Ring It
On Saturday the seventh I went out at twenty past four with a crescent wrench in my pocket. I had it on the second nut when she came up behind me.
You have heard how that went. I lied about the bracket and she let me. She told me to ring it, and I rang it, and she laughed, and I stood there with my hand on a rope and thought I was going to have to sit down. I have never been so glad of a bad piece of luck in my life.
I did not tell her about the valve. I want to say that plainly. I stood there with a woman six feet away who had walked eight hundred and eighty yards of cow pasture after two years and nine months and I let her think I was only a lonely man with a loose bolt. I asked her to supper instead. I asked her to my table on Wednesday, and I said chili, and I said it would not be good, and she said yes before the word was out of my mouth.
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She went home. At the halfway tree she turned around to look back at me, and I leaned on the post, because my legs had gone. I have a very bad habit of leaning on that post.
That night I called Jolene. I said, “I did not take it down.” She said, “Dad, did you tell her about the valve?” I said, “Not yet.” There was a quiet on the line that was my daughter deciding not to scold me, and then she said, “You have until Wednesday.” She is her mother’s child.