There’s a woman who sits out in the courtyard of Gran’s Porch, rocking in a chair that squeaks with every forward thrust. She seems lost, as if she woke up this morning and found herself in a strange place and can’t find her way home.
I can’t stand to see people lonely, so I walk outside my little cottage room and approach her.
“Hi,” I say, slipping my hair behind my ears, something I always do when I’m nervous. “I’m Grace. Mind if I sit down?”
She seems to snap out of her deep reverie. “It’s not mine. It’s here for everybody, but nobody ever uses it this time of year. Too humid, they say. Like they expect Georgia to be Ottawa.”
I take that as a yes, so I sink into a pollen-covered Adirondack chair. I don’t lean back. “I like it here. It’s good for the skin, right?”
She smiles as she looks at me now. “Southern girl, huh? I took you to be a Yankee.”
I haven’t heard anyone use that word since some book I read in fifth grade.
“Where are you from?” she asks.
I try to remember Grace Newland’s history. “Oklahoma,” I say weakly.
She looks at me like I just appeared from the moon. “No way. You sound like me. Deep South, not cowboy.”
She’s got a deeper accent than mine, I hope, but I don’t correct her. “I’ve lived a few other places along the way. In the South.”
“Can’t be a very long way. You’re too young.”
How did we get here so fast? Maybe I made a mistake coming out here. I stand back up, straighten my jeans. “Anyway . . . I just thought I’d say hi.”
“You don’t have to run off,” she says quickly. “For heaven’s sake, sit down.”
I hesitate for a minute, then slowly lower back down.
“My name’s Sealy,” she says.
“Hi, Sealy.” I try to redirect the conversation. “Are you traveling through?”
“Traveling? Me? No, I live here.”
“All the time?” I ask.
“That’s right,” she says briskly. “You got a problem with that?”
“No. It’s a nice place to live.”
She broods for a moment as she stares toward the parking lot. “It used to be nice. Folks who opened it were this decent family, did everything themselves. Treated the guests like they were royalty. Real homey-like. Then they died, and their ungrateful kids sold it off to some corporation somewhere. Owners have prob’ly never seen the place. Cigar face in there runs it now and couldn’t care less.”
I want to ask her why she lives here then, why she doesn’t just go get an apartment or a house if she has enough to pay a weekly motel rate. But I don’t want to rile her again. “There’s bird poop on that chair,” I mutter, pointing to the chair across from me.
“Been there forever. Nobody ever cleans this area.”
I get up. “I’ll be right back.” I go into my room and get a washcloth, wet it and scrub soap on it, then grab a bottled water. I take them back to the courtyard. Sealy looks up at me.
“I can take care of this right now,” I say. I kneel in front of the chair and scrub off the caked bird droppings. “What kind of birds do you see here?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t notice birds.”
“Really?” I ask as I scrub. “I love birds. We had these two cardinals that used to hang around my backyard when I was a kid. I loved when they came. It was like a bright-colored message. Oh, and my mom always has these hummingbird feeders out. Lots of them, really. She kind of collects them. She collects everything, actually. But these hummingbirds just float there, their wings moving so fast they’re invisible. I love watching them. They should get a hummingbird feeder here.”
“Then there’d be more of that on the seats.”
“Comes off easy,” I say, moving so she can see my work. The chair is now suitable for sitting in. “You could hang it off to the side, over the grass. It’s fun to watch them.”
“Management would never buy the food. Probably wouldn’t even let me hang one.”
I have another friend like Sealy, back home in Shreveport. You would think that Molly would be the name of someone light and fluffy. But Molly sees only the dark side of the world, the part that shows on negative film. She misses all the good stuff.
I get her perspective. But I respond to life differently. I feel challenged to see beyond that dark part and find the good stuff. I take pleasure in pointing out the bright sides to Molly, because when I do, I remind myself they exist. Maybe Sealy can be my new Molly.
Later, when I go out, I stop by a hardware store and buy a hummingbird feeder. Not thirty, like my mom has. Just one will do. I mix up the sugar water when I get back, fill it to the line, then take it outside. I hang it from a lower branch on an unhealthy tree in the courtyard.
It’s a shock of red in a colorless place. I wish I could paint the chairs some bright color. That might make Sealy smile.
She’s inside now, and I grin at the thought that she’ll see the feeder the next time she comes out to sit. I hope the hummingbirds give her a show. The thought lifts the heaviness that weighs on me like an oversized wool cloak.
I sleep better tonight than I have since this whole thing began.