The Sack Breakfast in the Bread Box

Jen asked about her. “Is your mother mad at me?”

“No,” I said. “She’s mad at herself. She’ll get there.”

I told Jen the rest that afternoon. The empty box. The boy apologizing. The burnt eggs and the note. Ed. I told her about the Bible, too, and that I had lied about not finding it, and I put it in her hands.

She held it on her lap a while without opening it. Then she said, “You packed it yourself? Every day?”

“Every day,” I said. “He says I’m better now.”

My wife started crying, and she did not cry when they cut her knee open. I sat on the edge of the bed and held her, and the therapist came to the door, looked at us, and went away again.

At four o’clock that same afternoon there was a knock on the door of Jen’s room.

It was Tyler, in a clean flannel shirt instead of the mill shirt, with his hair combed wet. He had walked from the high school. He stood in the doorway like he was not sure he was allowed in.

“Mrs. Lindgren,” he said. “I heard about your knee.”

Jen said, “Tyler,” the way you say the name of somebody you have been praying for, and held out her hand.

He came in and took it. He did not know what to do after that, so he just stood there holding my wife’s hand by the hospital bed, and she let him.

Then he took an envelope out of his jacket. It was a plain white envelope, and he had written her name on it in that square pencil hand.

“I’m graduating early,” he said. “I finished my credits. I’m done at Christmas, and I’m going full time at the mill in January, and they’re starting me on the grain dryer. But I’m going to walk with my class in May. Grandpa says I have to.”

Inside was a card he had made himself on the library computer and printed on heavy paper. It had his senior picture on it, and his name, and the date in May, and under it a line he had typed himself.

“Thank you to everyone who helped me get here.”

“I only printed twelve,” he said. “You’re the first one. I wanted you to have the first one.”

Jen held that card in both hands and could not talk. So I did the talking, which is not usually my job.

“Tyler,” I said. “The co-op hires summer groundmen. It’s hard work and the pay’s fair. Come spring, if you’re interested, you put in an application like anybody else. I won’t do it for you. But I’ll tell them you show up on time.”

He looked at me a long time, the same way his grandpa had.

“Yes sir,” he said. “I’ll put one in.”

Before he left, he leaned down and said something in Jen’s ear that I did not hear. She nodded and patted his hand. I never asked her what it was. Some things are hers.