My Brownie Breakthrough

We'd lived in our new neighborhood for a whole month, and I still didn't know anyone. What did I have to do to make friends?

- By JEANETTE MARTINO LAND, North Palm Beach, Florida

It takes time to make new friends. That's what I told my 12-year-old son, Jimmy, when we moved to Rutherfordton, North Carolina. But at home by myself one rainy afternoon—with Jimmy at school and my husband, Jack, at work—I was the one who longed for a friend. We've been here a whole month now, Lord, I thought, looking out at the rain. And I still don't know anyone. I'm so lonely! The new neighborhood outside my window was pretty but barren. Like a garden where nothing grew. Maybe we just didn't belong here.

Jack was a counselor—one of the first therapists in the area. That made some people leery of him. We went to a different church than most folks around here. Another barrier. Then there were our Yankee accents—Jack and I were from up north—setting us apart in a sea of Southern drawls.

Whatever the reason, nobody was knocking on my door to get to know me. But at least I could do something to cheer myself up. On cold, snowy days when I was a child, my mother always made gingerbread. I'd continued the tradition with my own family, but gingerbread didn't seem right in this warmer climate. On this dreary, rainy day, I decided I would make...brownies!

A second later, another idea followed. An idea so out of the blue, it had to have come from God. I'll make brownies for my neighbors.