The Statement at Grandma’s Birthday Supper

He looked down at his plate. The piece of cake was still there, the bite on the edge of it where it had fallen off his fork. He picked up the fork again, and then he set it down. He couldn’t do it. “I can’t eat this,” he said.

“Then wrap it up and take it home,” Grandma said. “It’s good cake. Your sister made it.”

Mark and Jeremy went out to the porch after that. I watched them through the dark window over the sink, two shapes under the yard light, Jeremy leaning on the railing and Mark standing beside him with his hands in his jacket pockets.

I did the dishes. Grandma sat at the table and read the bank pages one more time, all the way through, without saying anything out loud this time.

Then she got up and went to the living room and came back with her Bible. It is the big black one Grandpa gave her the year they married, with the family names written on the first pages in three different handwritings, his and hers and her mother’s.

She folded the three pages from the bank in half, and then in half again, and she tucked them in at the Psalms.

“There,” she said. “So I don’t forget.”

“You’re not going to forget, Grandma.”

“I know I’m not,” she said. “That’s not what it’s for.”

Then she sat back down at the table, and she reached for the pill bottle from the drugstore bag, the new one from the drugstore. She worked the cap off, which took her two tries, and she shook one small white pill out into her palm. A whole one. She held it up so I could see it.

“Dale’s going to call me Thursday,” she said. “I’d better be able to tell him the truth.”

She put it in her mouth and took a drink of water and swallowed, and she looked right at me while she did it.

Then she picked up the old bottle, the one that was almost empty, and handed it across the table to me. “Throw that out for me, honey,” she said.

I held it in my hand for a minute. I could feel the half pills rattling inside it.

Then I put my arms around her from behind, the way I used to when I was little and she was at the stove, and I put my face down against her white hair, and I held on.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have come up more. I should have seen it.”

“You sent the money,” she said. “Every single month. Twenty-four times. I read them.” She patted my arm, twice. “You didn’t forget me. That’s all I need to know.”

When Mark came back inside, his face was red from the cold. Jeremy was behind him, holding his piece of cake wrapped in tinfoil.

“He’s got an interview,” Mark said to me, low, while Jeremy was saying goodbye to Grandma.

“Feed yard down by Broken Bow. My cousin Dave runs the trucks there. They lost two drivers this fall. I called him from the porch.” Mark shrugged, like it was nothing. “Monday at eight. Jeremy’s got his CDL and fifteen years hauling cattle. Dave said that’s more than they usually get.”

“You did that for him?”

“I did it for your grandma,” Mark said. “But yeah. Him too.”

At the door, my brother stopped in front of me. He had his cap in his hand, turning it around and around by the bill. “Nic,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anything else to say. I’m just sorry.”

“I know,” I said.

“I’ll be here Thursday.”