Free Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde

quick with a smile for an older woman, no condescension, always thinking to ask about her day, her arthritis, and still listening when she gave the answer.
    She bought twelve cans of cat food and a five-pound bag of dry cat chow, for the strays who counted on her, and cherryKool-Aid for the boy, and Richard’s favorite brand of beer, and tea and skinless chicken breasts and bran cereal for herself.
    All the while thinking, Terri and Matt, that’s two who probably could be counted on to pass it along, and maybe that nice lady at the North County Cat Shelter would make a fitting third. Richard would have a cow, but maybe tough love was just what he needed, and with that thought fresh in her mind, she returned to the cooler and put his beer back on the shelf. He could drink Kool-Aid or iced tea, or go home and take his smoke and his money problems with him.
    “Good evening, Mrs. Greenberg,” Terri said, running the groceries across the scanner. “I drove by your house today. The garden looks wonderful.”
    It pleased her in an uplifting way, like a dance with a good-looking boy in high school, that someone besides herself should notice and care.
    “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said. “Trevor McKinney did all that. Such a good boy. Do you know him?”
    Terri didn’t imagine that she did, but it obviously pleased her to see Mrs. Greenberg so beaming, and Matt too, who mirrored back her own smile as he bagged her cat food.
    He had one of those modern hairstyles, Matt, a handsome boy with hair shaved high up onto his scalp, and longer on top, but always clean, with a fresh look to say, I’m modern, not a punk.
    “Nice to see you so happy tonight, Mrs. Greenberg.” He loaded her little cart carefully so it would balance just right.
    It would be nice to see Matt happy, too, though by design she would not be around to see it. Young people needed a little nest egg, for college maybe, though it would not be enough for tuition, maybe books and clothes, or whatever they might choose to spend it for, because she felt they could both be trusted.
    And that nice lady at the cat shelter, she would put it right back into spaying and neutering and other vet costs. No doubting her priorities.
    Yes, she thought, back out in the crisp, clean-smelling night. It’s right. She’d make the calls first thing in the morning.
     
    H ER CHEST FIRST BEGAN TO HURT on the way home. Not her heart, but more her lungs, like a bad congestion, and she stopped often to catch her breath. She was not such an old woman, she had to remind herself, just over retirement age, but since losing Martin her body seemed to turn in on itself, as though it couldn’t wait. As though her immunities no longer cared to protect her but meant to hasten her along. The arthritis had tripled its hold since then, and she’d catch any little thing that was going around.
    Stopping often to rest, she took a detour, which she never did, by Trevor McKinney’s house. Such a nice little house, with a curvy shingle roof, heavy with vegetation but never overgrown looking. Too bad about that twisted, awful thing in her driveway looking like the spooky remains of an ugly death on the highway. Mrs. Greenberg imagined his mother must want it gone, want the simple beauty of her place back, maybe even dreamed of it the way she herself had dreamed for her garden.
    They had company tonight, she saw, stopping for breath at the walkway. A white Volkswagen Beetle, nicely cared for, parked out front. A new boyfriend. Good. She’d seen the old one, didn’t think much of the type.
    And she could see, through the window, into the brightly lit dining room, the right side of his face in profile. A well-dressed black man, so handsome and refined.
    Well, good, then. Good for them.
    Mrs. Greenberg hoped Trevor’s mother wouldn’t listen to anybody, wouldn’t let any small minds get in her way. They had tried to tell her not to marry Martin, because he was a Jewish boy, but she wouldn’t listen,