The Insulin Box Grandma Drove to School

In April the year before, the rig Jared worked on stacked out. That is what they call it when the company parks a rig because oil prices dropped and they don’t need it running. Two hundred men went home the same week. Jared was out of work for four months.

He took whatever he could get that summer. He drove a grain truck for a farmer near Middle River during harvest. He cut firewood. He did not sit still one single day. But they put the rent on a credit card, and the truck payment fell behind, and by the time a different company hired him back in September at less money than before, they were already in a hole.

Krista was the one who paid the bills. She always had been. She had the folder and the calendar and the passwords. And she had decided, alone, somewhere around Christmas, that she was going to dig them out of that hole without making her husband feel any smaller than he already did.

I am not saying she was right. I am saying I understood exactly how a person gets there.

“Krista,” I said. “I’m not going to yell at you.”

“You should.”

“I’m not going to. I never have, and I’m not starting today. But I’m going to tell you how it’s going to be, and I need you to just hear it.”

“Okay.”

“The pharmacy has my name on Mason’s account now. When his refills are ready, they’ll call me, and I’ll pay for them there, at the counter. I’m not sending you the two hundred anymore. I’ll pay the pharmacy direct, whatever it costs, until that deductible is met. And then we’ll see.”

She didn’t say anything.

“This isn’t to punish you,” I said. “It’s so he never sits on a cot again. That’s the whole reason.”

“Okay,” she said, very small. “That’s fair. That’s more than fair.”

“And Krista. You’re going to tell Jared. Not me. You.”

There was a long breath. “I know.”

“Tonight.”

“He gets off at ten our time.”

“Then tonight at ten.”

She said she had to go back to the floor. Before she hung up she said, “Patty. Thank you for going. I mean it. I couldn’t have left. They would have written me up.” And then she was gone, and I sat at the oak table with the pencil in my hand and the two numbers on the pad.

I did not wait for ten o’clock. I am not proud of that, and I am not ashamed of it either. At eight that night, I called Jared’s phone, and it went to voicemail, the way I knew it would.

“It’s Mom,” I said. “Mason is fine. He’s fine, honey. I want you to hear that first. But Krista is going to call you tonight and tell you some things, and I want you to listen to her all the way to the end before you say a word. Call me after.”

At 10:52 my phone rang.

I could hear the man camp behind him, a television somewhere, and a door slamming, and the wind out there on the prairie that never stops. Jared’s voice sounded like it had been dragged a long way.

“Mom,” he said. “She told me.”

“All of it?”

“All of it. The rent. The notice on the door. The money. The pharmacy.” He stopped. “Mason taking less.”

“He’s fine. His number was 128 at supper. Krista sent me a picture of the screen.”