Pecan Blossoms

5/6/13

Josh Parr

Her porch was warm in spring sunshine, and 90 years meant nothing. She was lithe and buoyant on her feet.

“When I found him he was on the bed with a wet cloth over his face. He’s a tough one.”

She had followed the trail of blood from the couch past the stairs, to the bedroom.

“Your father says he just fell off the stairs,” she said, “but the gal from the police says his wrist injury showed he was blocking the second blow. The first got him in the back of the head. The gal said the shattered wrist could only have been from him bringing his hand up to his face to protect himself.”

There was nothing missing from the house.

“This half of his face, you know, is now plastic,” she told me, brushing her right cheek from ear to chin.

It was during his treatment at the hospital that all the funny stuff happened.

He watched a baseball game play out on the window.

At another point, he got off the bed, dragging catheters, and announced he was going fishing with his grandson. He carried a bait bucket in hand.

“But Norvin, Josh is in California.”

“Ah hell, that’s too far. I’m not going,” he declared, and crawled back into bed.

They had lived in Taylor for about 8 years. They went to church.

She played in two Bridge clubs, one which met on Monday and Wednesday and the other Tuesday and Thursday. Because people kept dying, she’d been playing in both groups now for about a year.

“And let me tell ya, soon there may just be one group.”

“Either Taylor is the best city or the most boring, there’s not a lot of gossip at those tables.”

“The only thing to discuss is one woman’s son, who got a sex change. But we can’t talk about that.”

While she was at her bridge clubs, Norvin stayed at home.

 “Taylor may be the least friendly town in the world,” he said.

“We’ll be putting everything up for auction soon,” he says. “Hope they can sell this house along with it.”

It was a two story brick home on the corner, on a plot shaded by four, hundred-year old pecan trees, though one had died recently and the stub of its trunk stood stark on the corner of the driveway.

A Texas flag waved in the stiff wind that blew past the front door.

“You wonder why there’s as much traffic here as there is,” he marveled. “None of these streets go anywhere, they just end.”

They’d recently taken down the fence around their house.

Months ago, they’d seen a man walk into their garage to take a look around. He’d rummaged through the boxes and then wandered off, and when they spoke to the police, “the gal there recommended we take the fence down. More eyes makes break-ins less likely.”

With her eyes cast to the blue Texas sky and the tops of the pecan trees, she said, “Last year, I believe we had 100 pounds of pecans, unshelled. And I didn’t even pick them all up. But this year, looks like we won’t have any at all. I rake up the blossoms, and last year, it looked like the ground was covered with snow. This year, not so much at all.”

Inside the house is a steep staircase with a ninety degree turn in it, leading to the master bedroom. In that room, is a bed on a pedestal, with its own staircase to clamber up.

They refuse to change the bed, or sleep downstairs.

She had grown up in Taylor until she was 14. Her father owned the kalachi bakery, after leaving the railroad business that scattered the family throughout Texas.

But could anyone hold a grudge that long?

“I was at Church, and we’d just finished, so I called the house. I might have saved his life,” she said.

“He didn’t answer, so I waited a few minutes in case he was driving over. Then, I headed to the house.”

“I reckon I called right when it was all happening. Maybe they thought someone was watching, or checking on Norvin. I think that’s why they left.”

The porch is warm. Seems like the weather couldn’t be any better. Not too hot. No humidity. A sprinkle of wildflowers dot the grass with color. No bugs.

“Your daddy thinks he just fell,” she says.