Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was at Orrin’s, the way it always is.
My wife made the turkey. Orrin carved. Before we ate, he asked if he could say grace, which he had not done since my mother-in-law passed. He kept it short. He thanked God for the food and for the hands that brought it, and then he said, “And for Paisley, who taught her grandpa a thing or two this year.”
After pie he went out to his chest freezer in the porch and came back with a white package. It was one of Paisley’s packages from the locker plant, ground venison, with her name on it in black marker.
“Royal brought it back,” he said. “Said he couldn’t eat it knowing it wasn’t his. Two pounds. I told him to keep it, and he told me what I could do with that idea.”
Everybody laughed. Paisley took the package and held it in both hands like she had held that first tag in her lap.
Get a new story in your inbox every morning.
Facebook doesn’t show you every story we post. Our free newsletter does. Join 2,500+ readers.
Lavern’s Knife
Paisley keeps Lavern’s knife on the shelf above her bed, next to her hunter safety certificate and the tag from her bow doe.
She wrote him a thank-you note on lined school paper. Lavern’s daughter told us he keeps it on his refrigerator under a seed company magnet.
Every few weeks that winter, on a Saturday, Paisley rode out to the machine shed with Orrin and played pinochle with the club. She got better. She won a hand in January and Royal stood up and clapped.
The men started saving their stories for her. One of them brought her an old hunting license from 1949 he’d found in a drawer. Another brought a photo of himself as a boy with his first buck, and let her keep it.
She learned more about Bremer County that winter than she will ever learn in school.
The Last Word
In February, on a cold clear Saturday, Orrin drove over to our house in his pickup. He didn’t call first. He just knocked on the back door and stood there in his barn coat with his cap in his hands.
Paisley came to the door in her socks.
“Hi, Grandpa.” He looked at her for a moment, and I watched him swallow whatever pride he had left.
“I was wondering,” he said. “Next season. Would you take me with you? I’ll sit wherever you tell me and I won’t say a word. I’d just like to watch you do it right.”