Chapter One: The Dock<\/p>\n
During the Meeks family reunion, my mother-in-law shoved my sixty-eight-year-old father off the dock.<\/p>\n
Later, she claimed it was a joke. She repeated that about a hundred times.<\/p>\n
I was just three feet away when it occurred. I witnessed her hands press flat against his back. I saw her lean into it. I saw Dad\u2019s arms extend, like a man’s arms do when the ground isn\u2019t where he left it.<\/p>\n
Then he fell into the water.<\/p>\n
Dad surfaced, sputtering, waist-deep in the murky water next to the dock.<\/p>\n
Uncle Wade\u2019s farm pond is roughly an acre and a half, located past Buffalo, Missouri, nestled between two hayfields. Cattle drink from it. In July, it resembles chocolate milk, with a slick of green around the edges and a soft mud bottom that envelops your feet to the ankles.<\/p>\n
His light blue button-up shirt was soaked up to his chest. The one he wore to church. He chose it because it was a family tradition and he wanted to look presentable. The water had risen past his belt buckle.<\/p>\n
He stood there blinking, pond water streaming from his gray hair and down his face.<\/p>\n
His hand moved to his left ear.<\/p>\n
Then to his right.<\/p>\n
Nothing there.<\/p>\n
Forty people at the reunion fell silent simultaneously.<\/p>\n
All the Meeks cousins, aunts, uncles, and children were scattered across Uncle Wade\u2019s yard on lawn chairs and blankets, and the tailgates of trucks. Moments before, music had been playing on someone\u2019s Bluetooth speaker, kids were shrieking on the slip-and-slide, and the aroma of brisket smoking on the hill filled the air.<\/p>\n
Now, it was silent. Just the speaker playing Alan Jackson to an empty audience, the cicadas buzzing, and my father standing in the pond with both hands pressed to his vacant ears.<\/p>\n
Cindy stood on the dock behind me, holding her paper plate.<\/p>\n
Potato salad, a deviled egg, and a slice of watermelon. She hadn\u2019t even put it down to do it.<\/p>\n
She was smiling.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, Leon, lighten up,\u201d she said. Loud enough for everyone to hear. \u201cIt\u2019s July. You needed to cool off. You should\u2019ve taken them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
A laugh came from the bank. One of the teenage cousins. Then it stopped.<\/p>\n
Dad looked up at her from the water. He saw her lips move. He couldn\u2019t hear a word of it.<\/p>\n
Without thinking, I knelt on that dock in my yellow sundress. The one I had bought at Dillard\u2019s for the reunion, wanting to look nice as well. The boards were rough and slick, scraping against my knees.<\/p>\n
I reached for his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad,\u201d I said. \u201cDad, here. Take my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gazed at my face. He couldn\u2019t hear me, but he could read my lips. He had been reading my lips since I was a baby. He took my hand.<\/p>\n
His hand trembled. My father\u2019s hands don\u2019t tremble.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s sixty-eight. His name is Leon Pruitt. He worked as a lineman for the Southwest Electric Cooperative for thirty-eight years. Through ice storms, tornadoes, and summer heat that could make you feel like you were cooking inside your rubber gloves. He\u2019s been up a pole during a lightning storm with forty thousand volts just three feet away, and he\u2019s never once lost his footing.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t fall into ponds.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t stand in the water with his hands over his ears looking bewildered.<\/p>\n
I pulled. He got one foot on the bottom rung of the old wooden ladder Uncle Wade nailed to the side of the dock. Then the other. Water streamed off him. His good church shoes squelched.<\/p>\n
I got him up onto the dock. He stood there dripping. He looked down at me, then at the water, at the spot where he had entered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re gone, sis,\u201d he said. Too loud. Way too loud. Everybody heard him. \u201cThey fell out. They\u2019re gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Two: Walking the Bottom<\/p>\n
Josh was up the hill assisting his uncle with the brisket when it occurred.<\/p>\n
He had been there for an hour, him, Uncle Wade, and a large black offset smoker Wade crafted from an old propane tank. Josh is skilled with a smoker. He was slicing the first brisket when he heard everyone go quiet, and he glanced down the hill, noticing my dad standing on the dock, drenched.<\/p>\n
By the time he dashed down, I had already pulled Dad out of the water.<\/p>\n
