Mary's garage was as old as the others and needed painting. Surprisingly, however, it had a new door. Nosing the car up to it and getting out, Tess glanced at the place across the alley. Everything painted, no ranging grapevines and not a piece of junk anywhere. Good for Saint Kenny, she thought sarcastically, grabbing her duffel bag and heading for the house. On the way through the backyard she noticed that her mother had somehow managed to put in a garden already. Tradition, this garden, no matter how unnecessary it was, and no matter how it must have hurt Mary's hip to get down on her hands and knees and plant it. Tess noticed that it was well established due to an unseasonably early spring, and supposed that during the next four weeks she'd end up having to care for it, which would positively ruin her nails! And her nails were one of her trademarks.

The back stoop was three steps high with a black iron handrail on one side only. Tess wondered how Mary would climb them after her surgery. Inside was a small landing with the basement door straight ahead, and the kitchen up a single step to the right. When Tess reached the house and bumped through the kitchen with her duffel bag, she called back over her shoulder, "Hey, Momma, you shouldn't have put in that garden this year with your hip so bad."

She was in the living room rounding the center arch when Mary called back, "Oh, I didn't put it in. Kenny did it for me this year."

Tess came up short and backed down the one step she'd climbed. She shot a look at the kitchen archway. All she could see was one chrome leg of the kitchen table and the window beyond it, and in her imagination, pimply Kenny Kronek planting her mother's tomatoes.

"He's got a rototiller," came Mary's voice, "and he offered, so I let him."