The Tax Bill I Mailed My Stepson

The handprints

Before they left that afternoon, Addie found the handprints.

At the foot of the dock, where the boards meet the shore, there is a little concrete landing Hank poured so we would not be stepping in mud.

While it was still wet, he took my hand and pressed it in, and then pressed his own beside it.

Under the two handprints he wrote with a nail: “H and K, 2006.” The concrete has gone gray and there is moss in the letters, but you can still read it if you kneel down.

Addie knelt down. She put her little hand inside mine, the concrete one, and then she put her other hand inside her grandpa’s.

Her hands were so small they did not reach the edges of either one.

“Grandpa’s is big,” she said.

“He had big hands,” I said. “He used them to build you a dock.”

Brody came over and put his hand in his grandpa’s print too, and then looked at me. “Can I put mine in?”

“It’s dry, baby,” I said. “It’s been dry a long time.”

“We could pour more,” he said. He said it like it was simple, and maybe it was. Becky turned around and looked at the lake for a while.