“It was a face to which almost any door would have opened of its own accord.” The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, p. 96
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It was a face to which almost any door would have opened of its own accord. The boy’s thick brown hair, standing up in crests, was dented in the front from the rim of the baseball hat he held in one hand. He had mischievous eyes, cheeks still flushed from the game, a broad smile, and a dimpled chin. Claire stared at him. And then she chided herself. She could be his mother.
Standing next to the boy was a smaller version of himself–same smile, same hair, the ears sticking out a bit from under his hat—what the boy looked like two years ago, Claire guessed. And then he’d grown into the ears, shot up a foot, and adopted a grown person’s manners. “Hi ma’am, I’m Joe, and this is my brother Paul. We’re looking to do some yardwork around the neighborhood this summer. Mowing and weeding, mostly. We can do leaves in the fall too.”
Claire recognized him then: Joey Granger. Theresa Granger’s oldest child. How was that possible? She remembered him, at four or five years old, pedaling around the block on a little blue tricycle. The Granger’s had that massive dog. A Saint Bernard, maybe? And they’d let little Joey have the reign of the neighborhood, knowing the dog would never leave his side. Claire had a vision of the dog’s massive paw pressing on the front fender of the tricycle, stopping the boy from pedaling out into the street.
“Joey, my god, I’m Claire Forster, I used to be friends with your mother.” His face underwent some barely perceptible transformation. “But that was so long ago. Didn’t you all move out to Fox Hills?”
“We did ma’am.” He shifted the duffel bag full of baseball equipment from one shoulder to the other. The younger boy bit his lip and studied the tip of his shoe, grinding it into the pavement in a rocking motion.
“We moved back here a few months ago, though,” the boy explained.
“Not into the same house?” Claire remembered with a tinge of jealousy the beautiful old timber and stone Craftsman with the eyebrow dormers.
“No, but it’s the same street.”
“Oh, your mother must be so pleased! She always loved that block.” The boys stared at her, as if she’d suggested something obscene. Claire felt herself smiling stiffly, a twinge of uncertainty now playing at the corner of her mouth.
“No, ma’am.”
“No?” She felt something inside her sink and then settle again.
“Our mom is … she died. Last year. She got cancer.” The boy blinked, pretended to look down the block.
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry, Joey.” She hadn’t meant to call him that. It was too familiar, a little boy’s name.
He turned and looked her right in the eye. “So do you need some help with your yard, ma’am? I mean, Mrs. Forster?”