The Weekend We Booked Dad’s Farmhouse

We set the lawn chairs in a line along the fence. Dad was in the middle with a blanket over his knees, though it was still eighty degrees. Jean was on one side of him. I was on the other.

Erik set off the first one, a big gold one that hung over the corn and came down slow like rain. The kids screamed. And I felt somebody come up behind Dad’s chair in the dark.

It was Gordon. He crouched beside Dad, stiff, one hand on the armrest. In the other was a plain white bank envelope, fat.

“Arne,” he said. “I need to give you this. I should have given it to you in June.”

Dad looked at the envelope but did not take it.

“It’s every dollar,” Gordon said. “Forty-five nights at a hundred and forty. Six thousand three hundred. That’s what those people paid.”

“The website kept its cut, and I made that up out of our savings. Some of it already went to the hospital, and I made that up out of savings too. It’s all there.”

Then he set something on top of the envelope. The key with the red rubber cap. I had put it back in the lockbox that morning without thinking.

“And your key,” he said. “I won’t be needing it.”

Another firework went up, a red one, and in the light of it I could see Gordon’s face was wet. Jean had both hands over her mouth.

Dad sat there long enough for two more fireworks. Then he took the key, put it in his shirt pocket, and buttoned the pocket. Then he picked up the envelope and held it out to Gordon.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Dad said. “You’re going to keep running it.”

Gordon started to shake his head. Dad held up one finger, and Gordon stopped, the way he has stopped for forty years when Dad holds up that finger.

“The house is better with people in it,” Dad said. “You were right about that part. You just went about it like a horse thief.”

“Half of what it makes goes to Jean’s bills. Half goes to that place in town, because I’ll tell you what, Gordy, it is not cheap. And you put my family’s pictures back on the walls and leave them there.”

“People ought to know whose house they’re sleeping in,” Dad said. “And I keep the key. You come ask me for it every time you need it, like a decent neighbor.”

Gordon was crying outright now, crouched by the chair. Jean reached over and put her hand on the back of his neck.

“Yes, sir,” Gordon said. I had never once heard him call Dad sir.

“This envelope you take home to Jean,” Dad said. “That’s for the hospital. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

Gordon took it. His hand was shaking.

“One more thing,” Dad said, looking out at the fireworks. “We’re going fishing Monday. Spirit Lake. You’re driving, because Tracy took my license. And you’re buying the minnows.”

Gordon laughed, a wet, broken sound, and wiped his face with his sleeve. “I sold the boat, Arne.”