The Catfish Off Grandpa’s Old Dock

Then I wrote: Irene Mueller, grandmother. And I signed it, and I went back in and handed it to Lena, and she put it in the envelope for the county man to pick up.

I drove home and called Kevin before I could lose my nerve. He answered from the bucket truck. I could hear wind on the line and a radio somewhere behind him.

I told him about the derby. I told him I had entered Mason, and that I knew I should have asked first, and that if he said no I would call the county and take the name off the list myself.

He was quiet so long I thought the call had dropped. Then he said, “Mom, I’ve been meaning to say something about the Saturdays for months. I just kept being gone.”

“I know you have,” I said. “You’ve had a hard spring.”

“That’s not an excuse,” he said. “He’s my son too. I’ll drive him. And I’ll tell Brittany myself. You don’t need to talk to her about it at all.”

I asked him if he was sure. He said he had never been more sure of anything, and that he had to go because they were fixing to energize the line.

He told her that night. I do not know everything that was said, and I never asked.

But Kevin called me the next morning on his way to work and told me how it came out.

She said one Saturday, and only because he would be there the whole time.

Mason had to wear a life vest the entire time he was anywhere near the water. Not just on the dock. Anywhere near it.

“That’s fair,” I said, and I meant it. “That’s a mother being careful. I’d have said the same.”

That afternoon I drove clear to the farm store in the next county and bought Mason a new yellow life vest, the good kind with the strap between the legs so it cannot ride up over a child’s head.

I wanted Brittany to be able to see him from a mile off.

The Thursday before the derby, Kevin had a day off from the storm hours they owed him.

He brought Mason out to the farm at eight in the morning and asked if I wanted company or just the boy.

“You go mow your yard,” I told him. “This one’s mine today.” He laughed and kissed my cheek and said he would be back by two.

Before Mason ever got out of the truck, I had the yellow vest ready. I buckled it on him in the driveway and tugged every strap twice.

He did not fuss. He seemed to like it, honestly, like it made him official.

Then I went into the back porch closet for Lou’s rod. It had hung on two nails above the door frame for four years, since the week of the funeral.

I had not been able to look at it, so I had not looked up.

I took it down. It was the same old brown fiberglass rod he had bought at the hardware store in 1988, with a Zebco 33 reel on it, the push button kind.

I turned the handle and it clicked the way it always had.

Lou had cut an L into the cork of the handle with his pocketknife, the first week he owned it, so nobody at the church fish fry would walk off with it. The cork had gone dark from his hands.

I handed it to Mason. He held it in both hands, and then he found that L with his thumb, and he ran his thumb over it back and forth, and he did not say anything for a long time.