The Furnace Man Came on Monday

Two Hundred and Eighty-Eight Dollars

Tuesday the co-op sent the propane truck out to top off the tank, and then I drove to town for groceries.

The hospital had sent me home with a diet sheet for Dale. No salt to speak of. Fish. Oatmeal. Fresh vegetables instead of canned, and fresh costs more than canned in January in Nebraska. Every woman reading this knows that.

I took a cart and went down every aisle and I did not look at one price.

I bought the salmon. I bought oranges, and blueberries in the dead of winter. I bought the good coffee. I bought a roast for Trish and the children, because I had it in my mind by then that they were going to come and stay.

It came to $288.

I wrote that check on the farm account, too. Sixty-five twelve and two eighty-eight. I added it up in the car with the heater running. Six thousand eight hundred dollars, to the penny, and I had not planned it that way.

It was three cents on the dollar of what was in that book. That was all I took, and I never meant to take more. I was not trying to punish him.

I only wanted to be warm, and I wanted to feed him right.