The Chair at Signing Day

He swallowed.

“That’s the worst thing I ever did,” he said. “Not the drinking. That.”

I stood there. I want to tell you I felt something warm. Mostly I felt tired, and a little sick, and a long way off.

“There’s a money order in there for four hundred and ten dollars,” he said. “That’s this month. There’s a letter from the feedlot saying I work there, and the paper from the state office.”

He let out a breath. “I went up to Amarillo on Wednesday and asked them to set up the withholding out of my paycheck, the regular and some on the back amount. The lady said she’d never had a man walk in and ask before.”

I believed that. I had sat across from that same lady.

“It’s going to take a long time to catch up,” he said. “Years. I know that. I’ll be paying when he’s out of college. I’m not asking you to say it’s all right. I’m not asking to come to anything. I’m not asking for anything.”

“Then what are you doing, Rick?”

He thought about it.

“Starting with you,” he said. “He told me to start with you. So I’m starting.”

I took the envelope.

What I said

I did not invite him in. I want to be clear about that, because I know some people will think I should have and some will think I should have slammed the door, and I did neither.

“Thank you,” I said. “For coming to the door yourself.”

He nodded.

“I’m not going to pretend seven years didn’t happen,” I said. “You missed his first match. You missed his first pin. You missed him losing at regionals as a sophomore and crying in Daddy’s truck the whole way home from Abilene. You don’t get those back. Nobody can give you those back.”

“I know.”

“My daddy gave those years to him. Not you. When people in this town say who raised that boy, they’re going to say my name and they’re going to say Walt Rausch. That’s what the picture in the paper means. You understand that?”

“I understand it.” His voice was rough. “I saw it. I sat in his chair. I didn’t know whose it was till he said it.”

I looked at him a long time. He looked older than forty-seven. He looked like a man who had been sleeping in a truck in Oklahoma, and maybe sometimes still did, in his head.

“If those checks come,” I said, “every month, on time, for a year. If you keep going to your meetings. Then you can call him. Not before.”

“That’s fair.”

“And Rick.” I waited until he looked at me. “You ever go to my father and thank him. Not for my sake. For yours.”

He nodded. He went back down the walk to his truck and he did not look back, and I closed the door and stood in my front hall holding a manila envelope for a long time.