This morning I went back over to Deloress house and opened the drawer, the one she said Harold had filled with things he fixed and labeled for after.
It was full. A new smoke detector, still in the package, with a note in Harolds hand, change the batteries every spring. A list of every repair he had made to her house over six years, and which ones would need doing again, and when. The name and number of the young man who did the heavy work. And an envelope of cash, labeled, for the furnace, she will need one soon, do not let her pay.
For six years my husband told me he was golfing Tuesday mornings. He does not golf. He was two doors down, keeping a ninety-year-old blind widows house from falling down around her, and he made her swear never to thank him out loud, because he said a good deed talked about stops being one.
I thought I knew everything about a man after forty years. I did not know the best thing he did all week, every week, for six years.
Delores held my hand with both of hers and told me Harold never once let her say thank you. He would just fix the step, or clear the gutter, or pay the young man, and say, Delores, you did not see a thing. She said he gave her the one thing she needed more than the repairs, which was the dignity of not being a charity case.
I did not know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both, right there in her kitchen.
I am keeping the Tuesday thing going. The young man still comes. I pay him now, out of the envelope Harold labeled, and when it runs low I will fill it myself. Delores still is not allowed to thank anyone out loud. Those are Harolds rules, and I intend to honor them.
My husband spent his Tuesdays making sure an old woman could stay in her own home, and never told a soul, not even his wife. I married him for forty years and I am prouder of him today than I ever was. Some men golf. Mine did this.