The Row With His Name On It

Noon

At noon the line slowed down. I sent Hannah and Ben to the truck with the sandwiches I had packed. Kurt was standing by the baler, rubbing his hands together, his breath coming out in clouds.

I walked over and handed him a thermos of coffee.

He took it. He held it in both hands but did not drink.

“I lost my job,” he said. He said it to the thermos, not to me. “In April. The plant in Stevens Point cut the whole second shift. Two hundred guys.”

I waited.

“I didn’t tell anybody. Not Mom. Not you. Jen knew, but I made her promise.” He shook his head. “Erik had just died. You had enough. What was I supposed to do, come over and tell you I couldn’t pay my mortgage?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

“So you came out here.”

“I came out here in September to mow, because I couldn’t stand looking at the trees all grown over. That was all, at first.” He finally took a drink of the coffee. “Then you said you didn’t know if you could open. And I thought, they’re just going to stand here. All those trees. And my kids are going to have nothing under ours.”

“So you opened it.”

“I told myself Erik would want me to have it.” He looked out at the rows. “He always said these were family trees. I told myself I was family. I told myself I’d tell you after.”

“Why’d you stop answering me?”

“Because I couldn’t lie to your voice, Nic.” He said it quietly. “I could lie to strangers. I could even lie to Jen a little. But I couldn’t pick up the phone and hear you say my name and lie to you. So I didn’t pick up.”

What He Took

I asked him how much.

He did not pretend not to know. He had kept count. Kurt always kept count. He was the one who did the scorebook at Ben’s ballgames.

“Fifty-eight trees,” he said. “Three thousand, seven hundred and seventy dollars.”

I closed my eyes. It was close to what I had figured on the couch the night before.

“I paid the mortgage with most of it,” he said. “October and November. And the electric, and Sam’s inhaler.” He reached into his jacket and came out with a bank envelope, folded over twice. “That’s what’s left. Six hundred and forty.”

He held it out. I took it. I did not count it in front of him.

“And telling people you planted them,” I said. “Kim’s grandkids. The Larsons’ friends. Everybody.”

He flinched. That was the part that hurt him most, I could see it.

“That just came out,” he said. “The first family asked me, the very first Saturday, did I grow all these. And I was standing here in my own name, with my brother’s sign over my head. And I said yes. And then I couldn’t take it back, because they’d go home and tell people, and the next ones would ask.”

He rubbed his face with both hands.

“I’m sorry, Nicole. I’m sorry for all of it. I don’t know how to be sorry enough.”

I did not tell him it was all right. It was not all right. Ruth Lindgren at our church says forgiveness is not pretending a thing did not happen. It is deciding what you are going to do about it after.

“You can start by fixing the gate latch,” I said. “It’s been broken since August.”