I carried the bags up his porch and into a kitchen that smelled like old wood, instant coffee, and quiet mornings. Ezra moved carefully, the way people do when they have spent too many years doing everything alone.
“Sit down for a minute,” he said. “Least I can do is pour you a cup of coffee.”
I almost refused. I was not exactly the coffee-with-neighbors type.
But something in the way he asked made me pause. It was as if he expected me to say no.
So I pulled out a chair.
“One cup,” I said. “Then I have to check my gutters.”
Ezra laughed.
It was a small, surprised sound.
We ended up talking for almost an hour.
He told me about the neighborhood when cornfields still stood where the elementary school was now. I told him I had moved in thinking I would stay only two years.
“Funny how that works,” he said. “I told my wife the same thing about this place in 1971.”
