The Breakfast I Carried at Seven

“Sit down,” he said. “Please. I want to read this again with him here. I want to read it at his table.”

So I sat down. Burl took the chair across from his father, and he opened the notebook to the first page, and he read.

He did not read it out loud. He just read, every page, slowly, with his finger moving down the lines the way a careful man reads.

Ivo ate his eggs. He said his grace first, the old five words, and Burl’s head came up at the sound of it, and then went back down.

Nobody talked. The percolator ticked. The coffee went cold in all three cups.

I watched Burl’s face while he read. I saw where he got to the eighteen hours. I saw where he got to the can of peaches.

I saw him stop for a long time on day nineteen, the kitchen floor, and put his hand over his mouth.

I saw him get to Dutch the mule, too. He laughed out loud, one short laugh, and looked at his father. “You told her about Dutch?”

“She asked,” Ivo said.

“I didn’t ask,” I said. “He just told me.”

“That sounds right,” Burl said, and went back to reading.

It took him almost an hour. When he got to the last page, day thirty, the grace, he read it twice.

Then he closed the notebook slowly and laid his big hand flat on top of it. He pushed his chair back and stood up and looked straight at me.

And he held out his hand.

I stood up and took it. His grip was like his father’s must have been once, hard and dry, a working man’s hand. He did not let go right away.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know how to say it better than that. Thank you for my dad.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” I told him.

“Yes I do,” he said. Then he let go of my hand and turned to his father.

“Daddy, I’ve been a poor son to you these last few years. I let Joelle carry it because it was easier on me. That’s on me, not her. I’m sorry.”

Ivo looked at him for a long moment. “You had Patty to look after,” he said. “I never held it against you.”

“Well, I hold it against me,” Burl said. “And I’m done with it. I’m staying through next week. Monday morning you and me are going to town.”

I did not ask what for. It was not my business. But Ivo told me later, at breakfast, the way he told me everything.

On Monday, Burl drove him to the bank in Harrison, and Ivo, sharp as a tack and in his right mind, signed a paper that revoked Joelle’s power of attorney and named Burl instead.

There was no fuss. Nobody went to court. Ivo just signed his name, slow and careful, the way he signed everything, and the woman at the bank who notarized it had known him forty years and told him he looked well.

The $2,400 stopped on the first of the next month.

But that is getting ahead. Because before Monday, there was Saturday afternoon, and Sunday.

Saturday afternoon, Burl walked out to the road and stood there looking at the six houses, and then he started knocking on doors.