The House That Rolled Down the County Road

What Gordon did

Up ahead, Jake was already out of the escort pickup. I watched him walk back along the road toward his father, slow, the way you walk toward a horse you are not sure of.

I let go of Hailey’s hand and went too.

Gordon did not look at either of us at first. He walked up to the side of the house, right beside the porch, and he took off his good hat. Then he put his bare hand flat against the siding.

He stood there like that for a long moment, with his hand on the house and his hat against his chest.

“I helped your mother pick this color,” he said to Jake. He did not turn around. “She said it was too yellow. I told her it was fine.”

Jake did not say anything. I do not think he could.

Gordon took his hand off the siding. Then he turned and walked up to the cab of the truck, and he looked up at Arnie through the open window.

“That culvert on the Olson stretch is soft on the north side,” he said. “Has been since the ’19 flood. Put a couple planks under your left wheels when you cross it, or you’ll drop a corner.”

Arnie looked at him a long second. Then he nodded. “Appreciate it.”

Gordon stepped back off the road. He put his hat on. He looked at me, finally, for the first time since April.

“I’m going to follow you down,” he said. “If that’s all right.”

I did not know what to say. I looked at Jake. Jake looked at his father.

“It’s a public road, Dad,” Jake said. But his voice was thick, and he did not say it mean.

Gordon nodded once and walked back up his drive to his pickup. Arnie eased the truck forward. The house rolled on. And when the line of pickups came past the end of Gordon’s drive, his old brown Ford pulled out at the very back and fell in behind them, hazards blinking like everybody else’s.

Setting it down

Arnie put two planks under his left wheels at the Olson culvert. The house crossed it without dropping a corner. I saw Gordon, at the back of the line, lift two fingers off his steering wheel.

It took until almost three in the afternoon to back the trailer up beside the new foundation and slide our house onto it. Most of the neighbors stayed. Somebody brought sandwiches. The Lutheran kids sat on the tailgate and cheered every time the jacks hissed.

Gordon stood by himself at the edge of Dad’s yard the whole time. He did not offer advice. He did not get in the way. Once, when a crew man dropped a block, Gordon picked it up and handed it back.

My dad walked over to him around noon. I watched them from across the yard, two old men in good hats, standing side by side with their hands in their jacket pockets. They have known each other fifty years. I could not hear a word.

When the last jack came out and the house sat level on its new blocks, Arnie climbed down, slapped the siding, and said, “She’s home.”

Everybody clapped. Cole ran straight for the back door to check the pantry.