The Sign She Held At The Fence
I steadied the Lutz boy coming down. He said, “Thank you, Mrs. Dawson.”
Every one of them said it. Mrs. Dawson. Fifty-three times.
They threw their caps at ten till eight. Trevor’s came down in the end zone and a little brother of somebody’s ran it back to him.
Then it was all families on the field, everybody finding everybody. I stayed by my chair. There was one more thing that had to happen, and it needed to come to me or not at all.
It came. Kim walked across the grass with her shoes in her hand. Her mascara was gone and she had not fixed it.
She stopped about three feet off.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “Shelly, I swear to you before God. He told me you said the fence was fine. I thought you had a client. I thought you wanted it that way.”
“I did say it was fine,” I said. “He didn’t lie to you.”
“But I never asked.” She pressed her lips together. “That’s the part I can’t get around. He said four tickets and named off four names, and my mama and daddy were two of them, and I was so glad I just did not let myself do the arithmetic. I knew there were five of us. I can count.”
“Kim.”
“Let me say it. I never told him real parents. I want you to know that word did not come out of my mouth. But I have let him bend over backwards for two years, and I liked it. I liked being picked.” She wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “I was gone for fourteen years, and you bought his shoes. I know about the shoes. He told me. He tells me about you all the time, and I don’t think he knows he’s doing it.”
I looked at her. She was thirty-eight years old and she looked about fifteen, standing barefoot on a football field.
It would have been easy to let her stand there a while. But I thought about three pages in careful handwriting that said she would understand if the answer was no.
“You stood up first,” I said. “I saw you. Before anybody.”
“It was the only thing I could think of to do.”
“It was the right thing,” I said. “He needed to see that it was all right with you. He’d have carried it otherwise.”
She nodded. She could not talk.
“He’s got room for both of us,” I said. “I have been telling myself that for two years and tonight I think I finally believe it. He is not a pie.”
That got a laugh out of her, a wet, surprised one.
“He is not a pie,” Kim said.
“Mom.” It was Trevor, coming up with his grandparents behind him. “Shelly. Grandpa wants a picture.”
Kim’s father had a real camera, the kind with a strap. He was a small, courteous man, and he took his hat off to me before he said a word.
“Ma’am,” he said. “My wife and I owe you fifteen years of thank-yous and I don’t know where to start, so I am going to start with a photograph. If you’ll stand for one.”
“I’ll stand for one,” I said.
He lined us up with the goalpost behind and the last of the gold light on our faces. Trevor in the middle in his blue gown. Rick on his left, hat back on. Kim on his right, and her mother next to her, holding on to her pocketbook.