Chapter 2
They buried her on a brilliant afternoon in autumn but the weather turned nasty just after the
mourners scattered, the first gray huff of winter blowing down across the Plains from Canada. The
north wind battered his old doublewide while Francis took off his funeral clothes that night and was
still at it when he got up at seven the next morning. He stood at his bedroom window in his boxers,
looking out at a sky the color of cold ashes. He dressed for work and combed what was left of his
hair. He putzed around in his small kitchen but left most of his oatmeal uneaten. He dug out his
jacket and gloves for the first time that season. His old pickup groaned from the cold when he
started it for the drive to work.
In the office, he took the first delivery ticket from behind the desk and headed out without a
word to the others. The wind raised funnels of dirt in the back lot where he loaded heavy planks
onto the truck bed, grunting with each board as much from anger and heartbreak as exertion. He
was between planks, cleaning foggy glasses on a protruding shirt tail, when he saw William walking
toward him from the office. William’s graying ponytail flapped behind him in the wind. Francis
turned away and muttered.
“Morning, Franny,” William said. “Christ, it feels like January.”
Francis pulled another plank.
“One of the young guys should be out here in this weather,” William said.
“I’ll manage,” Francis said, hefting the board onto the truck.
“You always have,” William said.
Francis turned toward the younger man.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” he said.
“I came to say goodbye,” William said.
“Damn hurry if you ask me,” Francis said.
“I told you yesterday,” William said. “My students’ exams won’t wait.”
“More like your latest piece of college tail won’t wait.”
William’s eyes widened as he tugged the zipper of his black leather jacket closer to his throat.
“Jesus,” he said. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Pretend all you want,” Francis said.
“I know how much you loved her,” William said. “This is a hard time for all of us.”
“Especially your dad,” Francis said.
“Yeah, especially him,” William said.
William took a few steps toward the office. Francis’ voice stopped him.
“You’ve got more college degrees than I’ve got fingers,” he said. “All I’ve ever known to do was
drive a truck for your dad and his dad before him. My first day was in ’46 and this is ’91. Help me
with the math. But it doesn’t take a genius to be a good son, and I was that before my parents
passed. And it doesn’t take an hour’s worth of college to be a friend.”
More dust swirled, and William rubbed his eyes.
“Frankly, I was counting on that,” he said.
“You’ve got some damn nerve,” Francis said.
“I’ll be back at Thanksgiving,” William said. “I’ll call.”
“Not that he’ll talk when you do.”
“Exactly,” William said, turning toward the office.
“Your mother asked me to look after him,” Francis shouted. “With your Uncle Tommy dead,
I’m the only one left. She knew she couldn’t count on you.”
William stopped. Francis saw his shoulders tense beneath the leather jacket. Then the son kept
on into the dismal day.
The sun had fought through thinning layers of cloud by the time Francis finished his second
delivery. He wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve and checked his Timex as he headed toward his
pickup. He turned onto the highway and in a few hundred yards drove past the handmade sign that
advertised pianos for sale, which caused another hard spasm of grief because the pianos had been
her crazy idea, too. At the sign, he turned off the main road onto a paved path that led into the oaks.
The leaves were all reds and browns, vivid colors that she had remarked on just a few days
before she died. Francis drove through the trees, then an open gate. The trees thinned and lush grass
spread out over an acre. He parked in front of the old white house, next to Wendell’s pickup, which
had been washed and shined for his wife’s funeral. He climbed the four porch steps and didn’t
knock.
A grandfather clock ticked in the living room down the hall but there was no other sound, no
television or radio, so Francis headed up the stairs, huffing by the time he reached the top, cursing
his age. Wendell’s bedroom was thick with the scent of flowers from funeral bouquets someone had
thought to place on the dresser and at various spots on the floor. The bed was unmade. Wendell sat
in an old chair by the bathroom door, slumped in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, as if he had gotten
up to pee but only had the energy to make it halfway to the commode or halfway back to bed. He
didn’t look up.
“We should light the furnace,” Francis said.
Wendell finally lifted his head, but his eyes seemed uncomprehending.
“I’ll fix you something to eat,” Francis said. “Put on some clothes and meet me in the kitchen.
I’m not your damn butler.”
“It’s turned cold,” Wendell said finally.
“The kind of day you always looked forward to during the summer.”
“She’s in the ground out there,” Wendell said. “Isn’t that something?”
Francis fumbled for words.
“That’s where we’re all headed in the end,” he said, regretting it the moment the words left his
mouth.
Wendell didn’t seem to hear.
“Did we dress her warm enough in that casket?” Wendell asked. “And it must be damn hard to
breathe beneath all that dirt.”
Francis thought of William, halfway back to Lubbock.
“Wendell, your wife has passed,” Francis said. “She’s with Jesus now.”
