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  At the table next to mine, two girls bowed their heads to say grace over their red baskets. In the far corner a group of mothers was waiting for their food while a number of babies fussed in car seats around them. Several friends pushed two tables together in the center, but then took out their phones and sat there texting. Suddenly one of them looked up at the speaker system Leo had painstakingly installed, now playing mariachi music. He lifted his arm, cocked his thumb, and pretended to shoot the speaker with his hand.

  Leo brought my check.

  “What about mosquito bites?” I asked.

  “Terrible. They swell up. You?”

  “They don’t bother me.”

  He nodded appreciatively.

  Silver Linden (Tilia tomentosa)

  The leaves are shaped like the conventional heart in a deck of cards. The wood has a pale, creamy-brown color and wood-carvers have always preferred it as the best medium for fine wood sculpture. It is also used for hat blocks, shoe lasts, and, because it is very stable, piano keys.

  Not a bad choice for my father, but as I got ready for bed it occurred to me that Sustainability Planning would probably object. They were a tough, well-organized department, and there is a widespread belief that the silver linden is toxic to bees. It’s not; the truth is, in the late summer and early fall, when the bee’s life cycle is coming to an end anyway, there are fewer nectar sources, so they congregate around the silver linden and some number of them die there. But Sustainability would never approve even the appearance of harm to a pollinator.

  The Last Whiskey Sour Party

  In August my father and I attended a going-away party for the Goulds, an older couple in the neighborhood who were selling the house they’d lived in for thirty-five years. The new owners came, so did dozens of friends and neighbors. The Goulds had raised three children in the place, but when I overheard Beth Gould talking about the move, I couldn’t locate the sadness I expected. The house and garden were a bit much now, she said. She and Philip were ready for the next adventure. Someone asked her about the children. Were they sad?

  “Oh, they’re such homebodies,” Beth said. “We travel to them.”

  The main concern seemed to be renaming the whiskey sour parties for which she and Philip were famous. They planned to serve something different in the new place and hadn’t yet decided what it would be.

  I recognized faces from the neighborhood and lifted my cheeks into a smile a few times, but I didn’t know anyone well enough to stop and talk. I’m the neighbor they don’t know, the one they probably don’t like very much, the one they know no better now than the day they moved in. Some of them have asked me for favors: “Bring in the mail while we’re away?” “Water the garden?” But I’ve never asked for a favor in return. Some have tried to be nice about my living at home: “Your roots are here,” they say. It’s true, they are. Putting down roots is not my problem. I imagine that’s what they tell themselves they’re doing when the thump, thump of cars going fast over the metal plates in the road keeps them up at night.

  The Goulds’ house was not yet packed for the move, so I wandered through the beautiful rooms. It was an elegant and comfortable home. The furnishings were not too many or too few, the colors were muted and harmonious, the windows were large and clean. It had the feeling of a place that held fine things that were also used and loved. At the doorway to the kitchen, however, I stopped. Here was a different mood entirely. Almost everything that could have a saying or a motto printed on it did: magnets and spoon rests, jars and candles, placemats and mugs, dish towels and needlepoint samplers. It didn’t take long to discern the theme:

  Friendship is sweet beyond the sweetness of life (St. Augustine)

  Friendship is inherently a magnet (Eudora Welty)

  Friends are the family we choose (Anonymous)

  Happy is the house that shelters a friend (Emerson)

  Friends are God’s apology for relations (Hugh Kingsmill)

  Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness (Euripides)

  Even the Kleenex box by the cookbooks said Gather friends: Rassembler des amis. So many centuries of friendship advice, all of it distilled into shades of pastel calligraphy. I wondered if the items had been gifts over the years from devoted friends, or if they were hopeful directives from the Goulds to themselves. Either way, the system had worked, hadn’t it? The Goulds’ house was full of friends who loved them and wished them well. The Goulds were happy, healthy, and busy. I hadn’t even detected irritation in Beth about her children not visiting enough. She’d called them homebodies affectionately.

  I refilled my wineglass, which was not (I double-checked) engraved with anything but did have one of those trinkets around the stem that was supposed to help you keep track of your glass at a large party. I wasn’t surprised. On the dishwasher I’d seen a magnet that said Happiness is a friend . . . doing the dishes.

  When I rejoined the party, my father was talking to Beth Gould, his head bowed in concentration, a posture I recognized. It meant he was very interested in whatever she was saying and would not want to be interrupted.

  I bumped into Philip Gould by the dining room table. “You’re one of the Attaway children,” he said.

  “Guilty as charged.” Small talk is like improv comedy: rarely funny and always one sentence away from fizzling. When I must do it, clichés fill my head like a virus.

  He said, “I liked your mother,” and my mind went blank. “Thank you” didn’t seem right, but what was? I looked at my feet.

  “I remember her teaching you to drive. She borrowed our Volkswagen station wagon to teach you stick shift. I admired that.”

