The Barn Roof We Shoveled Before Dark

The answer I did not give him

I wanted to argue with him. I had a whole speech ready in my mouth, about Dad, and about the cows, and about what kind of man stands in his mother’s kitchen and talks like that.

But I looked out the window at that white hump on the north slope, and I knew something Stellan was not thinking about. Arguing with him would waste the daylight, and every hour put more weight on those trusses.

The sun was out. It was going to be a clear, bright day, maybe thirty-five degrees by afternoon. The snow would get heavier as it softened. By dark, it would be heavier still, and then it would freeze.

We had about ten hours of light. That was all we had.

I did think about calling somebody. But the volunteer fire department does not shovel roofs, and the one roofing outfit in Hancock had a waiting list as long as the county by that morning. Every barn and church and garage in the Keweenaw was carrying the same snow.

Whoever was going up on that roof was going to be somebody already standing in that kitchen.

So I did not say the speech. I put my boots on.

“Where are you going?” Stellan said.

“Up,” I said.

Bjorn

I was halfway across the yard before I heard the storm door bang behind me. I thought it was Stellan coming to stop me. It was Bjorn.

He was pulling on his gray hoodie as he came, and he had his orange hunting vest over his arm, and he shrugged it on over the hoodie as he walked, the one he wore deer hunting with his grandpa when he was little.

“You’re not going up there alone,” he said.

“Your dad’s going to be mad.”

“Dad’s already mad,” he said. “He’s been mad since October. I’d rather he was mad at me for this.”

I stopped in the snow and looked at him. He had his grandpa’s jaw and his grandpa’s big hands, and right then he had his grandpa’s look, the one that meant the decision had already been made.

“Get the grain shovels out of the granary,” I said. “Both of them. And the long rope out of the shop.”