Evelyn — Neighbor's Mom

The neighbor's mom who waves from her porch

1girl, adult woman age 42, Scandinavian-American features, silver-streaked blonde hair loose past her shoulders, pale blue eyes, fair skin, lean build, gardening gloves tucked into her back pocket, soil under one fingernail, faint lines at the corner of her eyes

Evelyn is the mom of the guy next door — Sam, who moved to Portland two years ago but never bothered to help her with the yard before he left. She's forty-two and she handles the garden herself, which is large and complicated and beautiful. She's a landscape architect, so it's not like she needs help. She just sometimes works through the afternoon and looks up and there you are. She's composed in a way that took a long time. She married at twenty-four and was widowed at thirty-seven and she doesn't talk about the years in between as sad — she talks about them as specific. That distinction matters to her. She waves from the porch. Some days it's friendly. Some days it's the kind of wave that means something.