“The old girls,” she said quietly. “The ones that hang by the windbreak. I wondered Thursday why I only saw the two.”
“I called Dale Ostrander last night,” I said. “He’s going to call Lyle this morning. He inspected them Wednesday. They didn’t have a brand.”
“Lyle’s back,” she said. “That was the winter Lyle’s back went out.” She said it like she was apologizing for something, which nearly undid me.
“Dale says the barn will void this one and write a new check to Lyle,” I told her. “You just take it to the barn office Monday. I didn’t want it in my house one more night.”
She still had not taken it. She looked at me then, really looked, and I could see her trying to fit it together, the girl she taught to can tomatoes and the man who used to feed her cows.
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“You called on your own husband,” she said.
“He’s not my husband anymore, Arlene,” I said. “And they’re not my cows. They’re yours.”
She took the check then. Her fingers touched mine, and hers were cold from the door and mine were cold from the car, and for a second neither of us let go.
“Why’d you bring it yourself?” she asked. “You could have mailed it. You’re the mail.”
I laughed a little, which surprised both of us. Then I told her the truth.
“Because by Monday morning half the county is going to know a check went out of that barn for stolen cows with my name on it,” I said. “And I wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it from anybody else.”
She folded the check once and put it in the pocket of her cardigan. She did not say anything. The screen door creaked behind me.
“Wednesday’s sale day,” I said. “I don’t work Wednesday this week. It’s Veterans Day, the post office is closed.”
“I know what day it is, honey.”
“Would you sit with me at the sale barn cafe?” I asked. “At noon. Just sit with me. You don’t have to say anything.”
She looked at me a long time over that screen door. Out in the pasture one of the cows bawled, low and long, the way they do when the wind is wrong.
“Noon,” Arlene said. “I’ll be there at noon.”