The Tractor at the Church Door

The steps

The ushers let the family out first, out the side door and around front, so we could be on the steps when the bride and groom came out.

Joan went down to the bottom step with her mother. I went to the 60 and climbed up on the seat.

I’m not sure why I did that. I suppose I didn’t want to stand there next to it looking hopeful.

If I was going to look like a fool, I wanted to be sitting down for it.

The guests filed out and lined both sides of the steps. The church ladies had handed out little net bags of birdseed tied with white ribbon.

Pastor Dahl doesn’t allow rice. He says it’s hard on the birds and harder on the old people’s hips.

The driver had the back door of the Chevrolet open and was standing beside it with his hands folded.

The photographer was down on the sidewalk with her camera up. Susan was at the top of the steps, by the door. Greg was beside her.

Then the doors opened, and Ben and Katie came out together, and the birdseed went up in the air like a flock of something.

Katie was laughing with her head ducked down, birdseed in her hair. Ben had his arm around her.

At the top of the steps, Katie looked up. She saw the Chevrolet at the curb, with the man in the black cap holding the door. I watched her see it.

Then she turned her head, and she saw the 60.

She stopped. Ben stopped with her. The birdseed kept coming down for a second, and then people saw she’d stopped, and it tapered off.

Katie let go of Ben’s arm. She gathered up that long lace dress in both hands, the way her mother taught her to do on stairs.

Then she walked down the steps, right past the open door of that white car, and right up to the tractor.

She looked up at me with her face all lit up. “Dad,” she said. “I knew you’d bring it.”

I couldn’t say anything. I reached down my hand. She took it, and put her foot on the axle, and I pulled, and she came up onto that left fender in her lace dress the same way her mother had in 1987, and sat.

The steps had gone completely quiet. The only sound was a crow somewhere out over the cemetery, and a phone camera clicking from someone’s hand.

I looked up at the top of the steps.

Susan was standing there with one hand on the black iron railing. Her face had gone as white as that car.

Greg was beside her with his hands in his pockets, looking at his shoes.

And Ben was looking at his mother.

He took one step down, and stopped.

“Mom,” he said.