The Buddy Seat
Troy had both of his nephews lined up at the ladder of the big green combine when I pulled into the yard that morning. Ava was standing off to the side in her barn coat, holding her own ear muffs, waiting her turn.
She was waiting the way a child waits who has been told she will get one.
“Not you, sweetheart,” Troy said. He was not even unkind about it. He said it flat, like he was reading a weather report. “The buddy seat’s a boy thing. You know that. Go on up to the house and help your mama.”
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Ava did not cry. That was the part that got into me.
She just looked down at the ear muffs in her hands and nodded. It was the way you nod when you have already learned there is no point. Then she turned to walk back toward the farmhouse.
She was ten years old. She had those muffs on a hook by her own bed because she had asked for them for her birthday in September. She wanted to be ready for harvest.
Cody and Luke, Troy’s brother’s boys, climbed the ladder grinning, eleven and thirteen. They swung up into the cab like they owned it.
They did not mean anything by it. They were just boys doing what they were told they got to do.
I shut my truck door and I did not say one word to Troy. I have learned that arguing with a man about a thing his own father told him is like arguing with a fence post about rain.
Instead I walked over to Ava. I put my hand on her shoulder and I turned her around.
“Come here a second,” I said. “I want to show you something.”
She looked up at me with those careful eyes. “Grandma, Troy said.”
“Troy’s got his machine,” I said. “I’ve got mine. You ever been in mine?”
She shook her head.
“Well,” I said. “Let’s go fix that.”