The Tractor at the Church Door

The ride

Joan reached up and squeezed my hand. “Go slow,” she said. “You’ve got precious cargo.”

“I’ve got everything,” I said, and she knew what I meant.

I pushed the clutch lever and started her up. The 60 fired on the first try, and that old pop, pop, pop rolled out over the churchyard and the cemetery and the fields, and somebody on the steps started clapping in time with it.

I put her in second and let the clutch out slow. We rolled down the gravel drive at about a walking pace, with the bows on the fenders lifting in the wind, and the people on the steps cheering and waving their empty birdseed bags.

The reception was at the VFW hall in town, two miles. I kept it in fourth the whole way, about five miles an hour.

Nobody was in a hurry. Katie had one arm around my shoulders and the other hand on her veil.

Ben stood behind me on the drawbar with his feet wide, holding the back of the seat. About halfway there he leaned down and said in my ear, “Thank you for bringing it, Wayne.”

“Thank you for getting on,” I said.

“I should have said something last night,” he said again.

“No,” I said. “You did it right. You waited for the right time and you said it once, in front of everybody, kind. That’s harder. I’ve been working on it for sixty-two years.”

Katie leaned her head on my shoulder. “Dad,” she said. “Did you think I’d changed my mind?”

“I thought maybe,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything last night because I didn’t want a fight the night before,” she said. “Same as you. But I never once thought you wouldn’t bring it. Not for one second.”

I had to look at the road for a while after that.

Cars came up behind us on the county road, and nobody passed. They just slowed down and followed us, with their flashers on, all the way to town.

People came out on their porches to wave. A man at the gas station took off his cap.

I looked back once, over Ben’s shoulder, to see how long the line was.

Right behind us, first in line, at five miles an hour, with its chrome shining and its flashers going, was the white Chevrolet.

The driver had both hands on the wheel. Greg and Susan were in their own car, three cars back. The back seat of the Chevrolet was empty.

That was what she had told the driver. Follow them. She’d paid for the car, and she let it carry nobody, and she let it lead the parade behind my father’s tractor all the way to the VFW.

And that is how the white car followed us to the reception, empty.