The Solo Her Grandmother Tried to Stop

The weekend that was not his

I should explain how it was set up, because people who have never been divorced think there is always a simple answer, and there is not one.

Royal and I had been divorced for three years. He was not a bad man. He was a good worker and a decent father.

I was nineteen when we married, and we had grown apart by the time I was thirty-five.

He worked as a floorhand on a drilling rig in western North Dakota.

He worked two weeks on and one week off, and the money was the reason we could both still afford to live in Gage County.

The court paperwork gave him every other weekend. When his hitch fell on his weekend, which happened about half the time, Nora went to his mother’s house anyway. That was what Royal wanted, and I had agreed to it.

I agreed because I believed a girl should know her grandmother. Gloria-Jean Blevins was sixty-six, a widow, and she lived alone in a brick ranch house on the north side of Beatrice with a garden she was proud of.

She had never liked me much. I had made my peace with that years ago.

But she had always fed Nora well and taken her to church and taught her to make pie crust, and I had counted that as enough.

That weekend Royal had picked up an extra hitch. A man on his crew had a baby coming early, and Royal had stayed to cover him.

That was like him. He would give a man his shift and never mention it.

So Nora was at Gloria-Jean’s, and the show was at two, and Gloria-Jean had decided my daughter would not be in it.

The calls that did not go through

I called Royal first. It rang five times and went to his voicemail. I knew it would.

Phones are not allowed on a rig floor, and his stayed locked in a locker until his tour ended at six in the evening.

I left a message anyway. I kept my voice even. “Royal, it’s Harmony. Your mom won’t take Nora to her show. Call me when you’re off.” Then I hung up and stared at the scale readout.

I called Gloria-Jean next. I let it ring ten times. She did not pick up. She had caller ID on that kitchen phone, and she knew exactly who was calling and why.

Abe came out of the back office then. Abe was the elevator manager, a big quiet man near retirement with a feed cap that said nothing on it anymore because the letters had worn away.

He looked at my face and then at the phone in my hand. Abe had raised four daughters. He did not need anything explained to him.

“Is that your girl?” he asked, and when I nodded, he pulled the clipboard out of my hand and said, “Go on. I’ll run the scale. It’s your lunch anyway.”

I tried to tell him I would be back in an hour.

He waved me off and climbed onto my stool, and the farmer in the next truck grinned at him through the window like he had never seen Abe work a day in his life.

It was 1:00 when I pulled out of the co-op lot. The gravel was still wet from a light rain the night before, and the fields on both sides were brown stubble with the snow mostly gone.