The mower choked down again and they watched Essie viciously pull the starter cord. The mower coughed and sputtered, and soon as it settled down to run, Essie shoved it into the tall grass, uuhhnn uuhhnn. She was wearing a loose denim dress and black hiking boots.

“Uh,” said Arthur, “it hurts me to hear a small engine labor like that. She needs more horsepower than what she’s got. She needs a Yazoo or a Snapping Turtle. What she really needs is that old Gravely mower your dad used to have. Where is that old Gravely mower?”

That was the first day of fall, and that evening was the first cool night. Essie was bedded down in the sofa under a down quilt reading about abutilon in the Plant Delights nursery catalog, and Helen was painting a picture of lemons, waiting for the damp spot on the paper to be just right so she could get the stippled skin of the lemon in one stroke.

“It’s painful to see how hard he works trying to please you,” she said to Essie. “You admire a big goldfish in the courthouse fountain, and Arthur digs a pond with that one hand and a shovel; you read a letter from Dorothy Wordsworth, and Arthur goes out and plants a hundred daffodils; now you want a mowed vista, and Arthur’s been out in the barn all afternoon trying to resurrect that giant mowing machine that’s been sitting up on blocks since Daddy died.”

“Arthur plants everything too deep,” said Essie.

“You’re too much alike, you and Arthur. You neither one of you give up on anything, even when you should.”

Then the telephone rang. “I can’t leave this lemon,” said Helen, and Essie was tangled up in the quilt. There were the three rings, then the digital-sounding voice they had for the outgoing message, then the tone, and a man’s voice, deep and weary, said, “Hey, baby. I know it’s been a long time…” A sigh and a pause.

“‘Baby’!” said Essie, and she sat up and leaned toward the telephone. Her catalog slid to the floor.

“I know I done wrong,” the voice said. “I just want to let you know I’m going to get out of this mess before long, and I’m sorry for what I done. Call me.”

“Poor thing,” said Helen. “He’s got the wrong number and he doesn’t know it.” She took up her brush and stroked the yellow onto the shaded side of the lemon. Essie picked up her catalog and lay back in the sofa, but the pages had flipped from a to x, and she lay there for a long time staring at the xanthosomas. “‘Baby’!” she whispered.

“Just probably some girlfriend trouble,” said Helen. “He’ll get it figured out.”