The Float My Father Pulled Down Main

Friday

The kids had school Friday, and then most of the boys had the game that night.

So they came at three again, for the time they had, and worked as fast as I have ever seen kids work.

Some of the moms came. Some of the dads came after they got off work.

A neighbor who farms north of us came by in his pickup and dropped off four straw bales and did not even stop the engine.

By four o’clock the float was nearly done. It was better than the first one. I am not just saying that because my daughter built it.

The first one had been built on a trailer. This one was built on a hay rack, behind a tractor, and it looked like exactly what it was supposed to be: our hometown, our harvest.

But before the kids came that afternoon, I did one more thing. At noon on Friday I took my lunch hour and drove out to Lyle’s place.

I did not go to fight him. I want to be clear about that.

I went because he is my wife’s brother, and because I had not yet given him one plain chance to make it right without anybody watching.

His pickup was in the yard. The flatbed was parked beside the shed, empty.

There was still some blue crepe paper caught in the shed door track, moving a little in the wind.

I knocked on the back door. He opened it after a long time. He had on the same shirt he had worn Wednesday. Behind him the kitchen sink was full of dishes.

“I’m not here about the hay,” I said.

He waited.

“The parade’s at ten tomorrow,” I said. “Kaycee’s float is in it. Dad’s pulling it with the H.”

He did not say anything. He turned around and went back to the sink and started running water. He did not look at me.

“Lyle,” I said. “I paid you. At the café, in March, two winters ago. You put it in your shirt pocket and said we were square.”

“If you still think I owe it, I’ll sit down with you and the pastor after homecoming and we’ll settle it any way you want.”

He kept washing the same plate.

“But not on her float,” I said. “She’s your niece. She was standing right there.”

The water ran. He did not turn around. After a while I said, “Ten o’clock,” and I went back out to my pickup and drove back to the elevator.

I did not tell Kaycee I had gone. I told Jolene that night, and she nodded and did not say anything, and then she went out and sat on the porch steps by herself until the light was gone.