Just one more person to talk to.(Elijah Jones) Everyday on my walk, I would pass by the Dupre home; a nice little grayish green house with a wooden porch swing and bright pink Carnations in front.
Mrs. Dupre would be sitting on the swing everytime I walked by without fail. She would smile, and wave, and say good evening.
I had never really talked to her other than a few words. Until one day in early spring.
It had just stopped raining, water was still flowing in a rough stream into the sewers. I slipped my shoes on and put on a jacket. I yelled to my Mom that I was leaving, and was out the door.
There was nobody else outside except the odd person walking their dog, and a couple people pushing their babies in strollers.
I made my way to Omaha Trail, were the Dupres lived. The street was as quiet as all the rest, besides a rare kids laugh a few houses down.
Soon enough, I approached the Dupre home. Mrs. Dupre raised her hand high and waved to me.
"Cyrus! Isn't it just so nice out now that the rain stopped?" She laughed,
"Yes, it is," I nodded with a smile.
The brief conversation then ended and I continued my walk. I only got maybe a foot from the house before I stopped, spun on my heels and walked back over.
I stood at the end of the walkway, Mrs. Dupre smiled at me,
"Would you like to keep talking about the weather?" I shook my head and chuckled,
"Can I sit?" I asked, pointing to the porch swing,
"Sure, I don't mind."
I stood at the top of the stairs and looked at Mrs. Dupre, she held her hand under her stomach. Her blue dress was a little loose, but the way she had her hand made it very clear she was pregnant.
I sat down and looked over,
"Is school going good?" She asked,
"It's okay, almost over now."
After a break of silence, I spoke up.
"Why do you just... Sit here everyday? Even when it isn't nice out?"
"Why do you take a walk everyday? Even when it isn't nice out?" Mrs. Dupre smiled,
"I guess I'm not afraid of getting sick," We both laughed and I then asked again, "But why do you? There isn't much to do,"
"I sit out here and wait for my husband to come back from work," She said, looking towards the other side of the porch.
I only nodded. I didn't know much about how marriage worked at the time, so I wasn't sure why it made people do stuff others didn't. Or why it made them feel like they had to do those things.
"You sit out here every single day, just to see your husband a few seconds earlier?" I wasn't trying to sound rude, or make her feel like it was stupid, but I really wanted to know.
"Yup, and I like the fresh air. I'm usually in the house all day, so I really need it," Mrs. Dupre looked over at me, her eyes bright, "Do you walk to see friends? Or go to the store?"
I shook my head, "I like to get out, it's the only thing I do daily. When I'm having a bad day or something, I know I have a walk to look foward to."
After that, we went silent again. Very few cars passed by, nobody else walked by to wave at us and talk about the weather.
Soon enough, Mr. Dupre's car pulled into the driveway and I stood up.
"It was nice sitting with you," I smiled, Mrs. Dupre opened her arms and I quickly went in for a hug.
I waved to Mr. Dupre and began my walk back home.
I closed the front door, kicked off my shoes and walked into the kitchen. My Mom turned around and beamed at me,
"Hi, baby!" She began, "That walk took longer than normal,"
I stood beside her at the counter as she looked back down at the dishes,
"I stopped to talk to Mrs. Dupre, she told me she waits on the porch for her husband every single day, even when it's raining! We didn't really talk about much else, and did you know she's pregnant?"
Mom shook her head,
"No, I didn't know that, I didn't know there were any... Dupres in the neighbourhood," She laughed.
At supper, Mom purposed I tell Dad about my walk.
"I... Talked to a neighbour, she waits for her husband everyday on their porch," I said flatly, rolling a brustle sprout around.
"Sounds real fun," Dad didn't look up from his phone, which was most likely work, I looked to Mom; she didn't give me anything but a sad look.

