The Fishing Pond in the Back Pasture

The Last Sunday

The third Sunday in July, Ryan’s truck did not come up the lane at one o’clock. I watched the window and told myself he must be on a storm call. There had been wind in Missouri the night before.

Then, at a quarter after one, I heard tires on the gravel. But it was not Ryan’s pickup. It was Brooke’s little silver car, the one with the dent in the back bumper from the school parking lot.

Ryan was in the passenger seat. The kids were in the back. And Brooke was driving.

She got out slow. She had on sandals, which is the wrong thing to wear in a pasture, and she stood by the car with her keys in her hand like she was not sure she was allowed to be there.

I went out on the porch. For a second neither of us said anything.

“Hi, Karen,” she said.

“Hi, Brooke,” I said. “I’m glad you came.”

The others went ahead with the poles. Brooke and I walked down the hill together, slow, because of her sandals. She did not say anything until we got to the trees.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, when she saw the pond. “Ryan said it was nice. He didn’t say it was this nice.”

“Steve built the dock,” I said. “Come sit.”

We went out to the end of the dock and sat down side by side. The kids were already fishing off the bank on the other side, with Steve and Ryan between them, untangling lines.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She did not look at me. She looked at the water, the way Ryan had. “I’m so sorry, Karen. I blocked you. I never even answered you. That was the worst thing I’ve ever done to anybody.”

“It wasn’t the worst thing,” I said. “But it hurt. I won’t pretend it didn’t.”

“I know.”

“The trips didn’t hurt as much as that did,” I said. “I could have lived without the trips. I just couldn’t stand not knowing what I’d done.”

“You didn’t do anything,” she said. Her voice broke on it. “That’s why I couldn’t answer. You didn’t do one thing.”

“Ryan told me,” I said. “About Ottumwa. About his mother.”

She nodded. A tear went down her face and she let it go.

“When you offered to pay, all I could hear was her,” she said. “I know that’s not fair to you. I know you’re not like that. But I’ve worked so hard to have one thing that was just ours. And I panicked.”

“I shouldn’t have offered the money,” I said. “I see that now. I thought I was being generous. But I think I was trying to buy a ticket into something I hadn’t been asked into. And that wasn’t right of me either.”

She turned and looked at me then, for the first time.

“I don’t want your trips, Brooke,” I said. “They’re yours. Keep them. Take those kids to see every princess in Florida. I just want to be in a picture sometimes. That’s all.”

She laughed, a wet little laugh, and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“Addie wants to come here for fall break instead,” she said. “Did Ryan tell you?”

“He told me.”

“I was so hurt,” she said. “And then I thought, that’s what you must have felt. Four times. And I just sat there in the car and felt sick about it.”

“Well,” I said. “Now you know what it feels like. Let’s neither of us feel it again.”

She reached over and took my hand. Her hand was cold, even in July. I held onto it.

Then she took her phone out of her back pocket and did something on it, and turned the screen so I could see. She had unblocked me. Right there, on the dock.

“I’m going to send you every picture,” she said. “Every single one. All four trips. You’re going to get sick of me.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I promise you I won’t.”