“Did you ever love anybody?” Lucille asked Sandra.
“I loved my son,” Sandra answered. “I still love him, but does it even count now if he ain’t in the world?”
“If you feel it, then it counts.”
“Maybe, but I can’t see him know I love him. I can’t be warmed by the fact that my love makes him feel less alone in the world, or cared for and seen.”
“Them ain’t the only reasons you love him, is it? Especially not since he died. You love him, still, because he was your baby.”
“Yeah,” Sandra said absently.
“That ain’t what I meant, no way,” Lucille said. “I meant romantic. You never got married right? And you and Paul wasn’t ever together?”
“God no,” Sandra chuckled. “That man was like my brother, though. I miss him, too. I didn’t love my son’s daddy. I had a real close friend in high school that I thought I loved, but that was high school, it wasn’t real. Why you asking?”
“I was just thinking about Quinten. I was thinking about how when we first moved into the house, I was pregnant with the twins and I stayed home while he went to work. We was just out of high school…”
“He bought you a house out of high school? That man, you so lucky you found a good one. My baby daddy was a mess. Thought he was a drug dealer and even his dumb ass made enough to buy a house with all the money he made, but he died just as broke as the day he was born.”
“That’s the thing,” Lucille said, “I wasn’t even looking for him. When I was seventeen, eighteen, I was thinking about joining a convent…”
“Girl!” Sandra said and looked at Lucille wide-eyed.
“I swear, but not cause I was very religious, I was atheist by then, I’m sure. But I respected what a nun did, just devotion to one thing. I thought about the military too, its the same thing in my mind. You live where you work, your life is defined by your work and you dedicate yourself to it. So I definitely wasn’t looking for Quinten, but he made sure I knew he was there. I was sitting here thinking back cause I used to sit out here just like this with the twins in my belly, enjoying the nice day, even with them smells from that old landfill out there. The smell would pass and it would just be like a peace out here. And I guess my hormones was crazy too, but I used to get filled with so many emotions about Quinten, like I would be so grateful that he worked so hard to keep me healthy and happy and I would get angry that he had to be away from me so much cause he really worked a lot then preparing for two babies. I was thinking how crazy it is that after all this time, everyday that I sit out here on the porch, I feel the same feelings, maybe for different reasons, but they the same and they fill me the same so I feel like the same person I was then. I always been the woman that loved Quinten Blackmon and I always will be. I wonder if I could feel the person I am now back then. Like I was feeling a part of the loss that I been dealing with since he died even when he was here because I was on this porch where I would sit and feel the intense feelings.”
“I don’t think I ever felt that,” Lucille said with a sad smile flattening her lips. “I bet he was a good man.”
“He was. I was lucky, I know that. Fo and Mog came by. They talked you into dusting off your detective hat?”
“Not exactly,” Sandra explained. “They said they can tell me something about that bad drug batch, but they ain’t said nothing yet.”
“Don’t get involved in none of that,” Lucille said. “Don’t waste your time on something so deep in the past. Maybe find a man you like spending time with, somebody you got something in common with.”
Sandra laughed and shook her head. “Mrs. Lucille, I appreciate your advice, but I am not looking for no man. I know I need to let all that stuff go from back then, I need to enjoy my retirement, but a man ain’t gone help me with that. That’s why I moved here with you. You ain’t looking for no man to treat you good like Quinten did are you?”
“I am not, you right about that. Well, we can be old spinsters together in this house then,” Lucille laughed. “I only brought it up cause I was thinking about Quinten and I thought maybe it would keep you from getting mixed up in that old mystery.”
Sandra nodded, “We can be old spinsters together.”
But after Lucille left the porch to sleep for the night, Fo and Mog emerged from the woods like haunts and joined her on the porch.
“We should take a walk,” Fo said looking at the house nervously. “If Lucille hears, she gonna throw stuff at us for not leaving it alone like she said.”
“Ok,” Sandra agreed. “But this better be worth it.
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