Gracie helped Old Man Lacey up the stairs after they dinner. He’d been getting fat, years recent, ain’t been under two fifty since ’36. But now he’d given up his own place, he never did yard work nor did he help her round here. Just sat in them rocker chairs staring out the sun evenings or so.
“Come on, Old Man, we gone to bed now.”
“Gracie, you’re the old one, not me. You’re close to ninety.”
“What you mean, close, I am ninety, fool.”
They continued this way, bickering like two married folk. Gracie’d been a widow since Honeywalker died back in ’85 and Lacey, his wife died twenty years gone. Couldn’t get married, did they want to. White man couldn’t marry an old negro woman, even in upstate New York. They done waited until Lacey’s daughter died before he moved in. Didn’t matter none. No one ever came out this far.
Gracie woke up next morning and did her chores around the barn, fed the chickens and the goats. Would be harvest time, soon enough, and the grandsons, they’d be coming over in the truck. Gracie went back to the house at eight to wake up Lacey.
“Lacey, you fool, come on down for your coffee.”
No answer, so she started up the stairs. Lacey always came down long before eight.
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