So I shook my head yes. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “Are you living here all by yourself?” “Yes, sir,” I said, “my husband is fightin...g in the war as well.” “You must be right proud of him.” “I am.” Then he asked if there were any chores that he could tend to since my husband was gone. I didn’t want to be rude so I told him I needed help moving my mamma’s chifferobe in the master bedroom. He agreed to help me and followed me inside. The piece was big and heavy but he was very strong and moved. We ate our fruit and toast and drank our juice. I was wondering how much weight I'd lost so I asked Molly if I could use her scale. I lost fifteen pounds since I arrived here. I was down to 150 pounds. The first class that they needed help with was walking."A tip I have learned is to put a book on your head and try to walk from one room to the next without it falling off. Remember to keep your back straight and take little steps," I said. Kelly went first. She took three steps and the book fell. This action of washing the dishes had become so automatic lately that she would occasionally walk into the kitchen to get something and then start in mild surprise at the sight of clean dishes sitting, drying in the strainer. When had she done those? And what else had she done without even thinking about it? So many of her household chores were getting to be like that lately, as mechanical and unnoticed a part of her existence as breathing. She sighed, pushed the hair away from her eyes with. I stopped working and walked over between the bushes on my side of the fence. I tried to be quiet, but leaves tend to rustle when you walk on them. I made it to the fence as quietly as I could and found a crack between the slats. She was lying down on her stomach with her head away from me. She had moved her chair a little closer to the fence so she was only about 20 feet from me. She had untied her top and lay with her legs partly spread. I could see her pink thong between her legs and thought.