He rushed across the yard at a full sprint, still holding the brisket knife. He halted at the end of the dock, panting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t respond. I looked at his mother.<\/p>\n
Cindy was still there with her paper plate. Some cousins had come down to the dock. One of the aunts handed Dad a beach towel adorned with a cartoon shark.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a joke, Joshie,\u201d Cindy said. \u201cFor heaven\u2019s sake. Everyone\u2019s acting like I shot him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh glanced at his mother. Then at my dad, wrapped in a shark towel, with his hands still going to his ears every few seconds. As if he couldn\u2019t comprehend that they were truly empty.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis hearing aids,\u201d I said softly. \u201cThey were in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh shut his eyes.<\/p>\n
He understood what they signified. He\u2019s known my dad almost as long as he\u2019s known me.<\/p>\n
Dad lost most of his hearing on the job. Thirty-eight years around transformers, bucket trucks, chainsaws, and generators will do that. The co-op mandated earplugs after about 1995. By then, it was too late. By the time he retired, he couldn\u2019t hear the phone ring. He couldn\u2019t hear the TV unless it was set so loud that the neighbors complained.<\/p>\n
For three years after retirement, he simply stopped hearing things. He stopped going to church because he couldn\u2019t hear the sermon. He stopped visiting the caf\u00e9 in the morning because he couldn\u2019t hear the other men at the table. He sat alone in his house in Buffalo.<\/p>\n
Then, three and a half years ago, I insisted he see an audiologist. I drove him myself.<\/p>\n
The day he received his first pair, he cried in the parking lot. He said he could hear his own footsteps. He hadn\u2019t heard them in fifteen years.<\/p>\n
Josh and two cousins walked the pond bottom barefoot until dark.<\/p>\n
Josh, along with his cousins Travis and Cody. They stripped down to their swim trunks and waded out to where Dad fell in. They walked in a grid, slowly, side by side, feeling the bottom with their toes. The mud reached their shins. The water went up to their chests.<\/p>\n
They discovered a fishing lure. A green plastic worm on a hook, probably lost by Uncle Wade around 1994.<\/p>\n
They found a beer can. A flip-flop. A rock that Cody insisted felt just like a hearing aid until he pulled it up.<\/p>\n
Not the hearing aids.<\/p>\n
I knew they wouldn\u2019t find them. I realized it from the very first moment.<\/p>\n
I work in a dental office. Dr. Heller\u2019s office, on Main Street in Bolivar. I\u2019m the office manager. I handle insurance, billing, scheduling, and patient complaints. Part of my job involves knowing what equipment costs and what destroys it.<\/p>\n
I understand what water does to any device with a battery. Even if they found them, they\u2019d be ruined. Pond water, mud, bacteria. The tiny microphones and circuits would be destroyed in moments.<\/p>\n
Dad had spent four thousand one hundred dollars on that pair. Three and a half years ago.<\/p>\n
I knew that because I helped him write the check. He had been saving for two years. From his co-op pension and Social Security. Fifty dollars here, a hundred there, in a coffee can in his kitchen. He brought the coffee can to the audiologist and counted it out on the counter.<\/p>\n
They came with a loss and damage warranty. Three years. If you lost or broke them, the manufacturer would replace them for a deductible.<\/p>\n
The warranty expired at three.<\/p>\n
Six months ago.<\/p>\n
And Medicare doesn\u2019t cover hearing aids.<\/p>\n
People don\u2019t believe that when I explain it. They assume Medicare covers everything for seniors. It doesn\u2019t. Original Medicare doesn\u2019t cover hearing aids. Or the exams to fit them. Dad has a supplement plan through the co-op retirees\u2019 group, and it doesn\u2019t cover them either.<\/p>\n
You can now purchase over-the-counter ones at Walmart or the pharmacy. A few hundred dollars. But those are for mild hearing loss. Dad\u2019s is severe. The audiologist informed us that on the first day. He needed real ones. Prescription ones, tailored to his ears.<\/p>\n
Four thousand dollars, or he goes back to not hearing anything.<\/p>\n
On the bank, as dusk approached, Dad sat in a lawn chair wrapped in the shark towel. He was watching the boys search the pond. He hadn\u2019t said much in two hours. When people spoke to him, he simply nodded.<\/p>\n
I settled in the grass beside his chair. He leaned toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t create trouble with her on my account, sis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Too loud. Way too loud. Half the reunion heard him.<\/p>\n
