The Coffee Can at the Farm Gate

When I looked back, Jeff’s ears had gone dark red.

“I didn’t know,” he said. “Bob, as God is my witness. She told me the patio set was her birthday money from your aunt.”

“I believe you.”

“Two thousand dollars?”

“Twenty-one fifty,” I said. “Less five.”

He sat there with both hands on the wheel. Then he put the pickup in gear.

“I’ve got your tables,” he said. It was the only thing he could think to say. He drove on.

The last three families came in over the next twenty minutes. I gave them theirs. I made the last check mark on Merle’s list, and there was nothing in the bottom of the can but one loose five-dollar bill.

Bob put his cap back on.

“Well,” he said.

“Well.”

“I should have known something was off. She’s my sister. I ought to have known.”

“She didn’t want you to know. That’s a different thing from you being careless.”

He took the can from me to carry it. He slipped his other hand around mine, right there on the lane where anybody could see, and we walked the quarter mile up to the house without saying another word.

We ate at half past twelve sharp.

Bob and Mark and two of the nephews carried the hogs to the long table on a sheet of plywood, and Bob did the carving. There was the sweet corn, and my kolaches, and every covered dish known to central Nebraska. Three kinds of potato salad. Runzas from the Burwell bunch. Somebody’s green rice casserole that shows up every year and nobody will own up to.

Bob’s cousin Ray gave the blessing. He thanked the Lord for the food and the hands that prepared it and for a place to come home to. Somewhere near the back a woman said “Amen” a little louder than was needed.

Nobody made a scene. These are not scene-making people.

But I saw things. I saw two of the aunts with their heads together by the tea cooler. I saw the Kearney grandmother walk clear around the far side of the yard instead of passing Tammy’s chair. I saw Stacy’s oldest boy carry a plate to Merle without being asked.

Tammy sat at the end of one of the church tables with a plate she did not touch. Jeff sat across from her. He did not touch his, either.

About half past one I went in the house to start cutting pies for the trays.

I had meant to wait until after the pie. Tammy did not wait. The screen door opened behind me, and I did not have to look.

“I want to explain,” Tammy said.

I kept my knife moving. “All right.”

She stood by the refrigerator with her arms crossed tight, holding on to her own elbows.

“Jeff lost eleven hours a week in April. Eleven. We were behind on the pickup. And I sat down in June to write that letter the same as I have for nine years, and I looked at the stamps. Fifty-some dollars in stamps, Carla. And the paper plates and the cups and the ice, and my gas running to Ord and back. I thought, I pay for all of this every year. Nobody has ever once offered.”

“What does it come to? The stamps and plates and such.”

She was quiet.

“About a hundred and forty dollars,” she said.

“You should have told me. I’d have paid you that years ago and been ashamed I didn’t think of it first.”