Marlene brought lunch. Ada sat in a lawn chair under the cottonwoods, with a blanket over her knees and a hat on her head, watching her two sons work.
At noon, we all sat in the shade of the barn. There were nine of us. Ben sat beside me with a sandwich in one hand, and Dwayne sat across, and the young Reyes couple, who’d become friends, had brought a casserole and a baby in a basket. Arlen told the story of the winter of ’78, when a blizzard buried his barn and he dug out the cows with a snow shovel and a prayer. Gene corrected him on three points. The baby cried, and was passed around.When the plates were empty and the sun had slid past its peak, Dwayne cleared his throat.
“I have something to say.”
Everyone looked up.
“I’m not good at this,” he said. He turned his hat in his hands. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to say it for a year. I don’t have the words Tom had. He didn’t have many, either. But he had the right ones.”
