The Nine Wrecks on a Rented Rack

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was at our house, the way it has been since Lu’s mother passed.

Dinner at one in the afternoon, the way she always did it. Dorsey came early to help carry the folding table up from the basement.

I did not know if Orval would come. Dorsey said he did not know either. I set a place for him anyway, at the end of the table, where he always sat.

At ten till one his truck pulled into the driveway. Through the kitchen window I watched him sit there a minute, then get out with a pie from the grocery in one hand and a big manila envelope in the other.

He came in the back door and set the pie on the counter without a word. Then he went into the living room, where Lu was sitting in his recliner with the parade on.

I followed him. I did not want to, but I did. Dorsey came and stood in the doorway beside me.

Orval stood in front of Lu’s chair and held out the envelope. Lu looked at it and did not take it.

“It’s my half of the building,” Orval said. “I had it signed over to you. It’s done, it’s filed. You don’t have to do anything.”

Lu still did not take it. “Dad,” he said.

“The machine was worth more than I sold it for,” Orval said. “I know that. The building half is worth about what the machine was worth to you. Maybe a little more. It’s the only thing I’ve got that’s yours to have.”

His hand was shaking. I had never seen Orval Teague’s hand shake in twenty-two years.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “I was scared about your brother and I took it out of your hide because you couldn’t stop me. That’s what I did. I’ve thought about it every day since that Friday.”

Lu took the envelope then. He did not open it. He set it on his lap and put his hand on top of it, and he looked up at his father for a long time.

“Sit down, Dad,” he said. “Your back’s going to give out before mine does.”

Orval sat down on the couch. Nobody said anything for a minute. The parade went by on the television with the sound off, all the big balloons.

Then I went back in the kitchen and checked the turkey, because somebody had to.

We said grace at one fifteen. Lu said it, sitting at the head of the table on his good cushion. He thanked God for the food and for the hands that made it, and then he said, “And for my wife, who straightened nine cars on a rented rack when I couldn’t.”

Orval said amen with the rest of us. I heard him say it.

The sign

The rented rack is still in the second bay. In January we called the supply man and bought it outright, for less than we had paid in rent, because Lu says it is the best rack he ever owned, and he will not hear another word about a bench.

The old sign out front said Teague Collision, Lu Teague, Owner, in red letters on white plywood. It had said that since 2011.

In the spring, on a warm Saturday, I took it down and repainted it myself in the side yard. I am the painter, after all. It still says Teague Collision in red at the top.

Underneath, in the same red, it says Lu and Mallory Teague.

Orval drove by the day I hung it back up. He slowed down in front of the shop and looked at it for a long time. Then he honked twice, and waved, and drove on.