The Truck Driver at the VFW Breakfast
I told her the truth. I told her about the breakfast, and about Todd, and about a man who had not said one word about it in twenty years.
The next day my phone rang. A Green Bay number.
“This is Ray,” a man said. His voice was rough, like a smoker who had quit. “Is he okay? Is Krueger okay?”
“He’s okay,” I said. “He’s fine. He’s at work.”
There was a long breath on the other end. “I tried to call him once,” Ray said. “Two thousand nine. I got a disconnected number. I figured he didn’t want to hear from me. I figured maybe he was done with all of it.”
“He’s not done with it,” I said. “He just doesn’t talk about it.”
“Yeah,” Ray said. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”
We talked for an hour that first time. I sat on our back step with the phone while Mark was still out on a road job, and I watched the corn across the road go gold.
Ray worked at a paper mill now. He had three kids. He had a burn scar from his right wrist to his elbow, and some trouble with his left leg when it rained, and he said he was doing all right. He said it the way men say it, which means about half of it is true.
“I’ll come,” he said. “Tell me where and when, and I’ll come.”
Then he said something that made me stop. “Diane, I’m not going to say anything he doesn’t want said. You understand? I’m coming to see him. That’s all. That’s his business.”
“I understand,” I said. And I did. I thought that was exactly right.
I did not tell Mark. That was the hardest part of the whole fall. I almost told him a dozen times. I almost told him in October, when he was splitting wood and he stopped and stood there looking at his hands for a minute.
But I knew him. If I told him, he would find a reason not to go that year. He would have a culvert to fix. He would have a cold.
I did tell Emma. She is twenty, a nursing student at the university in Stevens Point, and she is the one person who can keep a secret in our family. She cried on the phone and said, “Mom, are you sure?”
“No,” I told her. “I’m not sure about anything. But I think he needs to see that man before they’re both old.”
Veterans Day came on a Wednesday that year. It was cold, the low gray kind of cold we get in November, with a little sleet blowing sideways across the parking lot.
Todd rode over with us. His Buick was at the dealer in Wausau getting a new transmission, and his wife was at her sister’s, so he called the night before and asked for a ride. Mark said sure. Mark always says sure to Todd.
Todd talked the whole way. Insurance rates. Deer season. A guy at church who had put his boat in the wrong lane at the landing. Mark drove and said “huh” every so often. Emma sat in the back next to her uncle and looked at me in the mirror about every thirty seconds.
Lyle was at the door when we came in, leaning on his cane. He shook Mark’s hand the same way he does every year, two hands, no words. He shook mine. He shook Todd’s, and Todd said, “Lyle, you old dog, you still breathing?” and Lyle said, “Most days.”