Flowers in the Cinderblocks

Flowers in the Cinderblocks


As she’s done all morning, Charlene raises the corner of the daisy-patterned curtain in her kitchen. She is desperate to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Gordon, the old woman who lives in the trailer on the other side of the gravel road. Since Mrs. Gordon’s return from the hospital several nights earlier, Charlene has been itching with curiosity.

“Why don’t you just go over there?” her husband says. “She’d probably love some company.”

“And say what?” Charlene replies, releasing her grip on the curtain and walking over to the table where her husband sits reading the morning newspaper. She sits down and places her elbows on the table. “What exactly would I say to her?”

“Well, all this snooping around . . . it’s just wrong. I don‘t understand why it‘s such a big deal to you.”

“Maybe cause you’re not a woman.”

“So when you do finally see her . . . then what?”

“I’m curious about it. Aren’t you?”

“Nope. But then maybe it’s because I’m not a woman.”

Charlene shakes her head and stands up. She takes her husband’s empty coffee cup and saucer off the table and brings them to the kitchen. After putting them in the sink, she reaches up and raises the curtain again.

“My, God,” she says out loud. “She’s in her yard. She‘s in her yard.” And then as if Mrs. Gordon were standing right on the window sill, Charlene drops her voice to a whispers. “Come here,” she says. “Quick. Come here and see.”

He sighs, folds his newspaper and leaves it on the table. Side by side, while Charlene holds the curtain, she and her husband spy Mrs. Gordon as she walks through her yard with a green water pitcher held in one hand.

“Looks the same to me,” Charlene’s husband says. “Come on, Charlene. Let’s leave her alone.”

“Hush,” Charlene says, nudging her husband with an elbow as they continue to watch Mrs. Gordon. The old woman walks with her pitcher along the low cinderblock wall that surrounds her small yard, stooping to water the flowers inside the hollows of the cinderblocks.

A moment later, her husband steps back and says, “She looks just fine to me.”

Frustrated, Charlene says, “Why does she keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Look at her. Whenever she bends to water the flowers, she keeps a hand on the neckline of her housedress just like a normal woman would.“