The Last Day on the Potato Digger

Saturday morning

I got up at five-thirty on the last day of harvest break. I had laid my clothes out the night before like a kid on the first day of school.

An old red flannel shirt that used to be my dad’s. A gray ball cap. And a pair of canvas work gloves I found in a coffee can on the shelf in the garage, stiff as cardboard.

I worked one harvest myself, when I was fourteen, on a farm out toward Blackfoot. I had not stood on a digger since. I worked the gloves in my hands while the coffee brewed, trying to get them soft.

Lance was still asleep. He was off that Saturday and he slept late on his days off. I left a note on the counter that said, “Gone to work. Back for supper. Hansens’ crew supper is at eight, please come.”

Bridger came down the hall in his faded green hoodie with his gloves in his hand. He stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked at me. At the flannel. At the cap.

“Mom,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Going to work,” I said. “Arlo needed somebody on the platform.”

He stood there a long time. Something went across his face that I could not read. Then he said, very quietly, “Mom. You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t,” I said. “Eat your eggs.”