At noon, the women from the church kitchen drove out with a roaster full of sloppy joes. Two pans of bars. And a big orange cooler of lemonade.
They set it all up on a sheet of plywood laid across two sawhorses.
Twenty-two teenagers sat in the grass with red paint on their arms and in their hair and all over their sneakers. And they ate like harvest hands.
One of the Peterson twins ate five sloppy joes.
I counted.
By the time they went back to work, the whole south side was red, top to bottom. Merle had finished the east peak from the lift.
Somebody had brought a Bluetooth speaker. The kids sang along to it. Something I’d never heard. Loud and off-key. All of them together.
A little after one o’clock, a girl came and found me by the pickup.
I was pouring the last of the fourth pail into a tray.
She was maybe fifteen. Small. A red bandana tied over her hair. Red paint all the way up to both elbows.
Her name was Emma. Her grandmother, Ruth, sings alto in our church choir.
“Mrs. Jensen?” she said. “Can I ask you something? Pastor Nate said there used to be writing up over the little door. On the end. What was it?”
I set the bucket down.
And I told her.
I told her about Arlo’s father, Earl, painting the barn by hand in the summer of 1958. About him climbing up when he was finished and putting his initials and the year above the haymow door with a sash brush.
I told her about Arlo lifting Brad up on his shoulders in the yard to see them. About Brad waving at the letters. About Brad thinking his grandpa lived up there.
I didn’t mean to tell her so much.
She just stood there with her paint-red arms and listened. The way young people almost never do anymore.
And it all came out.
When I finished, she didn’t say anything at all.
She looked up at the east end of the barn. Where Merle had just covered that spot with fresh red paint.
Then she turned around and walked over to Nate. And she asked him something. And Nate went over to talk to Merle.
I went back to stirring paint. I didn’t think about it again for a while. There was too much to do.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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