The Tractor No Hand Went Up For

He rebuilt the carburetor twice, because the first kit he bought was the wrong one and he was too stubborn to quit.

He sent the magneto off to a man in Ohio who still knows how. I learned the names of parts I never meant to know. Governor. Manifold. Sediment bowl. I can still rattle them off.

I handed him wrenches in that cold shed with the kerosene heater ticking and the farm station on low. That was our winter courtship, late, the second time around for both of us. I would not trade those nights.

He had the sheet metal sandblasted in Nappanee. He painted it himself in the shed, three coats, and the day it dried he would not let the barn cats within thirty feet of the finish.

There is a picture on our icebox of him beside it, the day it was done. He is not smiling.

He is just standing there with one hand flat on the hood, like a man standing next to something that is his.

He drove it in the Scott Township parade every Labor Day. He waved like a boy.

He gave the grandkids rides down the lane at Christmas with their mittens half frozen to the cold fenders.

When his brother died two years back, Earl went out and sat on that tractor in the dark machine shed for an hour. I let him be. I did not ask what he said out there alone.

Now the money. A good restored M brings maybe six or seven thousand on a strong day.

Less at a general consignment, where buyers want working iron, not a show piece somebody babied.

That is the thing Kevin never once understood. It was never about the money.

He only ever thought in money. And so money was the only thing in the world he could imagine taking from his father.

The City Hospital

I drove back down to Fort Wayne that Thursday night not knowing yet what Kevin had done. I found out on the Friday evening, and I found out from old Walt, not from family.

Walt farms the ground just north of ours. He is eighty years old and still puts up his own hay on shares.

He had been at the sale grounds Friday dropping off a hay rake to consign.

He saw the red M come off Kevin’s trailer. He knew that tractor the way the whole township knew that tractor.

And he knew it was wrong, so he found my number and he called me.

Walt said, Darlene, I do not want to be a busybody. He said, Earl’s M is sitting in the row at Shipshewana with a sale tag on it. He figured I would not do that with Earl laid up.

I was standing in the ICU family room with a vending machine coffee going cold in my hand. I said thank you, Walt.

I said it twice. Then I hung up and I stood there and shook.

Then I went back in and looked at my husband. They kept the lights down low.