The Lemonade Stand Across the Midway

What He Said

I could not hear it all from the trailer. Rylan told me the rest later, in the car, and so did Dawna, a long time after that.

He walked up to her counter and set the cup down in front of her.

“It’s the last one,” he said. “I thought you should have it. You taught me how to make it.”

Dawna looked at the cup. Then she looked at him. Then she put both her hands over her face, right there on the midway, in front of everybody.

Rylan did not know what to do, so he just stood there and waited for her. He is like his father that way.

“I’m behind on the house,” she said into her hands. “Two months. I haven’t even told your uncle how bad.”

“Okay,” Rylan said.

“Sugar went up. Everything went up. I didn’t make anything this week. I didn’t make anything, Rylan, and I looked at that money and I thought…”

She could not finish it.

“You could’ve just told me,” Rylan said. “You could’ve just said you couldn’t pay me yet.”

Dawna took her hands down from her face. She looked at him like she had never seen him before.

“I know it,” she said. “I know I could have. I was ashamed. And then I was ashamed of being ashamed, and I said a mean thing so I wouldn’t have to say the true one.”

She picked up the cup and drank from it. She drank about half of it standing right there.

“It’s good,” she said. “It’s better than mine.”

“It’s Mr. Quist’s press,” Rylan said. “It’s not me.”

“It’s you,” Dawna said.

Sunday

My husband drove home that night, three hours, after a ten-hour shift on the paver. He pulled in at seven-thirty with the sun going down red over the beans.

He hugged Rylan in the driveway and did not let go for a long time. Then he held him out at arm’s length and looked at him.

“I heard you sold out,” he said.

“By two,” Rylan said.

“I heard what you did after,” my husband said, and his voice went rough. He did not say anything else. He did not have to.

Sunday after church, he drove over to his brother’s place. He did not take me. He said it was between brothers. They stood out by the grain bins for an hour, and when he came back he just said, “He didn’t know. He knows now.”

That afternoon, Dawna and my brother-in-law came to our house. Not to the porch. Right into the kitchen, the way family comes in.

Dawna had an envelope. She set it on my kitchen table and pushed it across to Rylan.

“There’s four hundred in there,” she said. “That’s what I’ve got today. The rest is coming. I’ll have it all to you by Thanksgiving. Your uncle and I worked it out.”

My brother-in-law stood behind her with his seed cap in his hands. He is a big man and a quiet one, and he looked at the floor and then at Rylan.

“I’m sorry, bud,” he said. “I should’ve been out there. That’s on me too.”

“It’s okay,” Rylan said.

“It’s not okay,” Dawna said. “It’s not okay, and you were kinder to me than I deserved. But it’s going to be paid.”

And it was. She brought another three hundred in October, and the last four hundred the Sunday before Thanksgiving, in an envelope with his name written on it in her neat hand.