The Turkeys We Walked Home

Monday Afternoon

I got home from school at a quarter to four. The kids were with me Monday through Wednesday, so they rode the bus and got there just ahead of me.

Corey’s pickup was already in the yard.

He was standing by the pasture gate when I pulled in. He had his toolbox on the ground and a heavy spring latch still in the package from the farm store, and he was looking at the turkeys.

I got out. He looked at me and then he looked away.

“Can I talk to the kids first?” he asked. “Before you and me?”

I nodded.

He went up on the porch and knocked on my door, like a visitor, and the three of them came out. He sat down on the porch steps so he would be lower than them. I stayed by my truck. I did not need to hear it, and it was not for me.

I saw him talk for a while. I saw Ellery cross her arms, and then uncross them. I saw Pax say something and Corey nod. I saw Junie lean against her dad’s shoulder, and him put his arm around her.

Later Ellery told me what he said. He said he was sorry. He said he should have known, and he should have been there, and that what happened on Saturday was wrong and it was not their fault and it was not their job to fix it.

He said he was proud of them, and he did not say it like a speech. He said it like it surprised him.

Then he came down off the porch and walked over to me.

“Gretta,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know until Halvard told me.”

“I believe you.”

He looked at the gate. “She’s not going to do the drop offs anymore. I’ll do them. All of them. If I can’t get off work, I’ll ask my mom.” He cleared his throat. “And she owes those kids an apology, and she knows it. I told her it had better come from her and not from me.”

“Can I put this on?” he asked, and held up the latch.

“Go ahead.”

He spent the next forty minutes mounting a heavy spring-loaded latch on my pasture gate, the kind you have to pull back with one hand while you lift the gate with the other. He drilled the post, bolted the bracket, and checked it six times. Pax held the flashlight, even though it was broad daylight, because he wanted to help.

When it was done, Corey swung the gate shut and the latch snapped home with a sound like a rifle bolt.

He tried it with one hand. It would not open. He nodded.

“That’ll hold,” he said.

Then he stood there with his hand on the top rail for a long time, looking at the birds. I knew what he was looking at. The first roost shelter he ever welded, out of an old hay rack, was still standing in the middle of that pasture.

“They look good, Gret,” he said.

“They look good,” I said.

Brandi

I will tell you the rest about Brandi, because I know some of you want to know.

She did not come out to the farm again that fall. Corey did the drop offs, and when he could not, his mother did. Everyone in our little church knew what had happened by the next Sunday, because that is how a small town works. Nobody said anything to her face. They did not have to.

She sat in the pew with Corey and the kids, and she felt it. I could see her feel it.

About a week before Christmas, Brandi was in the car at my drive while Corey was walking the kids to my porch. Junie went back to the car for her mittens. I watched from the window as Brandi rolled down her window and said something to her.

Later Junie told me what it was.

“She said she was sorry about my birds,” Junie said. “And she said sorry about Halvard’s leg.”

“What did you say?”

“I said Halvard’s leg was always like that,” Junie said. “And I said okay.”

That was all. It was not much. But it was hers to say, and she said it to the right person.

I did not need anything else from her. If she ever wants to say it to me, my door is open. I have told Corey so.