When I called Ollie during my rare trips home, he remembered me. Every time. But I never gave him the chance not to. I always told him that I was Mikey’s sister or Mr. Reuben’s daughter. And he would be so nice to me on the phone. Tired, calm, old, unhurried, confident, masculine-nice, the way he had been when he’d lean against his rake and listen off towards the house as Mom would call us in for lunch.

We had these two pear trees on Jackson Avenue before we knocked them down to build the new garage. They were wonderful trees. We had a hammock strung from one to another, and from upstairs in the boys’ room (when it was painted yellow), I could turn out all the lights and look down at Selma and Ronnie Morris almost kissing as they swung back and forth on the hammock in the backyard. And these pear trees would blossom out in the daintiest, prettiest white flowers in the springtime, and in the summer, we’ would get this bombardment of fruit. Usually, they were wormy or nibbled on by squirrels, so we didn’t pay much attention to them. But Ollie would gather up the pears by the bushel, and he would bring them home to the wife who was a policewoman, and she would do something magical to them and they would come back to our kitchen as preserves or jam.