Dottie's Parapet
A Mercy Short Story
The sky was heavy grey and white, purple and blue, with a shot of pure bright yellow on the horizon. Tyler and Dani glided into the driveway by the little ranch out near the old rail bed. It wasn’t a brand-new car by any means, but it was clean and not broken or rotted out, which is saying something for any car that braves the winter salt of Maine roads. Anyway, the yard they were parking it in made it seem particularly fine by contrast. There wasn’t any other car, but there was a garage with a pile of black trash bags pushing up against the speckled glass and splintering wood of the single bay. Somebody had mowed the lawn in the summer, but perhaps not often, and now it was rusty with October’s leaves. Tufts of yellow grass and dead flower stalks leaned against the foundation. The paint was peeling; the steps to the side door were unstained and sagging. Lining the driveway were homemade lawn ornaments cut out of plywood and painted, not very artfully, yet with a certain amount of precision. A stenciled sign offered them for $20 each. The collection had seen a few winters, perhaps. The roof flapped with several layers of tarps.
The young people looked at each other nervously and giggled. “Let’s do this,” Tyler said and Dani smiled broadly and nodded. They stepped from the car into the sharp, wet November air. Every now and then, the sky spit a snowflake at them as they ascended the stairs. Tyler grimaced a sheepish, “Here goes” and, hesitating a moment, knocked on the door.
No answer. Their eyes met anxiously.
“Try one more time,” Dani said, “I think that I heard something.”
“Should I just wait?” Tyler still held his fist in the air.
“Nah, knock one more time to make sure.”
Tyler knocked. They most definitely heard something. It was slow, and it was approaching them.
“Ok, wait.” Dani shivered with nervous excitement and muttered, leaning in towards Tyler, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Tyler mouthed, “I know” as the door creaked open and an elderly woman’s face appeared. Something about its dimensions and the bags under her rheumy eyes suggested a St. Bernard.
“Yes?” she queried in a raspy voice.
Tyler and Dani were suddenly struck by their lack of preparation.
“Um, hello,” Dani said to fill the silence, “We’re um…well, we’re Tyler and Dani and we’re here to..well, we wanted to…”
“Gawd, it’s cold,” the woman said, “You want to come in?”
Relieved at a moment’s reprieve, they agreed. They followed the woman down a short hallway, lined with a vast quantity of coats and shoes, many probably her own but also children’s shoes and men’s boots. Presumably there was a hall runner, but it was protected by a strip of heavy, ridged plastic that had become yellowed and scuffed with age and now obscured it. The woman walked with a rolling gait, shifting uncomfortably from one ropey ankle to the other. She wore nice sheepskin slippers.
Dani knocked a coat from the wall. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, stooping to retrieve it.
“Damn kids,” the woman said, “Gotta have coats for ‘em when they come over in their shirt sleeves. How else they gonna build my snowman?” She smiled and added, “No, I love it, you know. I like to see their junk there and know they’re coming back by.”
There was a kitchen at the end of the hallway, carpeted in a worn maroon carpet. There was a neat stack of small styrofoam coolers in one corner.
“Now,” said the woman, shooing away a cat, “Now, have a seat right here and tell me what you need. I’m Dottie, by the way.” She moved an ashtray. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting company. Not strangers, anyway!” She motioned to the little blond wood table in the middle of the small space and they took a seat. “Just gotta turn off the boob toob!” Dottie shuffled off into the darkened living room. Tyler played with the polyester lace on a handmade placemat while Dani traced her finger down a long scratch alongside a stray crayon mark. The room was lit by a fluorescent bulb over the sink but Dottie flicked a switch as she came back in and the light over the table filled the room with warm light.
“Now,” she said, turning on the kettle, “How can I help you?” She struggled with arthritic fingers to pull the lid off of a blue cookie tin and then handed it to Tyler. “If you would, deah.”
“Well,” Dani said, putting a pretzel shaped cookie that glittered with sugar on the butterfly print napkin Dottie handed her,”It’s about your roof.”
“Oh?” Dottie paused in her reach for mugs in the cupboard, “You from the town?”
“No, well, that is, not officially.” Dottie nodded awkwardly as she placed sugar and a box of half and half in front of them, and a yellow box of Lipton tea. She didn’t say anything, and neither did Dani, for a long moment.
“Well, what about it, then?” Dottie shrugged and pursed her purple lips slightly.
“No, we just. . . well, we wanted to help you, you know…that is, we were concerned, with winter coming on. . .”
“Help me how?” Dottie said in genuine confusion.
“Well, we..we have a little saved and we were thinking we could maybe help you get it repaired.” Dottie stood with her back to them, hand on the kettle, for another long moment. Then she turned and filled three mugs with hot water.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “I didn’t catch your names.”
