Tuscaloosa Runs This tiles. I installed that quarter round,” she hmmed and turned, instead, to what she would have done with the drapes. When we sold the house the next fall to an African-American couple in their late 60s, all of the women were disappointed. To my knowledge, they have never invited the new owners to a Garden Club meeting.
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My husband and I are now pregnant with our first child. We have been living apart this year—he started his new job in Kentucky last fall and I stayed to sell our house, then to finish out my teaching contract with the University of Alabama—and now friends in both states are excited about the child’s pending birth. At the meeting last month, the second Tuesday in April, long before the front that produced the storm system that spawned this god awful mess had even been predicted, the Garden Club threw a small shower for me, bought us our Pack n’ Play and a children’s book, and sat patting my arm and telling me stories of their children when they were small. We had punch and pound cake. It was very sweet. I do not doubt that the Garden Club will, at its next meeting, decide to donate a portion of the monthly dues to some tornado relief effort, most likely one sponsored by someone’s church. They will talk at length about the tragedy, about who is in the hospital, about how sad it all is. They will remember thirty years ago when you could see the hospital like that, perched on its hill, with no trees blocking the view. Some of them—those who are not too sick or too tired—will have gone to volunteer, sleeves up, in