The Grain Truck Past My Father’s Field

The window

He walked slowly, because of his knee. He came up along the driver’s side and stopped below my window. Marv’s International sits high, and he had to look up at me.

I rolled the window all the way down and leaned my arm on the sill. Neither of us said anything for a while.

The elevator leg was roaring over our heads. A truck behind me honked once, and then whoever it was saw who was standing at my window and quit honking.

Dad took off his cap.

I had never seen him do that outside of church or a funeral. He held it in both hands in front of his belt buckle, turning it a little, the way he holds it when the pastor is praying.

“Kelsey,” he said, and I said, “Hi, Dad.”

“You’re good with that truck.”

“It pulls right when it’s loaded.”

“Marv’s always had that problem with his rigs.” He looked down at his cap. “Mine doesn’t pull.”

“I know. I drove it fourteen years.”

He nodded. His face did a thing I had never seen it do. It worked at something, his jaw moving, like a man trying to get a stuck bolt loose.

“My dad never paid me,” he said finally. “Not one time. Not a dollar, not when I was twelve, not when I was thirty. I farmed with him until the day he died and I never saw a check with my name on it. He told me the same thing. Family gets the farm.”

“I know, Dad.”

“I swore I’d be different with my kids. And then I wasn’t. I didn’t even notice I wasn’t.” He turned the cap again. “I put Cody on because I was scared.”

That was not what I expected. “Scared of what?”

“Jenna’s cousin got him an interview at the ethanol plant. Thirty-one dollars an hour, benefits, home every night. He told me in August he was thinking about it.” He swallowed. “I couldn’t lose him. I already lost my brother off this farm, and his boys. I couldn’t lose Cody too. So I paid him what the co-op pays, to keep him.”

“And me?”

He looked up at me then, with his eyes wet, which I had seen exactly twice in my life, at Grandma’s funeral and the day Emma was born.

“You never left,” he said. “You were never going to leave. I knew that. So I never thought about it. I took you for granted like the ground, Kelsey. Like the dirt I farm. It’s always there in the spring, so you don’t thank it.”

Something in my chest came loose that had been tight for a very long time.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He said it plainly. He did not add anything to it. He did not say I’m sorry but, or I’m sorry if. He just stood there in the dust by the pit with his cap in his hands and said it, the first time in thirty-six years I had ever heard those two words come out of my father’s mouth.

I didn’t say anything right away, because I couldn’t.

“Thank you, Dad,” I said finally. He nodded. He put his cap back on and pulled it down low.

“Marv’s got you through beans?” he asked.

“Through beans. He’s got a driver lined up for corn. Dale’s nephew.”

“All right.” He stood there a minute more. “Your mother wants you for supper Sunday.”

“I’ll be there.”

He patted the door of Marv’s truck twice, the way you’d pat a horse, and walked back to his Ford.