The Sighting

I just waved to my neighbor.

And she waved back!

You have to understand the history. She grew up in the house two doors down, when there were only three houses on our street (hers, ours, and the one in the middle) and this was a peach tree orchard dotted with foxholes. She raised her children in that house after her husband died and has lived there (with some hiatus, I think) off and on for 70+ years, fighting with the man in the middle since the mid-1950s.

And we were friends. Mama and I met her when we stopped to shovel snow off her sidewalk and came to be friends, visiting and going out to dinner. And then we had children. And she never wanted to speak to us again, believing it was awful that we would wilfully raise children without a father, as she had had to do. Mind you, she was fine with the whole lesbian thing, but our parenthood was another matter.

We heard about this through mutual friends, who came to explain our friend's sudden coldness to us. And they've kept us up to date on her for the last 3 1/2 years since we spoke to her last. Because, try as I might, I can't get mad at this woman, even though I understand she's said some things about us that I don't like.

And last week, for the second time recently, EMS and a firetruck showed up at her house. And I called our mutual friends so they could check in on her. And she told one of those friends that she might call to thank me. Call. To talk.

So just now, I was out getting the mail and she was getting in her niece's car. And I waved. And she waved back.

There might have been frost on the ground this morning, but things are thawing on our street this afternoon.