The Tax Bill I Mailed My Stepson

His son

Keith was Hank’s son from his first marriage, to Carla. He was thirty-four that summer, and he had a wife named Becky and two kids, Brody, who was eight, and Addie, who was five.

Hank and Carla divorced when Keith was nine. I married Hank when Keith was eleven.

I did not try to be his mother, because he had one, and she made it very clear to everyone that the position was filled.

Keith spent summers at the cabin when he was a teenager. He fished off the dock and ate my pancakes and called me Kristi, never anything else.

He was polite. He was never warm. I told myself that was fair, because I was not his mother.

He grew up, married Becky, and moved to Paducah. They came to the lake a few times a year. Hank lived for those visits.

He taught Brody to cast off the end of the dock with a little red rod and reel he bought at the hardware store in Benton.

At the funeral Keith stood at the front of the church and shook every hand.

Carla sat three rows back and did not speak to me. Becky hugged me twice and cried harder than anybody but me.

That was the family I had left. A stepson who was polite, his wife who was kind, and two grandchildren who called me Grandma Kristi because their grandpa had told them to and never once asked anyone’s permission.