“Now here’s what you’ll do,” Daddy said.
He said it in the voice I remember from when I was a girl. The voice he used when he was telling the hired men which field to start in.
“The first of November, you write that check to me. Clayton Akers. And you mail it to me at the home in town. Room fourteen. Not to Sherry. Not to Teresa. To me. And every one after that, as long as I’m living.”
“Yes sir,” Bobby said.
“And if anybody comes to your house with a paper saying different, you call me first. I’ve got a telephone right by my bed, and I can still dial it.”
“Yes sir. I will.”
Then Daddy put his hand out again. Bobby took it.
“Thank you for taking care of my ground,” Daddy said. “It looks good. You’ve always kept it like it was your own.”
Bobby walked with us back to the car. He helped me get Daddy from the wheelchair into the front seat, lifting him like he weighed nothing at all. He folded the wheelchair and put it in my trunk.
When he closed the trunk lid, he stood there a minute with his hand flat on top of it.
“Teresa,” he said, low, so Daddy wouldn’t hear. “I’m sorry. My wife, Nancy, does our books. She sends that form to the IRS every January, same as she has for twenty-two years. If I had known…”
“I know, Bobby,” I said. “I know you didn’t. And if Nancy hadn’t sent that form, I’d still be paying.”
He nodded. He walked back across the field toward his tractor and didn’t look back.
Daddy didn’t say one word the whole ride back to town.
Not at the church. Not at the school. Not at the stoplight on Main Street. He sat with his hat in his lap and looked out the window. Every so often, he rubbed his thumb across the fingers of the hand that had held that corner post.
I didn’t try to make him talk. I’ve known my father fifty-six years. When he goes quiet like that, he isn’t sulking.
He’s working. He’s turning a thing over like a field. All the way to the bottom.
When I pulled in at the home, he finally spoke.
“Teresa. Call your sister. Tell her I want her here tomorrow at ten. Tell her I said to come by herself.”
“Do you want me here too?”
“I want you both here,” he said. “I’ve got two daughters. I’ll talk to both of them.”
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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