Birdie Birdsong's Residence is an old Victorian home in Midtown, a few miles from law school, where the signs of wealth and neglect sit side by side. The house gives Miss Birdie room to live amid the remnants of her family, but its empty rooms and aging grounds also make visible how alone she has become. When Rudy Baylor later rents the small apartment above the garage, the residence shifts from the setting of a client visit into his home and a place of everyday contact with her.

Setting and Exterior

The house stands on a secluded street lined with ancient oaks in an older, affluent part of the city. Nearby homes vary markedly: some have manicured lawns and luxury cars in their driveways, while others appear almost abandoned behind unpruned trees and wild shrubs. Miss Birdie's white-stone, turn-of-the-century Victorian belongs somewhere between those extremes. Its broad porch wraps around one end, but the house needs paint, a new roof, and yard work; dingy windows and leaf-choked gutters suggest years of accumulated maintenance. Disorderly hedges line the drive, where Rudy parks behind a dirty, roughly ten-year-old Cadillac.

Rudy first arrives near dark. The porch has no lights on, its planks squeak beneath his steps, and the heavy wooden front door stands open behind a loose screen. Unable to find a doorbell, he taps on the screen and waits, wary of a large dog that never appears. Miss Birdie recognizes him from their meeting at the Cypress Gardens Senior Citizens Building and is delighted by his unexpected visit. She unlocks the screen, takes him by the elbow, and leads him inside, switching on lights as they go. The careful welcome immediately contrasts with the house's neglected exterior.

Interior and Family History

Inside, dozens of old family portraits cover the walls. Dusty, threadbare rugs and a moldy, musty smell give the rooms the feel of a house in need of serious cleaning and repair. Miss Birdie seats Rudy at the kitchen table and offers him instant coffee; the kitchen's pots, pans, sink, faucets, stove, and toaster are all at least forty years old, while the refrigerator appears to date from the early 1960s. The objects make the home feel lived in, but little renewed.

The residence holds the history Miss Birdie is reluctant to discuss. She tells Rudy that she and her husband, Thomas, bought the house fifty years earlier and raised their two sons there. Thomas died eleven years before Rudy's visit. When the conversation turns toward her sons, her cheerful expression briefly darkens before she smiles again and redirects attention to Rudy. The house thus contains abundant evidence of a family life, even as Miss Birdie's evasiveness and solitary welcome expose the distance between that past and her present.

Garden and Garage Apartment

Behind the house, the grounds are more actively cared for than the aging facade suggests. A concrete drive is bordered by flowers, shrubs, and vines; the shaded lawn has trees as old as Miss Birdie, and a brick patio holds flower boxes full of bright blooms. Small beds of flowers show regular attention, although a fountain on a brick platform no longer circulates water and a hammock between two trees hangs in shredded cords and canvas. The grass is free of weeds but needs cutting. Miss Birdie says she does most of the gardening herself and pays a boy thirty dollars a week to mow.

The garden is also the setting for Rudy's move toward a closer connection with Miss Birdie. He brings her an eight-dollar potted geranium, which she receives with a hug and plans to plant the next day. During that visit, he notices the structure above the detached garage: a former apartment with a bathroom and small kitchen, once prepared for a grandson who attended Memphis State. The grandson did not stay long, and Miss Birdie again declines to discuss him. Ivy has spread over the exterior and is working toward a broken window, but Rudy finds the place appealing. Its history as a family dwelling and its present state of disuse make it available for a different purpose.

Rudy's Home and the Residence's Role

Rudy asks to rent the apartment while he is struggling to find work and get established. Miss Birdie sets a sharp, practical tone in asking how much he can pay; they settle on $150 a month, utilities included, plus Rudy's help with chores. The arrangement includes enough furniture for the four rooms. He expects to spend about five hours a week, or twenty hours a month, on the yard, especially mowing and trimming hedges; mowing himself saves Miss Birdie the thirty dollars she had been paying each week. Their oral lease runs month to month, leaving Rudy free to move if the arrangement fails.

The apartment is a modest attic space: a den with orange shag carpeting and pale green walls, a bedroom, a small efficiency kitchen, and a separate dining area. Ceilings that slope upward from every direction make the rooms feel cramped. Rudy contrasts it with the two-bedroom apartments he had recently considered, which cost $700 a month despite having less than a thousand square feet. Now, after bankruptcy, the cheaper, spartan space suits his circumstances. Miss Birdie cleans it herself, clears away what junk she can, and sets strict conditions: no wild parties, loud music, loose women, alcohol, drugs, dogs, or cats. As Rudy carries up his few belongings, she stays close; before he can unpack, she has him sitting on the patio and then working in the flower beds.

The residence consequently joins two forms of need. Miss Birdie, who lives alone and believes her family has abandoned her, welcomes a visitor with an intensity that makes a brief call the high point of her day. Rudy needs inexpensive housing and takes on work the legal profession does not provide him; living on the property also keeps him near the client whose case he is pursuing. The house is at once an aging family home, a garden Miss Birdie loves, and a practical refuge for a newly financially precarious young lawyer. Its rooms and grounds turn his professional connection with her into a daily relationship of rent, chores, and company.