The Chair at Signing Day

He did it so slow. He followed the edge of the photograph with those scissors the way he used to follow a fence line, careful not to drift. His hands are not steady anymore, and twice he stopped and set the scissors down and just looked at it.

When he had it out, he turned it over and read the back side, like he wanted to make sure he wasn’t cutting up anything somebody would miss. Then he turned it face up again.

He touched it. Just one finger, on the boy’s face. Then on his own.

My father did not cry when he sold the store. He did not cry when the hail took the wheat in ’91, or where anybody could see at my mother’s graveside.

Now he put his hand over his mouth and sat there at that kitchen table and cried like a child.

I set the enchiladas down very quiet on the counter. I went and stood behind his chair and put my arms around his shoulders, and he reached up and held on to my wrist.

“Four years,” he said, when he could. “I’d have done forty.”

“I know you would, Daddy.”

“I just thought I was the ride.” He shook his head. “That’s all I thought I was. The ride.”

He put that clipping in the front pocket of his wallet, behind his driver’s license, where he keeps my mother’s picture. As far as I know, it is still there.

Saturday

Rick came to my door on Saturday morning, a little after nine.

I saw the white Ford pull up in front of the house through the living room window. I had been half expecting it and half hoping it would not come, and when it came, I found I did not know which half had won.

He knocked. He did not ring the bell. He stood back off the porch step when I opened the door, which I noticed. He was in the new jacket again, and he had a manila envelope in his hand.

“Angie,” he said.

“Rick.”

“I’m not here to come in. I’m not here to ask you anything.” He held out the envelope. “I’m just here to give you this. And to say a couple of things, if you’ll let me. Then I’ll go.”

I did not take the envelope yet. “Say them.”

He looked at the porch boards. Then he made himself look up.

“I was a drunk,” he said. “I’m still one, I guess, the way they tell it, but I haven’t had a drink in eleven months and four days. I’m not saying that so you’ll feel some kind of way. I’m saying it because it’s the reason, and you deserve to know the reason. It’s not an excuse. There isn’t one.”

The wind came across the yard and rattled the storm door behind me. I held it with my hip.

“I quit every job they found me at,” he said. “On purpose. You know that. I’d see the letter from the state and I’d just go. Because if I paid it, I’d have to come see him, and if I came to see him, he’d see what I was. So I didn’t pay it. So I didn’t have to come.”