The Jon Boat in My Driveway

The Next Saturday

Harlan came at seven the next Saturday with his own boat, a sixteen-foot flat-bottom that is older than I am, and Eli was waiting on the porch in his new life jacket half an hour early.

He had slept in it. I found him asleep in it at ten the night before.

They went back to the same ramp below Darla’s. Harlan told me later that he tied up on that same sycamore on purpose, and he sat right next to Eli on the middle seat, and he checked the generation schedule on Darla’s wall before they ever launched.

They let the catfish go first thing. Eli asked to. He tipped the white bucket over the side and watched it swim down out of sight, and Harlan said Eli told it, “You were real brave,” before it left.

They caught eleven fish that morning, mostly little channel cats and two rainbow trout that had wandered down from the cold water upriver.

Corey went to supper at his daddy’s that first Saturday night like he said he would. I did not go.

It was not my table to sit at. He came home after ten, and he sat on the end of our bed in the dark for a while before he said anything.

“Rusty cried,” he said finally. “I never seen him cry. Not at Mama’s funeral. Not when Tammy left. He cried like a little kid, and Daddy just sat there with his hand on the back of his neck and let him.”

“What happened?”

“He’s going to meetings,” Corey said. “Tuesday nights at the Methodist church in town, in the basement. Daddy’s driving him the first month, so he can’t talk himself out of it.” He rubbed his face.

“Daddy’s going to sit in the truck in the parking lot the whole hour, every week. He said he’d sit there till he’s ninety if he has to.”

I reached over and took his hand, and we sat there a while longer.

Sixty Days

Rusty did not come around for a long time. He sent Eli a card on his birthday in November with twenty dollars in it and a note that just said, “Proud of you, buddy. Love, Uncle Rusty.” Eli put the card on his dresser and kept it there.

He came to Thanksgiving at Harlan’s. He sat at the far end of the table and drank sweet tea and passed the dressing when people asked for it, and he did not go out to his truck once.

I watched.

After dinner, while the men were in the living room with the football game on, he came and found me at the sink. He picked up a dish towel without asking and started drying.

We did about half the dishes like that before he said anything. Then he said, low, “I’ve been going Tuesdays.”

“Corey told me.”

“I wanted to tell you myself,” he said. He dried a plate a lot longer than it needed.

“I’m sorry, Brandy. I’m sorry I put him out there. I’m sorry I lied about the window. I’ve thought about that boy in that boat every night for six weeks.”

I turned off the water. “So have I.”

“I know you have.” He folded the towel over the edge of the sink. “I’m not asking you for anything. I just wanted you to hear it from me and not from Daddy.”

I looked at him for a long time. He had shaved that morning, all the way. His eyes were clear in a way I had not seen since before Tammy left.

He looked tired and he looked scared, and he looked like the man who had taught my son to bait a hook off a pond dock when he was five.