The Fire Hall Breakfast Mom Took Back

What Brian said

Brian had already talked to his sister twice.

The first time was in August, when he heard a rumor. He caught her at their mother’s birthday supper and asked what she was planning, and she told him it was handled and Mom was welcome to help set up tables.

Set up tables.

The second time was the night of the flyer. He called her from the truck. I could hear her voice come out of the phone from across the cab. She told him the breakfast had to pay for itself, and Mabel’s recipes were fine but they didn’t scale, and Brian needed to stay out of it because he didn’t sit on the council.

Then she hung up on him. Brian sat there in the driveway with the engine ticking.

“Her trailer payment’s due in November,” he said, finally. “She bought that food trailer in the spring. Nine thousand dollars. Nick’s seed account went sideways over the summer.”

“That’s not Mom’s problem.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”

I want to be fair to Shannon, because Mom would want me to be. She had a reason. She had a payment due, and a husband with a bad year, and a dream about a food trailer. Knowing why she did it did not make it right. I decided that the night of the flyer, and I never changed my mind.

“Chief owes me a favor,” Brian said. “I pulled his Polaris out of the ditch in March.”

I looked at him. “The fire hall has two flat-tops,” he said. “The big ones. Fish fry, Labor Day pancake feed. They sit empty the rest of the year.”

“Brian.”

“It’s a big room,” he said. “It holds two hundred and fifty.”