The Ramp My Brother Built for Dad

I was relieved, if I am honest. Terry is five years older than me. He was the one who handled things.

He managed the parts counter at an implement dealer and he was good with numbers.

I didn’t ask questions. I should have. But you don’t think your own brother is going to do anything but right by the man who taught you both to ride a bike in the church parking lot.

The Christmas card came the second week of December. It was one of those photo cards from the drugstore.

Terry and Jolie stood on a wooden dock with a lake behind them and a brand new cabin up the bank.

“Our Little Slice of Heaven,” it said across the bottom in gold letters. Under that, in Jolie’s handwriting, it said, “Come see us at the lake this summer! Love, T and J.”

I stood at my kitchen counter and looked at that card for a long time.

My husband, Jeff, came in from the garage and read it over my shoulder. He didn’t say anything right away.

“Since when do they have a lake place?” he finally asked. Jeff runs a shift at the ethanol plant outside town. He is a quiet man, and he notices when numbers don’t add up.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Terry said money was tight in October. He said it on the phone while I was holding Dad’s shirt with the hole in the elbow.”

Jeff set his coffee down. “Then something changed,” he said. “Or something didn’t.” He went back out to the garage, and I put the card on the refrigerator under a magnet and kept looking at it.

We had Christmas with Dad in the dayroom at the veterans home that year, like we had since he moved in.

The staff put up a tree with paper ornaments the residents made in craft hour.

Terry and Jolie came at noon. Jolie brought a plate of her peanut butter bars, which Dad loves.

Terry brought Dad a calendar from the implement dealer, the free kind they hand out at the counter.

“Saw your card,” I said to Jolie while we filled paper cups with punch. “That cabin is beautiful. When did you get it?”

Jolie lit right up. “Two summers ago,” she said. “It’s near Clear Lake. Terry got a big bonus and some overtime, and we just jumped. We’d been saving forever. It’s our dream.”

I nodded. I said it looked lovely. And then I watched my brother across the room, standing by Dad’s chair, checking his phone while Dad tried to tell him something about the Hawkeyes.

Terry never sat down. He stayed forty minutes. He kissed the top of Dad’s head on the way out and said, “Love you, Pop.” And he didn’t look at me once.

After they left, I asked Dad if he wanted to go down to the business office with me.

The home keeps a small account for each resident for spending money, and the resident can ask to see it anytime.

The woman at the desk was kind. She printed off the last twelve months for Dad because he asked her to, and he handed it to me without reading it. “My eyes,” he said, and smiled at her.

Every month, a deposit came in from the fiduciary account. Forty dollars. Every single month on that sheet, forty dollars, for a man whose check was close to four thousand.