The Candle Table in the Feed Lot

“Take that to Jeff,” she said. “He’s at camp.”

“He’ll be hungry when he’s back.” I put the bag in the truck beside the milk crates, empty and light now, and the cab smelled like honey.

Jeff called me at four o’clock from the pay phone at the gas station near Phillips, the one place in that county with a signal worth the name.

“Kelse. Is everything all right?” “Everything’s fine. I sold out.”

“Sold out of what?”

“Everything. Ninety-four pairs. In Glen’s lot.” There was a long pause on the line. I could hear wind and a screen door. Then I heard my husband laugh, the big loose laugh he has when something has caught him completely by surprise.

“Glen Kessler,” he said. “That old man.” “He wouldn’t take a dime.”

“He wouldn’t. He sold my dad his first stove at cost.” He cleared his throat. “What did Natalie say?”

I told him all of it, the contract and the conflict of interest and the little crack in her voice at the end. He was quiet for a long time.

“I’m sorry, Kelse.” “Don’t be. It’s hers to be sorry about. If she ever is.”

“Do you want me to come home?” “I want you to walk your dad in on that ridge tomorrow morning,” I said. “Then come home when the season lets you, and eat Betty’s brats.”

“I got a buck this morning,” he said. “Eight points. Dad’s still sitting on the ridge.”

“Of course you did.” “I’d rather hear about the candles.” I did not hear a single word from Natalie for three weeks.

The numbers came on the second Sunday in December, after three weeks without a word from Natalie. Arnold Bjork, who has chaired the church board since before Lainey was born, caught me in the vestibule after the service. He is a small, careful man who keeps a pencil behind each ear in case one gets lost.

“Kelsey. A minute.” He did not take me into the office. He stood with me next to the coat rack and spoke very quietly.

“The hall fair took in seven hundred and fifty dollars in booth fees,” he said. “Ten vendors, at seventy-five each.”

“I thought it was eighty-five.”

“She dropped it at the last minute. Hardly anyone signed up.” He looked at his shoes. “Last year it was thirty-eight booths at thirty-five dollars, thirteen hundred and thirty. So we’re at about half. And the roof fund, which the fair has paid into since Loretta started it, is short.”

“I’m sorry, Arnold.”

“Don’t be sorry. Glen came to see me Monday.” He took one pencil from behind his ear and turned it over in his fingers. “He left a coffee can on my desk. Said folks in his lot had been dropping in a dollar or two all morning for the roof, because they said the fair always did.

There was four hundred and twelve dollars in it.” I did not say anything.

“The board met Thursday,” Arnold said. “We did not ask Natalie to resign. We thanked her for her service, and she thanked us, and she said she was going to focus on her real estate business.”

“All right.” “We’d like the Brandt family to run it next year. The way Loretta ran it. We think you should be the one.”

I looked at him, the little pencil in his hand and the coat rack behind him. “Not Natalie.”