She asked him to stay for supper and he did. Lydia had always accused her mother of siding with him on everything. Zelda fried green tomatoes and corn bread while he sliced cucumbers and cleaned green onions she had bought at Kathi Hoskins’s grocery. The floodwaters had carried her garden away. They ate on the porch and drank a pitcher of sweet tea. They watched the hickory-nut green water of the river and sat chatting for a while, then they both fell silent. That was one thing he loved about Zelda: she let a person be. She knew how to be quiet. Most folks couldn’t do that.

“I sure do love the cool of the day,” Zelda said, finally, and popped a slice of fried green tomato into her mouth, chewing it with vigor. She always referred to the evening time this way, and Asher sometimes found himself repeating it aloud.

Asher helped her with the dishes and the thin kitchen curtains breathed in and out at the windows. A sprawling willow tree stood near the kitchen and every time a breeze stirred the willow leaves made a small quiet music against the screens.

“The best part about open windows at night is when I wake up in the morning, I can hear the birds praying in the trees,” Zelda said, her hands in the soapy water. She had said this to him many times before, too, but Asher loved hearing her say it each time.

When he told her goodbye she finally got choked up and put her hands over her face. “You’ll always be family,” she said. “Nothing’ll change that.”

He stopped at the Dollar General on his way back out to the lake trailer and bought an air mattress to sleep on, a set of sheets, a couple of pillows, a little lamp. He’d worry about everything else later. He wished he had gotten a quilt for the weight on his body but he could make it for a couple nights. He switched off the chilling air conditioner and opened the windows, filling the house with insect song arising from the lake bank. The mattress squeaked beneath him as he tried to get situated. He read the Elizabeth Bishop poem again as his eyes grew heavy. He thought of the sandpipers on the Key West beaches, of his brother living there in that place so different from home.

Justin was in awe of the panoramic view of the lake from the trailer windows and didn’t seem to notice that there was hardly any furniture. Anticipating Justin’s visit Asher had bought a sunken old couch from the Goodwill and cleaned it with a shampooer he rented from the hardware store. He had bought another air mattress for Justin to sleep on—“It’s just like we’re camping,” he told his son, although Justin seemed unconcerned—but other than that the trailer was bare.