A Piedmont Porchlight Story

I was butterin’ my biscuit when Hattie Lane started patting every pocket in her apron.

“You alright over there, Sister Woman?” I asked.

“I’ve lost my glasses.”

Curtis Pope looked over the top of his newspaper.

“Ain’t they usually on your head?”

Hattie reached up.

“No.”

She checked another pocket.

“No, they’re not.”

She looked under the cash register. Behind the pie case. Even inside the refrigerator, though I don’t reckon anybody’s spectacles have ever decided to cool off with the potato salad.

After a minute I said, “Your Mawmaw would’ve found ’em by now.”

Hattie stopped looking.

“My Mawmaw could find anything.”

Curtis folded his newspaper.

“So could mine.”

I nodded.

“I’ve come to believe the Good Lord handed every Southern Mawmaw a map He forgot to give the rest of us.”

Hattie laughed.

“My brothers could tear the whole house apart looking for a baseball glove.”

“And?”

“Mawmaw would ask one question.”

“‘Where’d you boys look?'”

“‘Everywhere!'”

“‘Did you look where it belongs?'”

“‘Yes, ma’am!'”

“She’d just smile.”

“‘Move.'”

Curtis chuckled.

“My Mawmaw never hurried.”

“Mine neither.”

“She’d just stroll into the room like she had an appointment with whatever was missing.”

I pointed my fork toward Curtis.

“Exactly.”

“She’d open one drawer.”

“Lift one folded towel.”

“Reach behind the flour canister.”

“And there it’d be.”

Hattie shook her head.

“I swear mine could’ve found snow in July.”

“I once lost my pocketknife,” Curtis said, “looked three days for it.”

“Where was it?”

“My Mawmaw found it in my overalls pocket.”

“Weren’t you wearing ’em?”

“I was.”

Hattie laughed so hard she had to grab the counter.

I said, “Mine found my slingshot after I’d searched the whole yard.”

“Where was it?”

“In the pecan tree.”

Curtis blinked.

“You looked up there?”

“No.”

“Mawmaw did.”

The three of us sat there grinning into our coffee.

Funny thing is…

I don’t believe our Mawmaws had better eyesight than we did. I think they just understood people. They knew children never put things where they belonged. They knew grown men weren’t much better. They knew if somebody said they’d already looked everywhere, what they usually meant was they’d looked in the same three places four different times.

About then Hattie let out a little gasp.

“There they are.”

Curtis looked around.

“Where?”

She reached up and pulled her glasses off the top of her head.

“I’ll be.”

Curtis couldn’t help himself.

“You checked there first.”

“I thought I did.”

I smiled into my coffee.

“Your Mawmaw knew where they was the whole time.”

Hattie laughed.

“I reckon she did.”

For a little while, nobody said anything. Outside, right on schedule, the whistle echoed across town. I glanced at my watch.

“Eight-twelve.”

The freight train rolled past the Coffee Cup windows, and the three of us waited until the last boxcar disappeared around the bend. Funny how some things become part of a town’s rhythm. The morning train. The smell of bacon. Fresh coffee.

And a Southern Mawmaw finding whatever the rest of us had already given up on. I miss mine. Not because she could find my pocketknife. I miss her because she had a way of making you believe that nothing was ever really lost.

Sometimes…

It was just waiting for somebody patient enough to know where to look.