“I’m Tyler, and this is Dani,” jumped in Tyler, overly eager, feeling a bit left out of the conversation.
Dottie placed a mug in front of each of them, one with an insurance company's logo in front of Tyler and a “World’s Best Auntie” in front of Dani. “Nice to meet you,” she said, as she sat down heavily and with a sigh.
“We were thinking,” Dani went on, “We know a roofer that we think could fit you in before winter, and. . .”
“It’s so kind,” Dottie said slowly, “But you’d better save that for your own folks.:
“Oh our folks don’t need. . .” Tyler kicked her under the table.
“We just really want to do something for the community,” he explained.
“Oh, the community,” Dottie nodded, closely inspecting a flower on the corner of her placement.
“Yes, and we thought, well, maybe that it would be nice for you. . .”
“Of course, deah, yes,” Dottie absently stroked the pack of cigarettes on the table. There was a rumble in the driveway.
“Will you let us?” If Dottie had looked into their eager faces, perhaps she could have done them the kindness of allowing their generosity. But she was looking at a shadow through the curtain on the door, which opened, spilling the chill air over them. A gaunt man of maybe 40 or 50, wearing jeans, workboots, a rugged jacket and a knit hat strode confidently across the floor. He squeezed her shoulders and said, “Hey, Dottie. Company?”
“Um, yes,” she said, at a loss, then recovered herself, “Yes, Tyler and Dani…I didn’t catch your last name?”
“Oh well, we’re…” Tyler floundered, flustered, “We’re not. . .”
“I’m Dani Moulton and he’s Tyler White,” Dani said, slightly flushed.
“Mike Blanchard,” the man said, shaking their hands in turn, “Don’t mind me,” he added, “I’m just here to help Aunt Dot with a couple things. We’re putting the flower beds to rest today?” he asked her, “What about Vick’s lawn things? You want those in the garage?”
“Flower beds today, yes,” she said, “Leave Vick’s for a week or two.”
“Don’t want to plow them up.”
“No, no…just another week or two.”
“Ok. Anything else?”
“Yes, I think…” she said, “Well, check back in after the beds. Your envelope from the other day is over there,” she nodded towards the counter.
“Ok, thanks, I’ll grab it before I go.”
“You’ll stop for coffee?” She gave him an anxious little side glance.
“After the flowers,” Mike said, smiling, turning to go but suddenly stopping as if registering something. He turned back and looked curiously at Tyler and Dani. “You JW’s or something?”
“Oh no, no,” they hastened to assure him.
“You selling something?” He put a hand on Dottie’s shoulder.
“No, Mike, nothing like that,” Dottie said, “These young people were just concerned about…they wanted to help with…well, they offered to replace my roof.”
“Oh!” Mike said, “I didn’t realize you knew them.”
“No, we. . .,” Dani said as Tyler began.
“We just thought. . .”
“Well, the thing is, we just really want to help our community, and we saw something we thought we could help with.” Dani’s shoulders were a little slumped. The conversation was starting to wear her down. She hadn’t imagined it going like this. She thought she’d be delivering the news that someone had won the lottery. She thought that there would be tears of delight.
“Aw man,” Mike said, keeping his hand on Dottie’s shoulder, “Couple of kids like you guys, that’s great but man, you better hold on to that money, that shit goes fast. Don’t seem like it when you're young but life catches up to you. Better hold on to it. Stay gold, though, man, right? What a great couple of kids.” Dani and Tyler began to pull out the professional veneer that they used at the office, straightening up, summoning non-committal smiles. They felt a bit condescended to with all this “kid” talk. Mike smiled and nodded at them in a way that was friendly and final. “Thanks so much for stopping by.”
“Yes, thank you,” Dottie echoed, “The world needs more kids like you.” Dani wondered what for, if their hands were always tied.
Dani and Tyler looked at each other and hesitantly started getting themselves together to leave, Tyler putting the remainder of a cookie quickly in his mouth.
“It was nice to meet you,” Mike said, a little loudly.
“You, too,” Tyler said, pausing, then putting his hand out and and shaking Mike’s. “Nice to meet you, Do. . .”
“Mrs. Shaw,” Mike interjected.
“Mike, it’s ok. . .,” Dottie said, shaking her head, while Tyler finished,
“Mrs. Shaw.”
Mike saw them to the door.
Tyler and Dani were sitting at the little white table in their break room at City Hall, looking deflated and talking earnestly, when Isla walked through the next day, coffee cup in hand.
“Isla!”, Dani said, as if they had just been talking about her.
“Yes?” she said, while still steering a swift and straight course for the coffee maker.
“We were just talking about you.”
