Free When Horses Had Wings by Diana Estill Page B

books and didn’t possess a camera. The sum total of what I recall about Sean’s first years are that he crawled at age seven months, took his first steps at fourteen months and, despite my best efforts to the contrary, learned to say the word “Daddy” before he could mouth anything else.
    Kenny kept right on hauling trash for both the city and his private business while I lollygagged away my days, tending to Sean, dodging Kenny, and looking forward to nothing more than a decent night’s sleep. Granny filled in the gaps.
    Clomp. Swish. Clomp. Swish. I could hear her out there with her broom, sweeping away yesterday’s dusty layers like she did every morning. Maybe that was Granny’s way of calling out to me, “Hey, come outside, and let’s visit so I don’t lose my mind trying to talk to this old fart over here.” Unless it was raining, my front door generally remained open, as it was on that October morning, to catch a breeze.
    Sean struggled away from my one-handed grip, ran to the screen door, and grunted. Filled with the normal curiosity of an eighteen-month-old, he remained impossible to feed. I caught up to him right as Granny Henderson approached the other side of the screen door. “Mornin’, Peanut. You comin’ out to help me pick up pe-cans today?”
    The only vegetation in our front yard was a mature pecan tree that stole all the sunshine needed to support grass. That was just as well; neither of our two worse-halves would have mowed a lawn, anyway. Proof of that existed in our backyards, where what looked like a hayfield had grown right up to the foundation. I’d worn a footpath through those weeds to access the wire clothesline attached to the house.
    “We’ll be right out, Granny,” I said. “Sean needs to finish his cereal, first.” But Sean wasn’t about to return to breakfast now that he’d seen Granny. I gave up trying to convince him cold oatmeal was useful only as glue and joined my neighbor outdoors.
    “Them damn squirrels ’bout got all our pe-cans today, Sean,” Granny huffed. The three of us inspected the front yard, bending and stooping like a flock of bantam chickens. We tossed the few nuts we found into a bushel produce basket Granny had set out for that purpose. “We better hurry,” Granny said. “Looks like more rain’s a-comin’.”
    The Hendersons’ Chevy had vacated its usual resting place, so Sean stopped to poke his fingers in the water that remained where the car had been parked.
    “Old Man gone already?” I asked.
    “Left before eight this morning, dressed like he’s goin’ to meet the Mayor,” Granny said.
    “Maybe he’s got a girlfriend.”
    “Lordy, girl. If that old devil can find another woman to put up with him, she’s more than welcome to him. I wished he could.” She walked back to the porch and scooted into her swing. “Don’t nobody want a man who won’t do nothin’ but piss on hisself.”
    I laughed. “I think I got one of those, now.” I set Sean on the steps, next to me. He kicked his feet in front of him and squealed in utter delight over being outdoors.
    “Hmmm. You know, you just might. I believe you just might.” Granny scratched at her dry scalp, then brushed a loose silver tendril from one eye. “And if you ain’t careful, you’re gonna end up just like me,” she said in a more serious tone.
    I kissed the top of Sean’s platinum-blond head as he patted at my thighs. “What do you mean?”
    “There’s two things I never got, but you still can… and if you get ’em, things might turn out different for you. Them’s education and a job. You gotta get you some kind of work if you don’t want to still be living here when you’re eighty .” Granny stopped to wave at a pickup heading east on Hawk Creek Road. “I know. You tell yourself times’ll get better. But they don’t, I’m tellin’ you. They can’t. Not as long as you only know how to make babies, wipe noses, and tend to a man who won’t stop gallivanting