They were building something from scraps of wood. Virginia and her crew
had left for the day and in the quiet of the evening I had heard the little
tappings and intermittently Adonie's voice.
She squatted among the scraps tapping with a hammer, explaining the
design, size and shape to Olive, setting her hands around Olive's small
dark ones and guiding them, showing her where to hold the pieces so that
she, Adonie, could nail them together. Olive nodded soberly and earnestly
endeavored to assist. She was always earnest, but that didn't prevent
upset glasses, spilled cereal boxes, ripped papers, and dropped ripe fruit
splashing the floor and walls. What they were building looked like a bird house, except it was
"Olive has found a bat."
She would, I thought. No bright little song bird for Olive. She finds a bat.
"There's a little group of them at one end of the attic, but it's easy for the
little ones to fall through a crack and down into the upstairs bathroom so
we're making a bat house."
Adonie shifted and hammered down the last corner of the roof. "We'll put
it up under the eaves near their entrance and exclude reentry."
"Out but not in."
Of course she would. No frantic or irate calls to the pest removers for
Adonie. Flame and fire-hosed poisons. She'd never think of such a thing.
They could live here, too. We all could.
looked up. I supposed she would go up a ladder and construct the excluder
and mount the bat house. It was more my type of job, but if I didn't offer
I guessed she would do it.
She did all right. It was a competent job. She tested the firmness of the
new house while balanced at the top of the ladder and then turned to tell
us, "It's set."
And she still looked down on us instead of descending so I said, "Do you
see the family resemblance?" with what I hoped was a sneering grimace
and moved away from Olive.