“Uh-oh.” Isla half-smiled.
“We had something strange happen yesterday.”
“I swear it wasn’t me.”
Dani laughed faintly, “No, but. . .well, you know, you’re always talking about how ‘stick a government program on it and call it good’ isn’t going to solve all the town’s poverty problems.”
Isla leaned on the counter and took a sip of her coffee, bit her lower lip, and nodded. “I suppose I say things along those lines.”
“Well, we thought ‘maybe she’s right, what else can we do?’ and we saw a need and tried to help and she wouldn’t let us.”
Isla knit her eyebrows and said skeptically, “What need? What she?”
“There’s this lady out near the town line with all these tarps on her roof all the time and we thought with winter coming and everything, we could maybe help her out with fixing it properly.”
Isla set her coffee cup down hard and crossed her arms over her chest, saying sternly, “That was you?”
“You know about it?” Dani was startled. Tyler just listened.
“Yes, I know about it, it was my frickin aunt!” The pitch in Isla’s voice was rising. “Please tell me you didn’t take up a collection for it at the office, you humiliated her enough!”
“Humiliated!”
“Yes. Going in there and waving your money around.”
“We didn’t even get that far,” Tyler offered.
“I mean figuratively, of course.”
“We just offered to fix the roof,” Dani said, slightly sullen and defensive, “It’s not like we’re rich or something. It was a sacrifice.”
“Well, I guarantee that what she heard was, ‘We just finished college and we’ve already got our lives together and you can’t even take care of yourself.’ Or something like that.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No.”
“Well, how are we supposed to help people? We knew it wasn’t perfect, but we just thought we had to try something. Isn’t that better? Don’t wait until you’re perfect, just try something?”
“Look, nobody’s perfect, but that doesn’t mean you have to be stupid.”
“Stupid!”
“Ok, I’m sorry. You meant well. And I don’t know all the answers, I truly don’t. Maybe if we had a roof repair program, Aunt Dot would apply for it, I don’t know. Maybe a program would help, would be less embarrassing. Honestly, I don’t think she would. She thinks the roof is taken care of. What you did was go in and tell her it’s not good enough, she’s not good enough. You didn’t need to do that.”
“We never said that! We never thought that!”
“You didn’t need to say that, and you didn’t think enough.”
“What else could we have done?”
“Weren’t Vick’s lawn things out? You could have bought one. She literally has offered a way for you to help her.”
“$20? Come on, Isla, she’ll spend that on cigarettes before she ever gets enough for a roof.”
“This is what I’m talking about.”
“What?”
“You talked to her for 5 minutes and you’ve already decided what she’s like, who she is, how she spends her money, because of what her house looks like and because of how she looks like and because she’s got a frickin ashtray.”
“Tell me it’s not true.”
“I’ll tell you it’s none of your business.”
“So I’m right.”
Isla raised her eyes to the ceiling before saying, “You have no idea how the economy of someone like Aunt Dot works. Maybe she’s got a jar marked ‘roof’ and she puts in a $20 or a $10 when she’s got it to spare. Maybe she never takes it out except to count it. You don’t like lawn ornaments? She’s got a craft fair the week after Thanksgiving. Go buy mittens for all your nieces.”
“Are you serious right now? Those old ladies barely cover the price of yarn.”
“You have no idea how these economies work.”
“I know you get a kick out of these cryptic sayings, Isla, but nobody knows what you mean. Seriously, what else can we do if we want to help our community?”
“Stop calling it ‘our community’ and start using people’s names,” Isla said, “Help your own gram, or get to know someone really well before you do something crazy like that.”
“Well, you know her really well. Why haven’t you helped her?”
“You don’t know anything about it. Aunt Dot is our queen. Everyone helps her. Didn’t you even see Uncle Mike there helping her?”
“Yes, but…”
“The money only goes so far.”
“So you need hel…”
“You decided we needed. We’re all set.”
“What did she say to you, anyway?”
Isla clenched her jaw for a few minutes, thinking about Aunt Dot sitting at the table with Mum, Mum asking about an “interesting visit” that she’d heard about from Uncle Mike. She decided not to mention that her cousin had said if it had been him, he’d have taken the do-gooder’s money and laughed all the way to the bank.
“She said,” Isla said tersely, “That a couple of the sweetest kids came by wanting to help her out with the roof.” Isla looked intently at Dani, refusing to let her dodge her gaze. “She said that she thought you’d go far in life and that she felt bad turning you down. She said you were rare, that’s what she said. Treasures. Hope for the next frickin’ generation.”
“She said that?”
Isla nodded. That’s what Dottie had said. But the whole time she talked, her eyes never left Mum’s chipped linoleum.