The burly man came down the ladder. He wiped his hands on his jeans. He looked at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen on a man his size.
“You must be Claire,” he said.
“How do you know my name?”
“Your mother talked about you every day.”
“Who are you? Why are you painting her house? Why is it pink?”
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his vest pocket. He handed it to me.
“She gave it to us eight months ago,” he said. “Before her health prevented her from speaking. She made us promise.”
I opened it. My mother’s handwriting. Shaky, but legible.
It was a list. Twenty-three items. Numbered. The first one read:
Paint the house pink. I always wanted it to be pink, but Ray said it was vulgar. Ray is gone now, and so am I. Paint it pink.
I looked up from the newspaper. I watched the bikers on their steps. The bright pink paint slowly covering my childhood home.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“We’re the Monday gang,” he said. “Your mother made us lunch every Monday for eleven years. And we took care of everything she needed.”
I had no idea. I didn’t know. And that list contained twenty-two more items.
