The lemon tree isn't mine either

The lemon tree is in the next yard, and one branch crosses the walk beside our house. The neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez, said I could take a lemon if it fell on the walk and not to pick from the branch. She was specific because someone last year picked from the branch and she watched them do it from the kitchen. I don't want to be that person. I also like lemons. So I wait for gravity.

Gravity has been reliable. Every couple of weeks one lands on the concrete, usually at night, and in the morning it is there with a small bruise. I rinse it and put it in the fridge on the bottom shelf, toward the back, so it isn't mistaken for a house lemon. There is no house lemon. There is mine, singular, until I use it.

This month I used one on a piece of fish I cooked in the shared pan and scrubbed the pan twice afterward, because fish in a shared pan is a political act. Nobody complained. Mrs. Alvarez, when I saw her at the bins, asked if the fruit was any good or if the ones that fall are always the tired ones. I said the tired ones are fine for cooking. She nodded as if that matched her own policy. She eats the pretty ones. The walk gets the rest. I am the rest.

I told her about the notebook, not the site, the habit. She said her son keeps a notes app full of things he will not remember, and that paper was better, and then she had to go because the bin lid had blown open. I closed it. The lemon I have now is still in the fridge. I'll use it on Sunday if Sunday happens at home. If I work, it can wait. A fallen lemon is already patient.