For the next couple days, I would stop to sit with Mrs. Dupre on the porch until Mr. Dupre got home. We wouldn't talk about much; how my day at school went, how her day went and things of that sort.
One day, all we talked about was baking, which doesn't really seem like the most interesting topic. We talked about banana bread, cupcakes, muffins and everything you can think of.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, I watched the clouds move across the sky as I walked down the street. The wind forced the leaves off the trees and pulled the branches far back.
Mrs. Dupre's stomach had gotten bigger and no dress could hide it. When I sat down next to her, a question instantly popped into my head.
"Is it just more comfortable to wear dresses? Or do you like wearing them all the time?" I asked,
Mrs. Dupre chuckled, "I like wearing them, but I find them easier than maternity clothes, I just have to slip them on."
"Have you always wanted to have a baby? Or was it kind of... A quick decision?"
Mrs. Dupre seemed to get nervous, or confused, I really couldn't tell.
"Well, it kind of just came up, and we went with it,"
I assumed that was an easier and more subtle way of saying the baby was a mistake, for the lack of a better word.
My aunt used to say something along the same lines about my little cousin Adam. She used to smile to my Mom and say: "Babies are a gift from God, Laura, and the two of us didn't think the opportunity would come again."
I never thought about what that meant, I just knew I felt bad when I heard it. Adam had no clue his mother was talking bad about him, he was just poorly colouring in a colouring page.
"I guess every woman wants to have a baby at some point, maybe because it feels right or they feel like they need to... Just to give back to God or keep their blood line going,"
"Like a strong motherly instinct?" I asked, Mrs. Dupre just nodded and said:
"Mhm."
Mrs. Dupre and I kept talking about her baby for a little while longer until the sun started to shift in the sky and the clouds began to slow down.
Mrs. Dupre seemed sad, but I didn't know what to do, I never knew how to comfort people. I just knew how to talk.
That's all I ever did, was talk, it made me happy to tell stories and share things. My Mom used to say that when I was a baby, she could never get me to eat because all I wanted to do was babble.
When one of my friends was sad, I would just start telling a story, or even make one up. I remember this one time, my friend Camden was in the hospital; he'd had a big surgery, I don't remeber what for exactly, but all he could do was lay in bed.
I had gone to visit him and when I got to the room, he was looking out the window.
I guess he had sensed I was there, he had whiped his head around and I smiled at him.
"There's nothin' to smile about," Camden had looked down, I then rushed to the foot of the bed and put my hands on the rail,
"No, no, today after school, Rick and I were walking his dog around the lake, right? Everything was normal, then! She got loose, and she headed straight for the water, I let Rick run but he started yellin' at me, and so we had to get in the water and try to grab her!"
I then started acting out the story at the end of his bed, and he couldn't stop laughing.
Mrs. Dupre stared down at the porch, I kept glancing over until I thought of something to say.
"You know, one time when I was little, my Aunt Em and my Mom took my cousin and I to this garden thing to pick flowers, and everythin' was good, but the two of us just started eating the flowers, and they couldn't get us to stop! So we had to leave, and our Moms went into this gas station on the way back and found some sugar flowers just to sooth us," I smiled.
"Really?" Mrs. Dupre chuckled, "I can't wait to have silly stories to tell my friends."
Before I left that day, I told Mrs. Dupre I thought Mrs. Dupre would make a good Mother.

It was the middle of May, and I was a little late on my daily walk. My Dad had made me start practicing soccor for the following school year, and that's what I had been doing from 3:15 to 4:00.
Afterwards I took a shower, put on jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed a snack and left.
I walked slow that day, I was so tired from practicing, I couldn't even look up from the ground.
When I got closer to the Dupre home, I realized Mrs. Dupre wasn't sitting on the porch swing. For a second, I figured Mr. Dupre was already home, but his car wasn't in the driveway.
So, I just kept walking. I got to the end of the block, and stopped for a second, I only then started to wonder where Mrs. Dupre was.
When I got back to the house, I decided to sit down on the steps. I was exhausted, my feet had started to hurt and my inner thighs and hips ached. I put my hands over my face and leaned over for a while.
I looked up as a car door slammed, the sky was purple, turning into a blue and the air was cool.
Mrs. Dupre narrowed her eyebrows at me and made her way across the yard while Mr. Dupre went to the backseat of their car.
"How long have you been sitting out here?" She placed a hand on my cheek,
"Since... Four something," I yawned, putting my head down.
Mrs. Dupre stood up and looked to Mr. Dupre, he was holding a car seat. It took me a second to realize why he had it.
"Oh!" I stood up quickly, "Your baby!" I smiled,
Mrs. Dupre let out a soft laugh and Mr. Dupre said something to me for the first time.
"Do you want to come in an' see 'em?" He said, I nodded.
Mr. Dupre went to get a bag from the car as Mrs. Dupre and I went and sat down.
The baby boy was tiny and he kept wiggling around, he looked like a little worm.
Mrs. Dupre let me hold him for a while, she soon looked over at me,
"And guess what we named him," I cocked my head to the side,
"What? Somethin' funny?" I asked, Mrs. Dupre shook her head and laughed.
"No," She began to rub his little hand, "We named him Cyrus, we really like that name too."

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