The Sledding Hill We Built on Our Pasture

I said, “The kids still lost that hill this winter, Orvin. That’s real. You can’t take it back, and I’m not going to pretend you can.”

He nodded. He did not argue. I think he wanted somebody to say it out loud, and I think it was better coming from me than from anybody else on that road.

“But they’ve got this one now,” I said. “And Bodie’s not mad at you. And I’m not either. I was. I’m not now.”

He looked at Bodie. “You’re not mad at me?”

Bodie shook his head. “I’m sad about your wife,” he said. “My great grandma forgot us too, before she died. She thought my dad was the mailman.”

That did it. Orvin put his head down on the steering wheel and his shoulders shook, and nobody on that road said one word.

A truck came up behind him and stopped, and the driver saw, and just waited.

After a minute Orvin lifted his head and wiped his face with his coat sleeve.

He picked up the cocoa off the dash and drank it, all of it, in three swallows, and handed the empty cup back down to Bodie.

“That’s good cocoa,” he said.

“My mom makes it with real milk,” Bodie said.

Orvin almost smiled. Then he put the truck in gear, and the kids at the edge of the road moved back, and he drove on east toward the county road. He did not look back.

Bodie and I walked back up to the top of the run. People were looking at us, but nobody asked.

Kurt put his arm around me and did not say anything, which is one of the reasons I married him.

We sledded until the sun got low, and then people packed up. Everybody thanked us.

The old men gave Bodie the notepad with the times on it, and he slept with it that night beside his sled.

Sunday morning at church Orvin was in the back pew. He had not been in church since October, somebody told me.

He sat alone and left during the last hymn, before anybody could talk to him.

But during the prayers of the people, when the pastor asked if there were names to add, I said Ardis Kask, out loud, and I heard several people around me say amen. I do not know if Orvin heard. I hope he did.

On Wednesday Bodie made a card for Ardis at the kitchen table.

He drew a sled on a hill with lots of kids on it, and a fence at the bottom, and a big tall post at the corner standing up straight. He colored the post very carefully.

Then he wrote, in his big seven year old letters, To Mrs. Kask, Your post was the best one. Love, Bodie.

I drove him across the road to give it to Orvin. Orvin came to the door and took the card and read it.

He read it twice. Then he put it inside his coat, against his chest, and said, “I’ll take it up to her Friday.”

He did not ask us in. He did not say much else.

But he stood on his porch and watched us all the way back down his walk, and when I looked back he lifted his hand.

The manure stayed on his hill. It was frozen in, and there was nothing to do about it until spring.