A red Ford F-150 drives up. I can see it at an angle through a window that faces the front yard. Rain swollen pollen covers the ground. The sun ignites spring leaves with a brilliant green. A lone elm branch reaches toward the street, extending improbably across the lawn, appearing to defy gravity.
I see the truck through a lattice of leaves and light. The rims are rusty and a woman exits. Slow, deliberate. Her granite hair is pulled back moderately tight. Shorts and shirt, desaturated, worn, and loose. She snaps on blue and pink vinyl gloves and returns to the cab. Puts a mask on. Maybe used. Maybe not.
She removes a plastic bag from the bed of the truck, using her arm as a hanger. She grabs more bags, load balancing on her arms. One after the other, left then right, leaning slightly further each time. This takes several minutes. She looks toward the porch to asses the next task. Eyes back down, over the pollen and the wet green concrete. Three steep steps get her to the walk that leads to the porch. She calculates the weight from our food and supplies in each effort upward. I have time to find my phone, clear a notification from Crate and Barrel, change settings, and angle a clear view. I wait for her to enter the frame. Longer still. I change settings again and reframe. Even in a pandemic my patience deficit is unrelenting. She enters the frame. I take one, two, five shots. We should remember this, I’m thinking. This is a Kodak picture spot in April 2020. As she nears, she reminds me of my mom, who had a series of red F-150 trucks. Who in tough times, when she wasn’t an assistant or secretary, worked as a maid. This could be her.
She disappears from view, leaving packages on the porch. She’s there much longer than the younger people who deliver things for us: the mother and daughter in matching masks, the former restaurant worker. Did she fall? Is she arranging things so they look nice in the picture? So we post a positive review? Did she already make it to the truck? I look and see a shape. No, just reflections of the trees in the windshield. It stormed all night but now the spring light is out and bouncing off everything. Clarity creates its own chimeras.
I lean to look but she reappears on the walk, pulling her gloves off. She wrestles with her phone and points and shoots the evidence that she indeed dropped the groceries at our door. She turns, and heads toward the street. The stairs are there again, and require a recalculation. She no longer carries the weight of our privilege. A lurch left, a slight controlled fall to the right, and on to the truck. I look again, squinting to see a shape inside. Yes, not a reflection, a person. She drives off into the present.