The Morning I Paid My Father Back

Ten fifty eight

At ten fifty, the church was full. I could hear it through the floor, the creak of the old pews and the murmur of a hundred and forty people. The organist, Mrs. Kauffman, was playing the hymns she always played before a wedding.

At ten fifty five, my mother came down the stairs.

She did not have to say anything. I saw it on her face.

“He’s not here,” I said.

“Not yet.” She took both my hands. “Honey, there’s still time. And I’m right here.”

I looked at Grandpa. He was sitting in a folding chair with both hands on his cane. He looked back at me steadily.

“I said I’d walk you,” he said. “So I’ll walk you.”

My mother looked at him, and then at me. Then she nodded. I think she understood something I didn’t yet.

“Then I’ll go sit in my seat,” she said. “And I’ll be watching you both the whole way.”

She kissed my forehead and went up the stairs.

The aisle

The aisle at Bethel Church is not long, maybe sixty feet, but it is old pine boards and they slope a little toward the front. Grandpa took my arm at the top. He leaned on his cane with his other hand.

“Slow,” he said. “Let them look at you.”

The doors opened and the organ changed and everybody stood up. I saw Tyler at the front in his gray suit, and I saw his face when he saw me, and I almost forgot to walk.

We went slow. We had to. Grandpa set his cane down on each board like he was testing ice.

I saw faces I had known my whole life. Brenda from the bank. My daycare kids in the third pew with their parents, little Mason waving with his whole arm. Donna crying already. My mother in the front row, her hand pressed to her mouth.

The seat on the aisle in the second row was empty. The little card was still on it.

We were about halfway down when Grandpa stopped.

I thought his knees had given out. I tightened my grip on his arm. But he was not leaning on me. He was standing straight, straighter than I had seen him stand in years, and he was not looking at the front of the church.

He was looking over his shoulder, at the back.

I turned my head.

My father was standing just inside the doors.

He was still in his work clothes. Khakis, the green polo with Brenneman Auto on the pocket, the wet spot on his knee dried to a smudge. His hair was flat on one side like he had run his hands through it a hundred times. He was holding his ball cap in both hands against his chest.

The whole church turned around to look at him. Mrs. Kauffman kept playing, but slower.

He didn’t move. He just stood there, and I could see he was shaking.

Grandpa Harold looked at his son for a long moment. Then he lifted my hand off his arm, held it up a little, and turned back toward the doors.

“Rick,” he said. Not loud. But the church was so quiet everybody heard him. “Come get her.”

My father walked up that aisle. He did not hurry and he did not look at anyone else. When he reached us, Grandpa put my hand into the crook of my father’s arm, and patted it twice.

“Go on,” Grandpa said. “You’re late. Don’t make it worse.”

There was a little sound in the church, half a laugh and half a sob, from about a hundred and forty people at once.

My father’s arm was rigid under my hand. He smelled like car wax and coffee. He did not look at me, and I understood that he could not, not yet, or neither of us would make it.

We walked the second half of the aisle together. Grandpa came behind us, slow, with his cane on the boards.

At the front, my father stopped in front of Tyler. They looked at each other. Then my father held out his hand.

Tyler took it.

I don’t know what passed between them. Something did. My father let go, put my hand into Tyler’s, and went and sat down in the seat on the aisle in the second row. He picked up the card with his name on it and held it in his lap through the whole ceremony.

Grandpa sat down next to him. I saw him put his hand on my father’s back, and leave it there.