The Pecans Grandma Sold in Her Own Name
“Did you know Great-Grandma can crack them with one hand?” Macy said.
Sherry stopped. “I know she can.”
“I can too. Watch.” Macy dug two out of her pocket, set them seam to seam, and squeezed with her whole body. It took three tries. On the third, it cracked.
Sherry looked at her for a long moment. Then she laughed, a small laugh that sounded like it surprised her. “Your great-grandpa used to do that,” she said. “Every night after supper.”
“I know,” Macy said. “Great-Grandma told me. His hands were bigger.”
Sherry looked over at the lawn chair. Grandma was watching them both, with her hands folded on top of the blanket. Neither of them said anything. They did not need to.
About noon, I went to the truck for the water jug, and Sherry was there, sitting on the tailgate with her head down. I almost turned around. Instead I sat down on the other end.
“I’m not going to make excuses,” she said after a while, without looking up.
“You don’t have to.”
“Ronnie’s bills are about eleven hundred a month after the insurance. I was behind on everything.” She turned a pecan over in her fingers. “And the first year, Mama said she was fine. She said, ‘Sell them and keep a little for your trouble.’ A little. And I kept all of it. And she didn’t say anything. So the next year I just did it again.”
I did not say anything.
“I told myself she didn’t need it. She’s got Social Security and the house is paid for. I told myself she’d never even notice.” She laughed, without any happiness in it. “My mother. Who counts her change at the Dollar General. Never notice.”
“She’s had her heat at sixty, Sherry.”
Sherry closed her eyes. “I know. I know that now. Ronnie told me on the way home from the station. He said, ‘Didn’t you see her coat at Thanksgiving?’ And I said I thought she was just cold-natured.” She opened her eyes. “I didn’t let myself see it. That’s the worst part. I could have seen it and I didn’t let myself.”
We sat there on the tailgate for a while. Down by the creek, Hunter was showing Travis how fast he could fill a roller.
“I can’t pay it back all at once,” Sherry said. “I want you to know I’m going to. Some of it by Christmas. The rest when I can.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “Tell her.”
“I will.” She slid off the tailgate and picked up her buckets. “I just wanted somebody to hear me say it first. In case I lose my nerve.”
We finished the last tree in the grove on Sunday, a little before four. When Hunter dumped the final roller into the final bucket, Grandma clapped from her lawn chair the way she had for Macy, and Sherry sat back on her heels in the leaves and wiped her face with the back of her wrist.
The second load came to 880 pounds. Travis and I took it to Dale on Monday after work, and Grandma rode along again, and the check was made out to Opal Reese, and Dale shook her hand at the end and held on a second longer than he needed to. $2,992.00.
We kept one bucket back. The best Stuarts of the whole crop, picked out by Grandma herself from the lawn chair, one at a time.