I went to the bank in my gardening clothes.
That was my first mistake, I suppose.chfr
It was a Tuesday in June. Hot already by ten in the morning. The kind of hot that comes up out of the ground in Millbrook and sits on your shoulders like a wet towel.chfr
I’d been in the tomatoes all morning. Tying up the Better Boys and pinching the suckers off the Romas. Dirt on my knees. Dirt under my fingernails. Dirt, probably, on the end of my nose.
I had on George’s old straw hat. The one with the frayed brim and the sweat stain around the band that’s been there since the Carter administration. My blue work shirt with the patches on the elbows. My good rubber boots. The green ones.
The check was from the Methodist church.
Forty dollars. For four rhubarb pies for the bake sale. Reverend Collins had brought it by the house himself on Sunday afternoon and stood on my porch insisting I take it.
