Counting Out the Rest at Dad’s Table

What It Did To Dad

By the end of May I could tell it was wearing on Dad.

He started getting up from the table to refill his tea the second I pulled my wallet out. He would stand at the sink with his back to us and run the water longer than he needed to.

The first week of June, he finally said something to me. The boys were down at the pond skipping rocks and it was just the two of us on the porch.

“You making a point, son?” he asked. He did not look at me when he said it. He was looking out over the yard the boys had just cut.

“No, sir,” I said. “Just paying my boy.”

He rocked a while. “I’m paying him.”

“You’re paying him ten dollars, Dad. He’s doing the same work as the others.”

“He’s twelve.”

“He ran the weed eater for three hours today along the whole fence row,” I said. “You walked it. You know he did it right.”

“It’s my money,” he said finally.

“Yes, sir. It is. And it’s my money I’m counting out.”

He did not answer. A while later he got up and went inside, and I sat there by myself and listened to a mockingbird in the hedge.

I did not feel good about it. I want that on the record. I did not win anything that day. I just sat on my father’s porch and felt like the worst son in Harrison County.

Trina

Trina found out the second week of June. Corbin told her in the car. She called me that night while I was sitting on the tailgate in my own driveway.

“Dwight, why didn’t you tell me?” she said. Her voice was tight.

“Because it wasn’t your doing,” I said. “And I didn’t want you to feel bad about it.”

“Well, I feel bad about it.” I heard her take a breath. “I’ll make the boys give some of it back. I’ll make up the difference myself.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “Trina, I’m not asking anybody for anything. Your boys did the work. They earned their forty. I’m not taking a dime from them, and I’m not taking a dime from you.”

“Why do you think he’s doing it?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. That was true then. “I figure he’ll tell me when he’s ready.”

“He’s been so good to my boys since Kevin left,” she said. “He takes them fishing. He took Reid to get his learner’s permit. I didn’t think about what it looked like from your side.”

“It’s not a side,” I said. “It’s just a wage.”

She laughed a little, the kind of laugh that is closer to crying. “You always were the stubborn one.”

“I learned it from him.”