The Last Ride Across The Ferry

The letter from the state

I had known the new bridge was coming for three years. Everybody had.

The state had been studying our stretch of river since before my mother passed. Engineers in bright vests stood on the banks with their instruments and waved at my father as he crossed, and he waved back.

I want to be plain about something. The bridge was not a villain in this story. There is no villain in this story.

The bridge was a good thing. A new concrete bridge a mile downriver meant the school bus did not have to wait on a ferry. It meant an ambulance could cross at any hour in any water.

My father knew that better than anyone, because he was the one who had sat helpless on the bank in high water, unable to run the cable, while somebody on the far side needed across.

So when the letter came from the state, he did not rage and he did not grieve where I could see it. He read it twice at the kitchen table and set it down and poured himself coffee.

The letter said the new bridge would open to traffic on a Tuesday in October. It said that on that same day, by order, the ferry would cease operation, as its crossing would be, in their words, redundant.

Redundant. I remember my father saying the word out loud once, slow, like he was tasting it.

Then he folded the letter and put it behind the clock on the shelf, where my mother used to keep the light bill, and he went down to mind the crossing.

He worked every single day right up to the end. He did not close early out of hurt feelings. People still needed across until the morning the bridge opened, and so he carried them across.

I drove down to be with him most of those last days. We did not talk about it much. We watched the water.

Once he said, not to me exactly, that a man cannot be mad at a bridge. A bridge is just a better way across. He had spent his life being a way across. He understood a better one coming.

That is the kind of man he is. I wanted you to know that before I tell you about the last morning.