Braiding Sweetgrass

remnants of barns. We stopped before a grassy swale under a
thick grove of black locust trees. “Here it is,” she said, “my home
sweet home.” She talked like that, like it was right out of a book.
Before us was an old schoolhouse with long chapel windows set all
around and two doors at the front, one for boys and one for girls. It
was silvery gray with just a few swipes of whitewash blurred across
the clapboard.
Hazel was eager to get out and I had to hurry to get her walker to
her before she stumbled in the tall grass. Pointing all the way at the
spring house, the old chicken coop, she led Mama and me to the
side door and up onto the porch. She fumbled in her big purse for
the keys, but her hands were shaking so badly she asked me if I
would unlock the door. I opened the tattered old screen door and
the key slid easily into the padlock. I held the door back for her and
she clumped inside and stopped. Just stopped and looked. It was
quiet as a church. The air was cold inside and flowed out past me
into the warm November afternoon. I started to go in, but my
mother’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Just let her be,” her look
said.
The room before us was like a picture book about the olden days.
A big old woodstove sat along the back wall, cast iron frying pans
hung alongside. Dishtowels were neatly hung on dowels over the
dry sink, and once-white curtains framed the view of the grove
outside. The ceilings were high, as befits an old schoolhouse, and
festooned with garlands of tinsel, blue and silver, flickering in the
breeze from the open door. Christmas cards outlined the
doorframes, fixed with yellowing tape. The whole kitchen was
decked out for Christmas, an oilcloth of a holiday print covered the
table and plastic poinsettias swathed in cobwebs sat in jam jars as
a centerpiece. The table was set for six places and there was still