Cindy, seated at the picnic table with her sisters, heard him as well. She glanced over at us. Then looked away and laughed at something her sister said.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t utter a word to Cindy that day.<\/p>\n
Not one. Not when she approached to say goodbye at the cars and told my dad, \u201cNo hard feelings, Leon, okay? You know me.\u201d Not when she hugged Josh and remarked, \u201cYour father-in-law needs a sense of humor.\u201d<\/p>\n
I simply smiled. I\u2019m good at smiling. Ask anyone at Dr. Heller\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Then I drove my father home to Buffalo. He sat in the passenger seat with his wet church shirt drying stiffly and stared out the window at the hayfields passing by in the dark.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say anything the entire way. He couldn\u2019t hear the radio, so I turned it off.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Three: Who Cindy Is<\/p>\n
I need to share about my mother-in-law. So you can understand.<\/p>\n
Cindy Meeks is fifty-nine. She operates the cash register at the Dollar General in Buffalo four days a week and has her hair styled every Thursday at Shear Elegance on Ash Street. She\u2019s loud, funny, and the life of every celebration. She\u2019s also the type who finds the most amusing thing in the world is someone else\u2019s embarrassment.<\/p>\n
She has always been that way. Josh says she has always been that way.<\/p>\n
At our wedding rehearsal dinner, she announced to forty people that I was pregnant. I wasn\u2019t. She thought it was hilarious. My grandmother cried.<\/p>\n
During Thanksgiving two years ago, she placed a whoopee cushion on Josh\u2019s ninety-year-old great-aunt\u2019s chair. Aunt Opal sat on it. Everyone laughed. Aunt Opal turned red and left before dessert.<\/p>\n
At Josh\u2019s cousin\u2019s baby shower, she wrapped an empty box in pretty paper, topped with a bow. When Brittany opened it, Cindy exclaimed, \u201cThat\u2019s what you\u2019ll have left of your social life!\u201d And laughed so hard she had to sit down.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s not cruel, exactly. Josh always says that. \u201cShe\u2019s not mean, Kayla. She just doesn\u2019t know when to quit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not certain there\u2019s a distinction.<\/p>\n
Josh\u2019s dad passed away when Josh was eleven.<\/p>\n
His name was Ray Meeks. He was a lineman too. The same co-op as my dad. He died in the ice storm of January 2007, the significant one that brought down power lines from Joplin to St. Louis. He was working a night shift north of Buffalo, restoring power to a farmhouse with an elderly man on oxygen inside. A tree limb fell on the line he was working on.<\/p>\n
Josh doesn\u2019t discuss it much. Neither does Cindy.<\/p>\n
I know Josh grew up without a father from age eleven onward. Cindy raised him and his sister alone on a cashier\u2019s salary and Ray\u2019s co-op life insurance. I understand it was tough.<\/p>\n
And I know that when Josh was sixteen and began dating me, my dad was the first adult who took any real interest in him.<\/p>\n
Dad taught Josh to fish. He took him to Cardinals games in St. Louis. When Josh\u2019s truck broke down, Dad was the one who crawled under it with him. When Josh asked me to marry him, he asked my dad first, sitting on Dad\u2019s front porch, and Dad later told me he cried after Josh left.<\/p>\n
Josh refers to him as Leon. But he looks at him like some men look at their fathers.<\/p>\n
Cindy noticed. Naturally, she noticed.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what I hadn\u2019t shared with anyone. Not even my dad.<\/p>\n
Josh and I had been saving two hundred and fifty dollars a month for eighteen months. In a separate savings account at Mid-Missouri Bank, with a little tag on it in the online banking app. MOM\u2019S CRUISE.<\/p>\n
Four thousand five hundred dollars.<\/p>\n
A cruise for Cindy\u2019s sixtieth birthday next spring. Departing from Galveston. Five nights. Cozumel and Costa Maya. A balcony cabin. She\u2019d never been on a cruise. She\u2019d never traveled much, really. Just to Branson once. Eureka Springs.<\/p>\n
It was Josh\u2019s idea. He felt his mom had sacrificed everything for him and his sister. He wanted to give her something significant.<\/p>\n
We planned to surprise her at Christmas. Wrap up a little plastic boat in a box.<\/p>\n
