the property. "Come see," she said. "Now?" "Now's fine." She walked him around the side of the house. He was ready to point at rust and weeds. She could see it in the way he held his chin. Then they came around the hedge and he stopped. The garage stood there with its tall glass bays and its clean concrete apron. Six red Fords sat inside in a straight row, chrome polished, tires black, the floor swept. Sunlight came through the high windows and laid down clean stripes. "The cars aren't scattered," Delores said. "They're in there. My husband built this last year for them." The neighbor took his hands out of his pockets. "I thought they were out in the field." "They were, for a while. Not anymore." He walked to the glass. He looked at the row the way people look at a museum case. "He built all this himself." "He did." Her husband came out from the back bay with a rag over his shoulder. He saw the neighbor and stopped. He did not smile. He waited. "Morning," the neighbor said. "Delores was showing me." "All right." "You did a nice job in there." "Thanks." The neighbor nodded a few more times than he needed to. "Labor Day. My wife wondered if there'd be parking trouble." "There won't be," her husband said. "Everyone pulls in off the drive. Out of the road." "All right. All right, then." He looked at Delores. "I'll tell her." He walked back the way he came, slower now, thinking. Her husband came over and stood beside her. "What was that." "He was going to make it a problem. He isn't anymore." Her husband looked at the garage, then at the drive where the neighbor had gone. "He'll talk," he said. "He'll talk different now." Her husband nodded once. He put the rag back over his shoulder and went inside to keep working. Delores stood a minute longer. The garage had done the arguing for her. She hadn't expected that. She went back to the laundry line and picked up the next shirt.