They shook hands. Bobby held on to Daddy’s hand a little longer than a handshake needs. The way men do when they’ve known each other most of their lives and don’t have the words for being glad.
Bobby asked about the food at the home. Daddy told him the meat loaf wouldn’t hold a candle to Mama’s, but the pie was decent.
Daddy asked what the beans made. Bobby told him fifty-two bushels an acre on the bottom.
“Real good year,” Bobby said, grinning. “I’ll have the fall check out the first of the month, same as always.”
I felt Daddy go still under my hands on the handles of the chair.
“Bobby,” he said. “Where do you send my rent?”
Bobby glanced at me. Then back at Daddy. He looked puzzled, the way a man looks when somebody asks him what color the sky is.
“To Sherry’s,” he said. “Half in March, half in November. Like she asked me to.”
“Since when?”
“Since you went in, Clayton. She came by the house that first fall. Said you’d want it going to her now, since she was handling your expenses. She had the paper from the lawyer saying she was over your business.”
Daddy didn’t move. His hand was still on the corner post.
“Bobby,” he said. “Have I ever once, in twenty-two years, told you I was short on anything?”
Bobby took his seed cap off and held it in both hands. His face had gone a dull red. I could see him starting to put it together, and I could see he didn’t want to.
“No sir,” he said. “No sir. You never have.”
“Do you know what Teresa here has been doing for three years?”
Bobby looked at me. I shook my head a little. I didn’t want to say it.
But Daddy said it for me.
“She’s been paying my bill at that home out of her own pocket. Twenty-one hundred dollars a month. Out of her retirement. Because her sister told her I didn’t have a dime. And her sister told me the rent was paying it.”
Bobby stared at him. Then he stared at me. He opened his mouth. Closed it again.
“Clayton,” he said finally, and his voice cracked right down the middle. “I swear to you on my mother’s grave, I didn’t know. I’d never have. If I’d thought for one minute that money wasn’t getting to you…”
Daddy was quiet a long time.
The wind came across the pasture and moved the grass in long waves. A few of the cows lowed up on the hill. His hand stayed on that post.
Then he turned his chair a little toward Bobby, as much as he could turn it himself, and looked up at him.
“Bobby,” he said. “You did exactly what you were asked to do by a member of my family holding a legal paper with my name on it. That’s what an honest man does. Don’t you carry one ounce of this home with you tonight. You hear me?”
Bobby nodded. He couldn’t say anything.
Lila Hart is a dedicated Digital Archivist and Research Specialist with a keen eye for preserving and curating meaningful content. At TheArchivists, she specializes in organizing and managing digital archives, ensuring that valuable stories and historical moments are accessible for generations to come.
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