The Hayride Grandma Asked For

The song

We came out of the woods onto the county road, with a combine working a bean field off to the west and a cloud of dust drifting gold behind it.

A pickup coming the other way pulled clear over onto the shoulder and stopped. The driver took his cap off.

Somewhere on the back of the wagon, somebody started humming. I think it was Theda. Then Glennis came in with the words, clear and strong, a schoolteacher’s voice.

It was “Shall We Gather at the River,” the old hymn, the one they sing at every funeral in our county.

By the second line, Nola was singing. By the chorus, Tilden and Cleve were singing, and the married couple, and Ambrose in a deep rumbling voice I’d never heard.

By the second verse the aides were singing, and Grandma, and me.

Beulah had her van window rolled all the way down behind us, and she was singing too, with one hand out the window keeping time.

We sang it through twice. Then Tilden started “In the Sweet By and By,” and we sang that.

Then “Bringing in the Sheaves,” which seemed right, with the combine out in the field. Bud doesn’t sing, but I saw his beard moving.

We turned back up the lane toward the home with the whole wagon singing, fourteen residents and four aides and me, and the van behind us, and the horses walking along with their heads nodding like they were keeping time too.

The parking lot

Bud turned the team into the back lot. The families were waiting along the curb where we’d left them, and some of them started clapping when they heard the singing.

That’s when I saw Gail.

She was standing at the edge of the lot, alone, away from the others, near the corner of the building.

I don’t know how long she had been there. Her arms were crossed tight over her middle, the way she stands at funerals.

Twenty people on that wagon saw her at the same time. You could feel it.

The singing went quiet one voice at a time, until it was just Glennis finishing the line by herself, and then it was nothing but the horses blowing.

Bud stopped the team. The wagon creaked and settled. Cordia and Rufus hopped down and started setting the steps. Nobody else moved.

Gail started walking toward us. Slow. She walked past the families on the curb without looking at any of them, and past the van, and right up to the front wheel of the wagon, and she stopped there and looked up at her mother.

Grandma let go of Bud’s arm and leaned toward her daughter.

“Gail,” she said. “Come here.”

What Grandma said

I thought for a second Gail would turn around and walk away. Her mouth was a straight line.

But then Grandma held out both hands, the way she held out her hands to Bud at our wedding, and Gail stepped up onto the wagon wheel hub, and Grandma took her face in both her hands.

“You found me on that kitchen floor,” Grandma said. She said it loud enough for the whole wagon to hear, the same way Gail had said what she said in the sunroom.

“You sat with me all those hours. I know you did. I know you were scared.”

Gail’s face crumpled. All at once, like a paper bag.

“I’m not scared, Gail,” Grandma said. “I’m ninety-one. I’m not afraid of a hay wagon and I’m not afraid of dying. The only thing I’m afraid of is sitting in that chair by the window until I do.”

Nobody on that wagon said a word. Tilden took off his cap. Behind me I heard somebody sniff.

Out on the curb, all the families had gone quiet too, and I know they heard every word.

Gail stood there on that wheel hub with her mother’s hands on her face and cried. Not loud. Gail doesn’t do anything loud except argue. Just tears, running down, and her chin shaking.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” she said. “I’m sorry I said that. In front of everybody.”

“I know you are,” Grandma said. “Now get down before you fall and break your hip.”

The whole wagon laughed. Even Gail laughed, through the crying, and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

Nola leaned over from her bale and patted Gail’s arm and said, “You missed it, honey. You missed a real good ride.”

Gail nodded. “I know,” she said. “I heard you singing from the road.”