My husband refused to walk my daughter at senior night before my father arrived

on his clipboard in neat block letters. I watched the ink dry on the white paper before I turned back toward the exit doors.

By six o’clock I was back in our gravel driveway with two bags of groceries in the back seat of my sedan.

Travis was standing near the machine shed, unhitching the heavy grain cart from the rear drawbar of the John Deere. The smell of diesel fuel and cut silage hung thick in the cold evening air.

I carried the brown paper sacks toward the back porch steps. Travis wiped his grease-stained hands on a red shop rag and stepped across the gravel to meet me.

“Where were you?” he asked.

“Running errands,” I said.

“I saw your car turning off the county road by your dad’s place,” Travis said. His jaw shifted twice from side to side before he set his hands on his hips. “

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *