The Steers My Uncle Took Credit For

The Picture

I didn’t want to. I want that on the record. My face was a mess, my vest had hay all over it, and I am not a person who likes a camera pointed at her.

But Mabry grabbed my hand with her cold little fingers and pulled, and you cannot say no to a ten-year-old in a purple coat who has spent three weeks painting you a sign.

So I stood in the middle, in front of my trailer, with the six steers in the pen behind me.

The kids held up the sheet in front with the Thank You Brynn side facing out. Henny came and stood on my left, holding Mabry’s shoulder.

Some of the parents crowded in on the sides. The locker men came over.

Coralee was crying a little and laughing about it. Somebody told a boy to take his finger out of his nose.

I looked over and saw Royce standing at the edge, by the trailer fender, a few steps outside of everybody.

He didn’t come in and he didn’t walk off. He just stood there with his hands in his jacket pockets.

I thought about it for maybe two seconds. Then I said, “Uncle Royce, come stand here.”

He was still my family, and he did chair the committee, and the committee did do the work of getting the beef into the boxes.

He looked at me like I had slapped him, and in a way I guess I had. Being kind to a man right then cuts deeper than being mean to him would have.

“I’m fine here, Brynn,” he said, low. “You go on.”

So he stood at the edge of the picture. I’ve seen the photo now, of course. Royce is there, at the far right, half cut off by the frame.

He’s looking down. Everybody else is looking at the camera, or at the sheet, or at Mabry.

Teodor took four or five pictures. Then he lowered the camera and said, “That’s the one,” and the crowd laughed and broke up, and the kids started folding the sheet very carefully, corner to corner, the way somebody had taught them.