Two stories of gray siding. Black window frames. A three-car garage with a basketball hoop that nobody ever used. A lawn so green and so perfect it looked painted on.
And a deck.
A huge, wraparound deck on the back of the house, up on the second floor. It looked right over Dad’s fence. Right over the corn and the beans and the tomatoes and the potatoes.
I came out to Dad’s house most Sunday mornings to have coffee with him and check on him, the way you do when your father is seventy-nine and lives alone. And most Sunday mornings, I’d see Brent out on that deck. Standing at the railing in a bathrobe, holding a coffee mug, frowning down at Dad’s garden.
Especially the corn. He always seemed to be frowning at the corn.
The corn was tall that summer. Over seven feet. It blocked most of his view of the valley.
