The Night Our Whole Road Carved Pumpkins

The fair came and went. Sylvia did not enter anything in the crop division. She showed her lamb’s photo in the 4-H booth with the rest of her club, and she went down the midway with her friends, and if anybody asked about the pumpkins she said, “They didn’t make it this year.”

That was all she ever said about it in public. I never heard her tell anybody what Warner did.

I did not see Warner that whole time. He did not come to Sunday dinner at Dad’s. Trudy, his wife, called me once and I let it go to voicemail. Her message just said, “Patrice, call me when you can,” and I did not call.

I was not ready. I knew if I heard his voice I would say something I could not take back.

The Monday after the fair, I put a note in every mailbox on my route.

I know that is not strictly allowed. Mail carriers are not supposed to put anything in a box that does not have postage. So I did not put them in the boxes. I stopped at every house, all thirty-one, and handed the note to whoever came to the door, or tucked it under the flag clip if nobody did.

The note was in Sylvia’s handwriting. She had written it out thirty-one times at the counter on Sunday, in her best cursive, which is not very good cursive.

It said: Free pumpkins and free carving. Saturday the 24th at dusk, at the Hollins field on Coonpath Road. Bring your knife and a spoon. Bring your kids. Everybody is welcome.

At the bottom she drew a little pumpkin with a face.

Warner and Trudy live on Coonpath too, about two miles down from Dad’s, in the house that used to belong to our great-aunt. Their box was number nineteen on my route.

I almost skipped it.

When I got there, Sylvia’s note was not the only one in the stack I had for them. There was a second envelope, folded in thirds, with their names on it. Jacob and Corbin.

Sylvia had written it on her own and slipped it in with the others. I had not known until that moment.

I sat in the car with the engine running and read it. I know I should not have. It was two lines.

Jacob and Corbin, I saved the biggest one for you. Please come.

I tucked it under the flag clip with the other note. I did not knock. I drove on to number twenty and finished my route and then sat in the post office parking lot for a while before I went in to clock out.

The week before the carving night, people started stopping me on the route.

Mrs. Hensley at number six, who is eighty-one and still drives herself to church in Bremen, flagged me down at her box and asked if she could bring cider. Her late husband had a press, and her grandson still runs it every fall.

Mr. Ankrom at number fourteen, a retired Marine who served in Vietnam, asked if he could bring his carving knife. “I’ve had it since 1968,” he said. “It’s done more pumpkins than anything else.”

The Fosters at number twenty-two had heard about it from the Hensleys. They had three little ones and asked if they could come early to help set up.

Nobody asked me what happened to the field. Not one person.