  I remembered the station wagon, but not that it had belonged to the Goulds. They drove a blue MINI Cooper now, which I admired. Their downsizing was consistent and complete.

  “Are you looking forward to the move?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. Then he eyed me. “How are you? Are you and your dad ever going to move?”

  “Fit as a fiddle” were the words in my head and I was trying very hard not to say them. I was rescued by someone tapping a glass for a toast, and the party began to shift toward the living room.

  “Excuse me,” Mr. Gould said. “I think I’m needed.”

  A gift had been arranged by the whole neighborhood (it was the first I’d heard of it), and we watched while Beth and Philip opened it together. The package had been handed to Beth, but she gently insisted Philip open it with her. He did the unwrapping, handing Beth the bow and each piece of paper as he tore it. Then suddenly they were both looking down at a silver plate, reading quietly. They looked up at each other first, both with tears in their eyes. Beth read the engraving out loud, her voice breaking a little bit.

  “‘Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.’”

  Everyone clapped and cheered. All the names of all the families in the neighborhood, many of whom had known the Goulds for years, were engraved on the plate in a kind of constellation around the quotation (which was unattributed, I noted).

  “Attaway” was on there. I checked before I left.

  * * *

  —

  THAT NIGHT I WALKED through the rooms of our house. Unlike the Goulds’, nothing in the Attaway home was out in the open; nowhere was anything printed or engraved for all to read. My father had lived eighty years without even wearing a T-shirt with words on it, as far as I knew. And I couldn’t remember my mother ever wearing one either. In our house, verses were for memorizing. Books had to be opened, read, searched.

  We did have a complete set of The Oxford English Dictionary, all twenty volumes. My father gave it to my mother when I was born, a way to remind her that although her circumstances had drastically changed, the language hadn’t. It ran across the two lower shelves of the bookcases in our living room. I pulled out volume VI, Follow—Haswed, and looked up
friend. The Goulds’ kitchen might have been full of nice phrases and wise ideas about friendship, but they felt like hybrids to me, something cross-pollinated to maximize sweetness. I wanted the original. I wanted to know the first use of the word in English.

  And there it was, from Beowulf: “Heorot innan waes freondum afylled.” (Inside Heorot there was nothing but friendship.) As an English major, I had read the epic in college, but I remembered it only vaguely. I knew my father would have it, so I went to his shelves in the study. I chose the Seamus Heaney translation because it was the most recent and I liked the cover. In the basement, my father dropped something in his kitchenette below me, then all was quiet. I opened the book and began to read.

  Here is what is relevant to my story: Heorot, the famous palace and mead hall, was built by King Hrothgar as a gathering place for his warriors. Grendel, descended from Cain, lives nearby in a swamp with his mother and can’t stand the sounds of joy that emanate from the hall. Grendel comes each night off the moors and stands outside to hear how Hrothgar and his men are “settling to it,” meaning the wine and the song and the friendship. Eventually the din puts him in such a rage that he breaks down the door and kills most of the warriors. Every night these events are repeated until the hall is abandoned. Then Beowulf arrives and offers to take care of the problem so Hrothgar can use his hall again. Beowulf and his warriors fill Heorot for a rowdy night, then feign sleep. When Grendel arrives Beowulf grabs his hand in a mockery of a handshake, and after a long battle he rips Grendel’s arm off at the shoulder. The monster retreats to his swamp where he dies. The next night Grendel’s mother seeks revenge but is also killed by Beowulf, which is unfortunate. We could use more vengeful monster-mothers in literature.

  More briefly: Beowulf is a violent epic about the dangers of being friendless. There’s a party, the misfit is not invited, he sulks outside, then comes in, wreaks havoc, and is killed.

  Quite simply: Without friendship, you become Grendel. Many people don’t marry and many don’t have children. Some people might not know their mother or father, and a lot of people don’t have siblings. But any person who has lived for any length of time has had a friend. Except Grendel, and he became the first monster in English literature.

  I looked up and saw the cat staring at me. I asked her what she was expecting. Hester turned to look down the hallway, as if contemplating a reply, then delicately sniffed my big toe and walked away.

  Inside Heorot there was nothing but friendship. I wanted that cross-stitched on a sampler for my kitchen. All who read it—well, maybe not all—would feel just a little bit doubtful about what was coming for them.

  Accidents

  The last day of August was a Thursday. It had been hot and humid all week, but a thunderstorm that afternoon had done what people always say summer storms do, even though it’s rarely true: brought in cooler air. At our dinner at El Puerto, my father said he’d like to walk home.

  “What about your car?” I asked.

  “I’ll get it tomorrow.”

  “You won’t want to,” I said. “I’ll drive it home for you.”

  “That’s very kind,” my father said, handing me his keys.

  And that’s what I did, but I shouldn’t have because I’d had my two beers.

  * * *

  —

  Neighbor SEEMS TO ME a flexible word. You can say “She’s my neighbor” and people will think you mean she’s your friend. But if something goes wrong, you can say, “Oh, I don’t really know her. She’s just my neighbor,” and everyone still knows what you mean.

