The Fence She Finished in His Gloves

Why Not Sue Him

People have asked me since then why I didn’t just get a lawyer and go after Rod. I understand the question. It is the sensible thing, and I am usually a sensible person.

But I did the math at that kitchen table that night, the same way I did the books every Sunday. A lawsuit would take a year, maybe two.

It would cost money I did not have. And at the end of it, Rod might not have a dime left to pay.

Meanwhile the house payment was due on the fifteenth. The hired boys had not been paid for the last week of September. Brett’s hospital bill was going to be something I could not even picture.

And Hap Hensley’s cows were coming home in three weeks. If that fence was not finished, he would have to hire somebody else, and somebody else would get the $41,184, and we would get nothing for a mile and a half of work already in the ground.

I did not need a lawsuit. I needed that fence done before the first of November.

The Gloves

Brett’s work truck was parked by the shop where Rod had left it. I went out to it in the dark that night with a flashlight.

I don’t know what I was looking for. I think I just wanted to sit where he sat.

His leather gloves were on the dash, right where he always threw them. They were stiff and creased, the color of old butter, and shaped to his hands, the fingers curled a little like he was still holding something.

I put one on. My whole hand went in to the wrist and there was still an inch of empty leather past every one of my fingertips.

I sat there in the cab of his truck with my hand in his glove, and that was when I finally cried.

Afterward I went in the house and got the roll of paper towels off the counter.

I tore off squares and folded them small and pushed them down into the fingertips of both gloves, one at a time, until my fingers touched something.

It took most of a roll. When I was done, the gloves fit well enough that I could make a fist. I set them on the counter by the coffee pot so I would not forget them in the morning.

I grew up on a cattle place in Morris County. I had pulled wire with my dad since I was nine years old.

I had helped Brett on Saturdays plenty of times. I knew what a stretcher was and how a brace worked. I had just never done it for money, with nobody to ask.