The Camper by the Ballfield

I watched her look at the window, and the navy blue gown hanging in it, and the cap on the table with the tassel laid out straight.

Then she turned in and pulled right onto the grass beside the camper and shut off the engine. She sat there for a minute. Then she got out and walked up to the camper door where I was standing with a T-shirt in my hands.

“Wilma,” she said. “Do you know what this town is saying about me?”

I set the T-shirt down on the step.

“I’ve got some idea,” I said.

“The lady at the bank asked me if Colter was all right. The pharmacist asked me. My boys’ teacher asked me if everything was okay at home. Everybody in this town drives by this ballfield, and every one of them can see that.” She pointed at the gown in the window. “You did this on purpose. You put him out here where everybody could see.”

I thought about that before I answered. I did not want to answer fast. My husband used to say a fast answer is usually the one you have to apologize for later.

“Shawna,” I said. “I put him on my lot because it’s the only place I own that had power. I never put that gown anywhere. He hung it in the window because he wanted to look at it. He’s proud of it. He worked for it.”

“And everybody looks at it and thinks I’m a monster.”

“I haven’t told one soul what happened. Neither has Colter. Not his coach, not his friends, not his father. Whatever this town is saying, they figured out on their own.”

She stood there. Her jaw worked. She looked about as tired as I have ever seen a woman look.

“Kyle doesn’t know?” she said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because if he knew, he’d come home. He’d lose that job. And then you two would have it out, and that boy would spend the rest of his life thinking he broke his father’s marriage. He wasn’t going to let that happen, and neither was I.”

She did not say anything to that. She looked at the camper window again for a long time.

“I needed the money,” she said finally. It came out smaller than before.

“I know you did.”

“You don’t know. You’ve got a house that’s paid for and a pension and…”

“I’ve got a house that’s paid for because my husband worked thirty-four years at the sugar factory over in Lovell and then died before he could enjoy it. I’ve got a pension because I’ve served hot lunch to children for twenty-two years. I know about short money, Shawna. Every woman in this town knows about short money.”

I did not say it mean. I said it plain.

“But you don’t fix short money on a child’s back,” I said. “Not three weeks before graduation. Not with trash bags.”

She looked at me then. Her eyes were wet. She opened her mouth and closed it again.

Then she turned around and walked back to her car and drove off. She did not spin her tires or slam her door. She just left.

Here is the part I did not know until later.

Shawna did not go home. She drove to the bank, where she knew the lady who had asked about Colter, and she sat in the parking lot and called Kyle.