A letter from Papaw — Before light. Kitchen fan going, Hank spread out on the linoleum.

Yesterday the heat had Hank flat all day. Wouldn't eat till near dark. Just laid on the cool of the floor and watched me move around him.

Earl came by in the evening. Sat on the porch step. Looked out at nothing a while and then said,

My daddy told me somethin' when I was maybe ten. He was fixin' a fence and I was in the way. He said, one of these mornings you're gonna wake up and your shoulder'll bark at you. And you'll think, huh, that's new. And you'll go on about your day. And the next mornin' it'll bark again. That's the one that matters. Not the first. The second. The first one's just weather. The second one is the shoulder tellin' you it lives here now, and you and it are gonna have to work somethin' out.

Daddy was right about the shoulder. He was righter about a lot of things than I gave him credit for at the time.

He got up and left. Didn't stay for coffee.

I sat there after. Went in and pulled a drawer looking for nothing and put my hand on a photograph of Ruth on the back porch, laughing at something I can't remember saying, dish towel over her shoulder folded in threes.

Going to sit with Hank on the floor a while. It's cooler down there.

Love,