He felt frozen there, standing in the door, nearly choking from the pollen and his own feelings.
“So they say,” Wendell said.
Francis had an idea on the Sunday after the funeral. The sun was shining and the autumn
morning had turned summer hot as he drove through the trees in his church clothes. He went
straight to the barn and rolled up the big door. Francis sat down on the riding mower, fired it up,
and motored loudly out into the day, heading to the lawn in back nearest Wendell’s bedroom
window. When he finished there, Francis drove to the front, to the expanse of grass and flowers that
Wendell and Selma had tended together for nearly five decades.
Out came Wendell, standing on the front porch in his grimy underwear. He began limping
slowly out across the lawn in stocking feet. Francis circled the thick trunk of an old oak. He killed
the engine.
“The hell you doing?” Wendell asked.
“You should put on some clothes if you’re going to be out here,” Francis said. “You could get
arrested.”
“You should stay off my damn mower.”
“This warm weather has the grass growing again,” Francis said. “You’d be in no position to
notice, I guess.”
“What business is it of yours?”
“I had this crazy notion of Selma coming home to the place in a ruin,” Francis said. “How
would that be?”
“Selma’s passed,” Wendell said. “You reminded me the other day.”
“If you don’t mind . . .”
Francis started the engine and roared off, leaving Wendell standing in his underwear, mouth
agape in the shade of a hot October morning. Francis saw him shuffle back to the house. A few
minutes later, Wendell reappeared on the front porch in his green work pants and a faded blue Tshirt. He walked to the shed and came out wearing gloves, carrying a pair of pruning shears in one
hand and a spade in the other.
In an hour, Wendell had cut away dead branches on the rose bushes. He dug out beds of fading
impatiens and begonias, making piles of the dead flowers as Francis continued to buzz around on
the mower. Wendell paused to drink from the garden hose, and Francis drove over to get a drink
himself. It was nearly three when Francis drove back into the barn and Wendell put up his spade
and shears.
“I’m parched,” Francis said.
“It is damn warm,” Wendell said.
“Hop in,” Francis said.
Francis was surprised when Wendell slid into his passenger seat and buckled the belt.
“You smell like shit,” Francis said.
“Don’t know how you can smell anything over that piss you call cologne,” Wendell said.
Francis turned to back up his truck.
“I think I like you best when you’re not talking,” he said.
They sat in a corner table of Lilly’s Diner. The owner hurried over with two glasses of iced tea.
“It’s so good to see you, Wendell,” she said, sneaking a concerned glance at Francis. “Have you
been eating?”
Wendell raised his tea but his hand trembled so badly that big drops spilled on the table. He
returned the glass to the table without taking a sip, dabbing at the spilled tea with a napkin. Lilly
looked back and forth between the two men.
“That’s why we’re here,” Francis said. “The boss has some catching up to do. Bring us the
usual.”
“Coming right up,” she said, touching Wendell on the shoulder. “Francis, you got your good
shirt all dirty. I’ve always said you needed a wife.”
Wendell picked up his tea, spilling some more, but managed to get his glass to his mouth, taking
several thirsty swallows. Francis stirred sugar into his and drank.
“A wife, she says,” Francis said.
Wendell spilled more tea and drank again. A young couple at the next table stole glances in his
direction.
“What business is it of hers that my shirt gets dirty?”
“She’s had an eye on you since her husband passed. God only knows why,” Wendell said.
Lilly returned with heaping plates of meatloaf and mashed potatoes for Francis, liver and onions
for Wendell. Wendell bowed his head and waited while Francis crossed himself and whispered the
Catholic blessing. Wendell ate ravenously, setting his fork down on an empty plate before Francis
was half done.
“How are things at the lumberyard?” Wendell asked, his eyes suddenly twinkling, a wry smile on
his face.
“That damn kid you sold the place to can’t tell the difference between a square of shingles and a
six-pack of beer,” Francis said.
“Neither could you, in the beginning.”
William rolled up in his sports car the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It was a crisp midafternoon and Francis and Wendell were headed out on the last delivery of the day. Francis was
behind the wheel. He stopped the truck when William pulled in off the highway. Wendell and
Francis stepped down from the cab, leaving the truck idling behind them.
William got out of his car and shook his father’s hand.
“When you weren’t home I figured you might be over here,” he said.
“Son,” Wendell said.
“You’ve gained weight,” William said.
“Damned Lilly,” Wendell said.
“And you’ve got some sun,” William said.
“I try to help out here,” Wendell said.
William looked at Francis for the first time and extended his hand. Francis shook it limply.
“I guess you’re the boss now,” William said.
“With your mother gone he needed one,” Francis said.
William looked quickly at his father, then into the sunny afternoon.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said.