The Sweet Corn Sign on My Tailgate

He sells it off a table at the end of the lane on the honor system, five dollars a dozen, with a little wooden box nailed to the table for the money.

He gives about half of it away. Widows at church get corn. The family down the road with six kids gets corn.

The raccoons get their share whether he likes it or not.

Whatever money comes in goes into the coffee can. Not the bank. The can. And every December, Grandpa takes the can down, dumps it out on the kitchen table, counts it into piles, and buys Christmas for his great-grandchildren.

There are eleven of them now, and my son Tobin is one.

He does the shopping himself. My grandma used to do it with him, and since she passed he has done it alone, or with me driving.

He walks the aisles of the farm store and the dime store in town with a list on the back of an envelope in his slanting hand.

Every child gets one real thing. A sled. A fishing pole. A doll with eyes that close.

A pocketknife when they turn ten, never before. Tobin has been counting the days to that pocketknife since he was six.

So when I say there was nine hundred dollars in that can, I mean it was the middle of August and the corn had been good, and Grandpa was on track for the best Christmas he had ever bought.

He had told me so himself, just the Sunday before, standing in the church parking lot with his hat in his hand.

Two weeks went by. Lowell did not bring a deposit slip. When I asked Grandpa about it, he said Lowell had been busy, that the shop where he worked had a lot of combines in for harvest service.

Which was true. Lowell is a good mechanic. I will say that for him, and I will say it again before I’m done.

On the second Wednesday, I stopped by after work to bring Grandpa a pan of scalloped potatoes. I went to wash the dishes he had left in the sink, and I looked up, and there was the coffee can, back on its shelf.

I knew before I touched it. A can with nine hundred dollars in it, most of it in fives and ones, has a weight to it.

This one did not. I took it down and pried off the plastic lid, and there was nothing inside but the folded envelope with his Christmas list on it.

I stood at that sink a long time. Outside the window I could see the sweet corn patch, the last planting standing tall and green, the tassels gone brown on top.

Grandpa was in the living room with the radio on, listening to the farm markets.

I walked in with the can in my hands. He looked up and saw it, and he didn’t ask me what was wrong. He just turned the radio down.

“He brought it back Sunday,” Grandpa said. “Set it up there himself. Didn’t say anything about it, and I didn’t ask.”

“Grandpa, it’s empty.”

“I know it’s empty, honey. I looked.”

I sat down on the footstool in front of his chair, the same footstool I sat on when I was Tobin’s age and he taught me to play checkers.