The Last Bed of the Harvest

What I could and could not do

I talked to my husband about it that night. Adam is the manager at the feed mill in Tomah, and he is the most sensible man I know. He listened to the whole thing with his arms folded on the table.

“You want to go out there and tell Keith off,” he said.

“I want to go out there and tell Keith he’s killing him,” I said. “He’s sitting in that kitchen waiting to die, Adam.”

Adam was quiet for a minute. “Is Keith wrong?”

I did not answer right away. That was the honest truth of it. Keith had pulled his father out of a ditch with his own two hands.

He had sat in that hospital hallway in wet jeans. He had the crop insurance and the bank note and the whole marsh on his shoulders.

“He’s not wrong to be scared,” I said finally. “He’s wrong about what to do with it.”

“It’s his marsh, Moll,” Adam said gently. “It’s his name on the note and his name on the insurance. You can’t go out there and overrule him in front of his own crew. And you shouldn’t.”

He was right, and I knew it. I could not order Keith to do anything. I could not make the crew choose between me and their paychecks. Rudy has a mortgage. Tina has two kids in school in Warrens.

But lying awake that night, I kept thinking about one thing. Everybody had made a decision about my grandfather. Keith had. The insurance man had. Even I had, in my way. Nobody had asked him.

The marsh was Keith’s. The rule was Keith’s. But the choice of what an 83-year-old man was willing to risk for one more morning in the work he loved, that choice did not belong to Keith or to me. It belonged to Grandpa.

So I decided I would not fight my uncle. I would just bring the waders and let Grandpa choose.

The waders

On Wednesday I stopped at the farm store in Tomah on my way home. I found the waders on the back wall between the deer stands and the ice fishing gear. Neoprene chest waders, dark olive green, with boot feet and adjustable suspenders.

They were $180. I stood there holding the box for a long time. It is not a fortune, but it is not nothing for us either, with Eli growing out of shoes every four months.

I had checked his old boots by the back door the night before while he was in the bathroom. Size 10.

I bought the size 10 and a tube of the good wader repair glue, because I know my grandfather, and he would want to have it.

The kid at the register asked if I was going duck hunting. I told him no, they were for my grandpa. He looked at me funny and wished me a good one.

I called Keith’s wife, my aunt, that night, just to ask when they would finish. I did not tell her why.

She said they had one bed left, bed 9, the little one by the reservoir, and they planned to run it Saturday afternoon after the truck came back from the receiving station.

“Your grandpa doing okay?” she asked. “Keith keeps asking me. He won’t call him himself.”

“He’s quiet,” I said. It was the truth, and it was all I could say.