The Truck Grandpa Left Came Home

“Keys are on the hook in the shed,” he told him. “Keep it as long as you need.”

That was the last time either of us saw that truck in our yard.

The night of the transmission call, Clint went out to the shop and didn’t come back in until after ten. I heard the radio going out there, the farm station, and every so often the clank of a wrench being set down hard.

When he came to bed, he lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. “I should’ve driven it more,” he said. “I let it sit too much. That’s hard on a transmission, sitting.”

“That’s not on you,” I said.

“Grandpa changed the fluid every thirty thousand. Never missed. I don’t know when I did it last.”

I put my hand on his chest and didn’t say anything else. Clint is a lineman. He climbs poles in ice storms and works on lines that would kill him in a heartbeat, and I have never once seen him scared. But he was grieving that truck like it was Arnold all over again.

Two weeks went by. Rodney didn’t mention the truck again, and Clint didn’t ask. I told myself it was being hauled to the salvage yard in Mason City and that was the end of it.

I drive a school bus for our district, the north route, sixty-one miles a day of gravel and blacktop. I get home a little after four and the first thing I do is go through the mail at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.

That Thursday the shopper came, the free paper with the grocery ads and the church dinners and the sale bills. I almost pitched it straight into the recycling with the seed catalogs.

But I always look at the sale bills. My dad used to read them out loud at breakfast, every farm auction in four counties, and I picked up the habit without meaning to.

This one was a farm estate auction for a couple named Hartwig, two towns over, set for that Saturday at ten. Tractors, a grain cart, hog panels, shop tools, household. At the bottom, a line that said other consignments welcome.

And under Vehicles, third line down, it said: 1995 Ford pickup, maroon and silver, runs and drives, title in hand.

I read it three times. Then I got up and went to the back door and looked at the empty spot in the machine shed, like the truck might have come home on its own while I wasn’t watching.

There were plenty of maroon Fords in Iowa. I knew that. But there was a phone number on the bill for the auctioneer, Merle Hanson, and I had known Merle since I was a girl. He called my folks’ sale when they retired.

So I called him. I said I was asking about the Ford on the Hartwig bill, and could he tell me who consigned it.

Merle was quiet a second. “Amber,” he said, “I’m guessing you already know who consigned it, or you wouldn’t be calling.”

“Does it run?”

“Drove it off the trailer myself Tuesday. Shifts fine. Somebody’s kept it nice.” He cleared his throat. “Title’s in Rodney Kroll’s name. That’s all I can tell you, hon. It’s his to sell.”

I thanked him and hung up and sat there at the table with the shopper open in front of me until the coffee went cold.