  Janine told the police she didn’t think I had a drinking problem. “Then again,” she said, “I don’t really know her. She’s just my neighbor.”

  A witness said the child was “not really all that close” to the car.

  In the paper the next day it became “University Gardener in Traffic Accident,” but that’s misleading because there was no traffic. I missed the child and hit the parked silver Lexus of the wealthy college student living in the house her parents bought her. I did this with intention. It was either the Lexus or Mr. Braden’s stunning yellow butterfly bush (Buddleia globosa) and to me the choice was clear. No other cars were involved and the child was not hurt.

  I was going too fast, however; that much is true. The two beers on a small dinner were not a good idea, though my blood alcohol level was not over the legal limit. The officer was young and apologetic.

  “I have to ticket you, ma’am,” he said, grimacing and kneading the back of his neck. “But I don’t believe you’re a threat.”

  I thanked him but wasn’t convinced. The day before I’d nicked a box turtle with Bonnie’s left front tire and sent him spinning into the ditch. I’d seen him with plenty of warning, even among the pine needles dried in masses like pelts all over the roads this time of year. I’m sure I cracked his shell.

  * * *

  —

  THEY SAY TRAGEDIES come in threes, and at the beginning of a surprisingly cool September my father fell in the driveway. I saw him go down as I was going up to bed. I ran outside, where I found him on his back, lucid and calm. Tipped over next to him was a potted cactus, the tall and ungainly night-blooming cereus (Selenicereus grandiflorus).

  “Please call 911,” he said.

  “For you or the plant?”

  He smiled, I was relieved to see. “Please ask for a quiet ambulance. I don’t want to wake the children.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I think so. My leg.”

  “The children?”

  “Bella and Henry. Across the street.”

  “Can I help you?”

  “No. It hurts too much. It might be my hip.”

  I went inside and told the dispatcher my father was eighty years old and stable but there was something wrong with his hip or his leg.

  “A quiet ambulance?” she asked.

  “I think he means no sirens.”

  She told me to keep him warm, so after I hung up I took him a blanket. He looked sad as I pulled it over him.

  “I don’t want you to have to take care of me,” he said.

  “I don’t mind.” The words didn’t sound convincing, so I knelt down next to him.

  He moved his hands in the gravel, clearing little patches with his palms.

  I cleared my throat. “Should I ask why you were carrying a night-blooming cereus up the driveway late at night?”

  “It’s Beth Gould’s. She wanted me to have it. The ceiling in their new place is too low.”

  The Selenicereus grandiflorus is sometimes called the Queen of the Night. It blooms once a year and only in the dark, its incredibly fragrant flowers wilting before dawn. In India it’s called Brahma Kamalam, named after the Hindu god of creation, and it’s thought that the wishes of people who pray to the god while the flower is blooming will be fulfilled. The one my father was carrying was not in bloom.

  The ambulance cut the siren before turning down Todd Lane. Still, some of the neighbors came out and stood with folded arms in the blue and red flashing lights. I saw a few children peeking out of windows. As the medics lifted my father into the back, Janine approached, arms across her chest, shoulders hunched against the chill.

  “Is there anything we can do?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said, and must have spoken too harshly because she looked surprised.

  “I’d like to be of help,” she said.

  Of help. To me those words have a geographic sound. Janine Morton, of Help; wife of a medical resident rarely home; mother of Bella and Henry.

  “I understand,” I said, and managed to add “Thank you” because I am aware of sometimes going too far.

  Rewards

  Not so very long ago, there was almost nothing as touching as a group of first graders crouched in a circle preparing to put in their first herb garden, or veget
able patch, or bed of chrysanthemums. Now there is not much that hasn’t been touched by technology and that includes children in the garden. They have all played a video game called Plants vs. Zombies. I’ve never played it, but I gather players advance by receiving plants with different powers, and so the little ones and even the not-so-little ones—thankfully these school trips age out at about fifth grade—are fond of pretending that the tender shoots they are being given to place in the ground have superpowers. Why photosynthesis doesn’t strike them as at least as amazing as killing zombies, I will never understand. I did try that angle.

  I also tried competition, if they love games so much, and divided the class into groups with a promise of prizes to the one that finished its work first. When a parent complained that all the children weren’t sent home with a little marigold in a pot, I resigned my school-trip duties. We live in a time when everyone gets a medal and all villains have heartbreaking backstories. No one thinks evil is intrinsic anymore, just someone making a really bad choice.

  Blake O’Dell agreed with me, but thought it was a good idea for me to take a break from the school groups. So now, per Blake’s instructions, the groups are led by undergraduate volunteers from the Environmental Sciences program. They have boundless energy and seem to relate to the children better, though the first time I observed one of the field trips the undergraduate instructor paused the planting session to send a text. About half the class, fourth graders by my guess, took the opportunity to pull out their own phones, while the rest fell into the blank stare of children long accustomed to being considered less interesting than their caregiver’s screen.