The Crew We Paid at the Bin Trailer

The Tailgate

When we got home, Abe went and sat on the tailgate of his truck at the end of our first row.

He did not come in. He just sat there with his cap pushed back and his elbows on his knees.

I stood at the kitchen window watching him. The sun was still on the hills.

Jory came and stood by me and asked if Dad was mad. I said no, Dad was thinking.

Then I sat down at the kitchen table with a pencil and the back of an electric bill, and I did the math that changed our year.

Forty bins. If a fruit buyer would take field-run Gala for cash, even at a low price, we might get $200 or more a bin.

Forty bins at $210 was $8,400. I did it twice to be sure. I called a woman named Mavis who buys fruit out of a shed outside Cashmere.

She buys from small growers who cannot wait for a packing house to settle up in the spring, and she pays on the spot.

“Field-run Gala, late, good color?” Mavis said. “I’ll give you $220 a bin, cash, if you can have them on my truck by four tomorrow. I’m sending a load over the pass Sunday.”

Forty bins at $220 was $8,800. I hung up the phone and sat there for a minute with my hand flat on the electric bill. Then I went out to the tailgate.

What I Said to Abe

I sat down next to him on the tailgate. The metal was still warm from the sun. I did not make a speech.

I told him the number Mavis gave me and the number on the back of the electric bill.

He looked at me a long time. “That’s the last of our crop, Callie,” he said. “That’s the taxes. That’s Jory’s teeth.”

“I know what it is,” I said. “Jory’s teeth can wait a year. Those men can’t wait until Monday.”

He did not say anything. He took his cap off and turned it around in his hands.

That tan cap was older than our marriage. He had worn it the day we met at the Apple Blossom parade.

“They’ll want to pay it back,” he said finally. “They won’t take it for free.”

“Then they can pick it,” I said. “Let them pick our trees. We sell the fruit, and they get what Spencer kept. It’s not charity if it’s their own sweat.”

He put the cap back on. Then he took his phone out of his shirt pocket, right next to the green book, and he called Lester.

“Bring the men at first light,” he said. “Bring your own bags. We’re picking my trees.”

I could hear Lester on the other end. He did not ask why. He said, “We’ll be there, boss.”

Then he said something else I could not hear, and Abe looked away toward the hills.