The Shoe List at Sunday Dinner

He wrote Ethan’s name. He thought about it, and he wrote a 7. He was right about that one too.

Ethan and Duane had been comparing feet since Christmas, because Ethan was determined to catch his daddy by summer.

Then he wrote Rosie’s name, and he stopped. He held the pen over the paper.

He looked at me, and I kept my eyes on my plate, because his mother had said without asking her and I was not going to cross Evelyn Fiedler at her own table.

He wrote a 1. Then he crossed it out and wrote a 2. Rosie wears a 3 and has since the fall.

Then he wrote Ben’s name, and he sat there.

He sat there a long time. The kitchen clock ticked. Out in the yard, Ben laughed at something, high and bright, the way only a six-year-old laughs.

“I don’t know,” Duane said finally. His voice cracked on it. “I don’t know what size he wears.”

“He wears a thirteen,” Evelyn said. “In little boys. And he’s been curling his toes inside a twelve since February, because he didn’t want to ask his mama for anything she couldn’t buy.”

I had not told her that part. I had not told anybody. Ben must have told her himself, sometime, over a plate of cookies on a Sunday afternoon. Children tell their grandmothers things.

Duane put the pen down. He put both his hands over his face. I saw his shoulders go, once, and then he got hold of himself.

“Now,” Evelyn said, gently this time. “Underneath that, you write that you owe your mother four hundred sixty-four dollars. And you write when you’re going to pay it. And you sign your name.”

He wrote it. I watched him do it. “I owe Mama $464. By June 1. Duane Fiedler.”

He signed it the way he signs his time card, a big D and a line after it.

Evelyn took the paper, read it once, folded it in quarters and put it in the drawer of the sideboard behind her.

Then she stood up and went to the counter and lifted the dish towel off the chess pie.

“Kaitlyn,” she called out the back door. “Bring them in. Pie’s ready.”

The kids came pounding in with their cheeks pink from the cold and grass on their knees.

Ben had a kitten hair on his sleeve and wanted to tell everybody about the gray one. Nobody at that table could have told you anything had happened.

Except Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn looked at her daddy’s face and then at mine, and she sat down without a word and passed the plates down the line the way her grandmother had taught her.

Evelyn cut the pie into eight pieces. She gave Duane the first slice, which surprised me.

Then she sat back down and put her hand flat on the table, and every child went still, because they knew that hand.

“I have an announcement,” she said. “Saturday morning, your grandma is taking all four of you shoe shopping. In Paducah. And we are going to have the man measure every one of your feet properly, with the metal thing.”

Ben’s mouth fell open. Rosie clapped both her hands over hers.

“Mama has to work Saturday,” Ethan said. He was looking at me.

“I know your mama works Saturday,” Evelyn said. “That’s why I’m taking you. Your mama can meet us for lunch when she gets off.”