The thing is, there are maybe six or seven houses close enough to mine that someone could get to my porch and back without being too obvious. I know all those families. I’ve brought them Christmas cookies and borrowed their extension cords and watched their dogs when they traveled.

None of them ever said a word. Every year, nothing. Just the swing, gleaming, smelling like fresh paint and something I didn’t have a word for. I don’t know. Purpose, maybe. Like the house was still being taken care of.

This year Good Friday fell on a rainy day, which is not unusual for April in this part of Ohio. I walked to church in my good coat with an umbrella and sat in my usual spot, third pew on the left. Pastor Dennis started the service at noon like always. But around twelve-thirty the rain picked up hard, really hammering on the roof of the sanctuary, and he decided to cut it short. He said something kind about how God understood, and we all laughed a little, and by quarter to one I was walking home.

I want to say I had some feeling about what I was about to find. I actually almost turned around on the corner of Maple and Vine to go to Paulette’s instead, just to visit, but I kept going. I think I was just cold.

I came up my front walk and there it was. The ladder. The drop cloth over the hydrangeas. The open paint can on the steps. I stood there in my good coat getting rained on and I just looked at everything for a long moment.

The swing wasn’t finished. Half of it was fresh white, bright and clean, the other half still dull and weathered from last year.

Whoever was doing this had been in the middle of the job when the rain got too heavy, or when they heard me coming, or both.

I walked up the porch steps and that’s when I noticed the sticker on the paint can lid. The hardware store on Route 9 puts an account sticker on anything bought on store credit. Name, account number, date of purchase. I’ve bought things there on account myself. The sticker was right there, slightly wet at the corner but perfectly readable.

The name on it was Gerald Foss.

I actually said it out loud on my empty porch. Just his name, out loud, to nobody.