Here, she said. Give me something to write on. That paper will do. Hand me that newspaper. It was the morning’s Denver News, still rolled in the rubber band the boys had put on it early that morning at the depot. She unrolled it and from the front page tore off a ragged piece and began to write along the white margin, listing the ingredients — oatmeal, eggs, brown sugar — writing in the old school-taught Palmer script in the fluid style, but shaky now as though she were shivering from cold or fever. There, she said. I gave you the money. She looked at Ike. I’m giving you the shopping list, she said to Bobby. She handed him the scrap of newspaper. Go ahead now. Go on. I’ll be waiting.
But where should we get these, Mrs. Stearns? Ike said.
At Johnson’s. You know the grocery store.
Yes. We know it.
That’s where.
They turned and started out.
Wait, she said. How are you going to get back in here? I don’t want to have to get up and answer the door again. She took a key from the purse and handed it to them.
They left her apartment and went down the stairs to the sidewalk and into the sharp winter air on Main Street and on to Johnson’s at the corner of Second. When they were inside the store it was a good deal more complicated than they had thought it would be. On the ranks of shelves were two brands of brown sugar. Also, there were quick oats and regular oats and two measures of the cardboard barrels they came in. And with eggs, three sizes and two colors. They debated the matter between themselves, standing in the aisles of the store while around them the other shoppers, middle-aged women and young mothers, looked at them curiously and went on pushing their full carts.
We settled on the cheap brown sugar, Ike said.
Yes, Bobby said.
And the big one of regular oats.
Yes.
So now with eggs we take the medium ones.
Why?
Because they’re in the middle.
So?
It makes a difference, Ike said. The one between the other two ones. It makes it even.
Bobby looked at him, considering. All right, he said. Which color?
Which color?
Brown or white.
They turned toward the refrigerated case once more and regarded the tiers of cardboard egg cartons. Mother bought white ones, Ike said.
She’s not our mother, Bobby said. Maybe she wants brown ones.
Why would she want brown ones?
She had us get brown sugar.
So?
Because it comes in white too, Bobby said. Only she said brown.
All right, Ike said. Brown eggs.
All right, Bobby said.
Medium sized.
All right then.
They carried the eggs and oats and sugar up to the front of the store to the cash register and paid the checkout woman. She smiled at them. You boys making something good? she said. They didn’t answer but took the change from her hand and went back outside and up the stairs to the old woman’s dark and overheated rooms above the alley. They used the key and went in without knocking and discovered her asleep in the chair they’d left her in. She was breathing faintly, a quiet sigh and recover, her head lapsed forward onto the yoke of her blue housedress. They approached and stood before her, hesitant, and seeing how faint the movement was in her chest, watching the meager rise and collapse of the housedress, they felt a little frightened. Ike leaned forward and said, Mrs. Stearns. We’re back. They stood before her, waiting. They watched her. Mrs. Stearns, he said. He leaned forward again. We’re here. He touched her arm.
Abruptly she stopped breathing. She choked a little. Her eyes fluttered open behind the glasses and she raised her head to look about. Well. Are you back?
We just came in, Ike said. Just now.
What trouble did you have at the grocery store?
None. We got everything.
Good, she said.
They handed her the leftover money and the grocery receipt and she held her open palm in front of her face, counting the money with her finger, and put the bills and coins away in her purse. They handed her the front-door key but she said, I’m going to trust you with that. You can come in if you need to. And I won’t have to get up to let you in. Maybe you’ll want to sometime. She looked at them. All right? They nodded. Very well, she said. Let me see if I can stand up. Slowly she began to rise from the chair, pushing back with her fisted hands against the armrests. They wanted to help her but didn’t know where she might be touched. At last she stood erect. It’s ridiculous to get so old, she said. It’s stupid and ridiculous. She took up her canes. Stand back so I don’t trip on you.
They followed her scraping into the kitchen, where they hadn’t been before: a little room with a small window overlooking the tarred roof of the next building, and a plain wood table with a toaster on it, a half-refrigerator, a trash can and an old hard enameled sink containing a single dirty coffee cup and the toast crumbs of her breakfast.
Wash your hands, she said. That’s first. Here.
They stood next to one another before the sink. Afterward she handed them a towel. Then she told them to take down the additional ingredients from the cupboard and set them out on the table, following the order of the old recipe she’d cut from the top of an oatmeal barrel, the recipe gray and worn now, grease-smeared but still legible.
What’s next? she said. Read it.
Vanilla.
Up there. On the middle shelf. Then what?
Baking soda.
There. She pointed. Anything else?
No. That’s all.
All right, she said. You understand? If you can read you can cook. You can always feed yourselves. You remember that. I’m not just talking about here. When you go home too. Do you understand what I’m saying?
They looked at her gravely. Bobby read the scrap of recipe print again. What does cream mean? he said.
Where?
It says cream the butter and sugars.
That means mix them together until they’re soft, she said. Like heavy cream.
Oh.
You use a fork for that.
They began to put it all in and they stirred it together in the bowl while she stood beside them overseeing, instructing, then they spooned dollops of batter onto the greased sheet and set the raw cookies in the oven.
I’ve been thinking, she said. I’m going to show you something. While we wait.
She shuffled into the next room and came back carrying a flat and ragged cardboard box and set it on the table and removed the lid, then she showed them photographs that had been much-handled in the long afternoons and evenings of her solitary life, photographs that had been lifted out and examined and returned to the black picture book album, the album itself of an old shape and style. They were all of her son, Albert. That’s him, she told them. Her tobacco-stained finger pointed at one of the photographs. That’s my son. He died in the war. In the Pacific.
The boys bent forward to see him.
That’s my Albert in his Navy uniform. That’s my favorite picture of him as a grown man. Do you see that look on his face? Oh, he was a handsome boy.
He was a tall thin boy in a dark Navy uniform, wearing his dress blues, and his white dixie cup pushed back on his head, his shoes gleaming. In the picture he was squinting into the sun. Behind him there was a tree in leaf and a pool of dark shade. He was grinning terrifically.
I miss him every day, she said. I still do.
She turned the page and there was a photograph of the same boy standing with his arm draped around the shoulders of a slender woman with dark wavy hair in a white gabardine dress.
Who’s that? they said. That lady with him.
Who do you think? she said.
They shrugged. They didn’t know.
That’s me. Couldn’t you guess?