She parked in the fire lane like she always did, and she got out already talking, saying sorry, Daddy, the showing ran long, and then she saw the truck.
She stopped walking. She just stopped, in the middle of the lot, with her keys in her hand.
She looked at me. Then she looked at Daddy, sitting up high in that old white Chevy with his hat on and his arm out the window, and I watched her understand it.
“Whose is that?” she said. Her voice came out small.
“Mine,” Daddy said. “Come here a minute, sis.”
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She walked over to his window. I stayed back by my car.
I had wanted to see her face, and now that I saw it I wished I hadn’t. She looked about twelve years old.
Daddy took his hat off and set it on the seat beside him.
He always took his hat off when he had something to say that mattered. He looked at her a long while before he spoke.
“I’m not mad about the truck,” he said. “I signed that title. I’d sign it again if you needed it. You hear me? I’d sign it again.”
Tina started crying. She didn’t make any noise. She just stood there with her hand on his door and the tears coming.
“What I’m mad about,” Daddy said, “is you thought I was done. You told your sister I’d never drive again. Sis, I’m seventy-four. I am not done. I’ve got some wheat I want to watch come up, and I’ve got a nurse in there who’s going to get her coffee bought every Monday the rest of my life, and I’m not done.”
“I was scared, Daddy,” Tina said. “You got dizzy. You were in the hospital. I was so scared.”
“I know you were,” he said. “I know. And you were behind on your car.”
She looked up at him then, shocked, and he almost smiled.
“Gene’s boy saw the repo man at your place in October,” he said. “I’ve known since Halloween. I was waiting on you to tell me.”
What Daddy asked for
I thought that was going to be the end of it. I thought Tina would get in her SUV and drive back to Amarillo and we’d all be quiet at Easter. That’s how most families I know handle a thing like this.
But Daddy wasn’t finished.
“Here’s what I want,” he said. “I don’t want any money. I don’t want that car back. I want you on Wednesdays.”
Tina wiped her face. “Wednesdays?”
“Wednesdays,” Daddy said. “You come down and ride with me. You sit in this truck and ride to Hereford and back. Four hours in the chair, you can do your phone calls in the lobby. I’d like the company. I’ve missed you, sis. That’s all I want.”
Tina didn’t say anything for a minute. I could see her doing the math on her week, the showings, the drive down from Amarillo, the gas.
She was broke. I knew she was broke. And she said yes anyway.
“I’ll be here at seven-thirty,” she said. “At the farm. Wednesday.”
“Don’t be late,” Daddy said.
And that, I want you to know, was the closest my father ever came to scolding her. Three words. She heard every one of them.