“Even now, I still like you,” she had written in her last letter. “You’re kind, and one of the finest people I know. But somehow, that just wasn’t enough. I don’t know why I feel that way, I just do. It’s a terrible thing to say, I know, and it probably won’t amount to much of an explanation. Nineteen is an awful age to be. Maybe in a few years I’ll be able to explain things better, but after a few years it probably won’t matter anymore, will it?”

I washed my face at the faucet, then loaded my equipment back into the van and changed into a new T-shirt. Having done that, I went to the front door of the house to announce that I’d finished.

“How about a beer?” the woman asked.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I said. What could be the harm of one beer, after all?

Standing side by side at the edge of the yard, we surveyed the lawn, I with my beer, she with a long vodka tonic, no lemon. Her tall glass was the kind they give away at liquor stores. The cicadas were still chirping the whole while. The woman didn’t look a bit drunk; only her breathing seemed a little unnatural, drawn slow between her teeth with a slight wheeze.

“You do good work,” she said. “I’ve called in a lot of lawn-maintenance people before, but you’re the first to do this good a job.”

“You’re very kind,” I said.

“My late husband was fussy about the lawn, you know. Always did a crack job himself. Very much like the way you work.”

I took out my cigarettes and offered her one. As we stood there smoking, I noticed how big her hands were compared to mine. Big enough to dwarf both the glass in her right hand and the Hope regular in her left. Her fingers were stubby—no rings—and several of the nails had strong vertical lines running through them.

“Whenever my husband got any time off, he’d always be mowing the lawn. But mind you, he was no oddball.”

I tried to conjure up an image of the woman’s husband, but I couldn’t quite picture the guy. Any more than I could imagine a camphor-tree husband and wife.

The woman wheezed again. “Ever since my husband passed away,” she said, “I’ve had to call in professionals. I can’t stand too much sun, you know, and my daughter, she doesn’t like getting tanned. Other than to get a tan, no real reason for a young girl to be mowing lawns anyway, right?”

I nodded.

“My, but I do like the way you work, though. That’s the way lawns ought to be mowed.”

I looked the lawn over one more time. The woman belched.

“Come again next month, okay?”

“Next month’s no good,” I said.