“You told Austin we gave you the house,” I said.
“I know.” His voice broke right on it. “I know I did. He asked me if it was mine. Just asked, like it was nothing. And I just said yes. It was easier than the truth. Everything was easier than the truth, Dad. Everything.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
He laughed. But there was nothing funny in it at all.
“Dad. You never missed a day of work in forty years. Not one. You’ve got a plaque in there on the wall with your name on it. How was I supposed to call you in Arizona and say, I’m thirty-six years old, and I lost my job, and I can’t make my truck payment?”
“You just say it.”
“You never said it,” he said quietly. “About Grandpa. Not for forty years.”
I sat there with that.
He was right. And we both knew it.
The sun went down a little more behind the bins. A pickup went by out on the county road with its lights on.
So I did the only thing I’ve ever known how to do.
I got out of the car.
“Where are you going?” Brett said.
“In there. Come on.”
Jeff Ostrander runs the elevator now. He was in the scale house finishing up the day’s tickets. I hired him myself, in 2001. A skinny kid out of the community college with a crew cut and a lot of questions.
He came around the counter and shook my hand like I was home from a war.
“Gordon! I thought you were down in Arizona till May!”
“Change of plans,” I said. “Jeff, are you still looking for spring help? Somebody who’ll show up?”
He looked past me, at Brett standing in the doorway.
“Always,” he said. “Fertilizer season starts in three weeks. Bins, loading, the dump pit, whatever comes up. Eighteen an hour. Overtime in the busy weeks.”
I didn’t say anything else.
I stepped aside.
That was the hardest thing I did that whole trip. Harder than fourteen hundred and eighty miles. Harder than Tucumcari.
I stood next to the old coffee pot, the same one that was there in 1985, and I kept my mouth shut. And I let my son ask for the job himself.
He did.
He took off his cap. And he asked Jeff Ostrander for work in a clear, steady voice. He told him straight out that he’d been laid off from the cabinet plant in December, and that he’d been driving part-time for the feed mill since.
He didn’t dress it up. He didn’t make excuses.
Jeff looked at him for a second. Then he said, “Can you be here Monday at seven?”
Brett said, “Yes, sir.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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