She looks up at me, through her spectacles, with curious eyes as I came to a stop and lean against a post in front of her.

“Took you long enough to get around to seeing me,” she said.

I smile. She isn’t angry, just concerned, the way she always has been.

“I just got back this morning,” I say pulling a can of Copenhagen from a back pocket of my jeans.

She looks me up and down, her eyes stopping briefly on the snuff can, then goes back to breaking beans. “I see the marines got you fit and trim, but they couldn’t break you of puttin’ that junk in your mouth,” she says.

I continue to smile as I place a pinch of tobacco between my cheek and gum. It was good to be pestered by momma again. It had been two long years since I’d heard her pesterin’.

“Heck, everybody in the military dips a little, momma,” I say, closing the lid and returning it to my back pocket.

“Even the girls?” she says without looking up from her beans.

“They’re women, momma,” I say, “and no, most of them don’t dip.”

She snorts, showing her displeasure with my eternal bad habit, but keeps on breaking those beans.

“How long you going to be around?” she asks.

I lean a little further into the post, giving it my back, and turn my head to look at the green hills of southern Ohio that surround her home. I picked a good time of year to come back, with the leaves full of color and the gravel roads still dry enough to spread their golden, dusty rain when a truck passes by.

“I’m not sure, yet,” I say, “I’ve just got back. You mind if I stay at home for a while?”

“No, sir,” she says, finishing with her beans, “I could do with the help. Hard to get this yard mowed with my bad back.”

I turn my head to look back at her.

“Momma, you shouldn’t be mowin’ this yard,” I say.

“Who else is going to mow it with your daddy done passed on and you off in the military?” she says, the question rhetorical.

“What about the Kings’ boy in Nipgen,” I say, “he used to mow lawns for people.”

Momma stands and motions toward the kettle of water and beans. “Carry those inside for me,” she says opening the creaking screen door.