I came home after it had snowed and saw my elderly neighbour clearing her driveway. She looked really tired.
I told my husband about it, and he said,
“I’ll be doing that from now on.”
About 4 years later, she caught us. I thought she was going to start yelling because I was on her property, but she smiled, and said,
“Looks like you two finally got caught red-handed.”
I blinked, still holding the shovel.
My husband froze behind me, leaning on his. It was 6 a.m., mid-January. We’d been sneaking over before work whenever it snowed.
She had this long, cracked concrete driveway that sloped down, and every winter it got slick as ice.
That first year, we tried knocking to ask if she wanted help. She never answered. I think she was proud, or just didn’t want to bother anyone.
So we just… did it. We’d slip out early, do her driveway and porch, and be back home before the kids woke up.
She had to know. I mean, the snow didn’t just vanish every time it stormed.
But she never said a word—until that morning.
She stood at the top of the steps, wearing a robe that looked older than me, holding a chipped coffee mug. “Come inside,” she said. “I’ve got banana bread.”
We looked at each other, confused.
But we went.
Her name was Mrs. Felicita Aguilar, but she insisted we call her Feli. We’d lived next door for seven years and never called her anything but “our neighbor.”
Inside, her house smelled like oranges and old books.
She had lace doilies on everything and an entire wall of family photos, but only a few with the same people repeated.
“Have a seat,” she said, motioning toward the plastic-covered couch. “You’ve been good to me. It’s time I returned the favor.”
We tried to laugh it off, saying it was no big deal, but she waved us off and started cutting banana bread like she was slicing diamonds.
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