The Seat I Gave Miss Ada

“Walk on,” Harlan said to the horses.

Dutch and Ed leaned into the collars. The wagon creaked and took up its slack, and we went.

I walked. The lane is a quarter mile and it is not smooth.

I was in my barn coat and my chore boots. I walked the whole thing with my hand on the rail by Ada, and I was not tired once.

There is a rhythm to walking beside a wagon that I had forgotten since I was a girl. The horses set the pace, slow and sure, and you fall into their time instead of your own.

My boots found the dry ruts. The iron tire of the front wheel rolled along beside my shoulder, close enough to hear it crush the gravel.

I used to walk beside my dad like this when I was small and the load was high and there was no room up top. He would look down and say, you are the ground crew, Gwennie, and I believed it was an honor.

It is an honor. I had just forgotten. It took eighty-three-year-old Ada up on the bench to remind me what the ground crew is for.

The kids were piled in the hay behind us. Eight or nine of them, somebody’s whole birthday party.

They did not know anything was wrong. To them it was just a lady up front, a lady walking, and the big patient rumps of two blond horses.

The smell of crushed grass came up off the lane. There was diesel on the air from the neighbor combining his far field.

Behind me I could feel my sister being quiet in a way that was louder than any yelling.