But she found out. Josh\u2019s sister Brittany let it slip at Easter. And Cindy had been sharing the news with everyone at Shear Elegance ever since. Every Thursday. Her son was taking her on a cruise. A balcony cabin. She\u2019d already purchased two new swimsuits at the JCPenney in Springfield and a large floppy hat.<\/p>\n
She had been telling everyone at the reunion about it too. Just before she pushed my dad off the dock.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Four: The Back Steps<\/p>\n
On Sunday evening, I sat with Josh on our back steps.<\/p>\n
We reside in a small brick ranch house in Bolivar, about thirty minutes from Buffalo. Three bedrooms, a chain-link fence, a maple tree in the backyard with a tire swing Josh hung for the nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n
It was hot and still. Fireflies were rising from the grass. Josh had two beers. He handed me one. I didn\u2019t drink it.<\/p>\n
I spent most of Sunday on the phone. And on my laptop. Doing what I do at work every day. Determining who pays for what.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called the audiologist,\u201d I said. \u201cIn Springfield. The one who fitted Dad\u2019s first pair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe warranty\u2019s expired. It ended in January. There\u2019s nothing they can do about the old ones.\u201d I took a breath. \u201cA new pair of the same model is four thousand three hundred. Prices have gone up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMedicare won\u2019t cover it. His supplement won\u2019t cover it. I called both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh remained silent. He stared at the tire swing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked into one more thing,\u201d I said. \u201cYour mom\u2019s homeowner\u2019s insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh turned and looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost homeowner\u2019s policies have personal liability coverage,\u201d I explained carefully. \u201cIf you accidentally damage someone else\u2019s property, it pays. Like if you hit a baseball through the neighbor\u2019s window. Or if you push someone into a pond and ruin their hearing aids.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKayla\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not suggesting we should,\u201d I clarified. \u201cI\u2019m just saying it exists. Someone would have to file a claim against her policy. Dad would have to do it. Or she would.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh was quiet for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad would never,\u201d I said. \u201cYou heard him. Don\u2019t create trouble with her on my account.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Mom would never admit she did anything wrong,\u201d Josh replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
We sat there in silence for a while. A whip-poor-will started up somewhere down the road.<\/p>\n
Then I spoke up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to spend it on Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cruise money,\u201d I said. \u201cI want to withdraw it tomorrow and buy him new hearing aids. I\u2019ll take a personal day. I\u2019ll drive him to Springfield myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s your mom\u2019s birthday present,\u201d I continued. \u201cI know she\u2019s been telling everyone. I know it\u2019ll create a mess. But Josh, he can\u2019t hear. He\u2019s sitting alone in his house in Buffalo right now, unable to hear the TV or the phone or anything. And he\u2019s not going to ask anyone for help. He never has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh stared at the yard for a long time.<\/p>\n
He looked at the tire swing. At the maple tree. At the fireflies rising from the grass.<\/p>\n
I thought he was going to say no. I thought he would say, it\u2019s my mom, Kayla. It\u2019s her birthday. We promised.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was ours to give,\u201d he finally said. \u201cDo it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I exhaled a breath I didn\u2019t know I\u2019d been holding.<\/p>\n
Then he added something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019ll tell Mom myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJosh, you don\u2019t have to\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I do,\u201d he insisted. He set his beer down on the step. \u201cShe pushed your dad off a dock, Kayla. In front of forty people. A sixty-eight-year-old man who climbed poles with my father.\u201d His voice tightened. \u201cAnd then she told him to lighten up.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stood up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to let you be the one who tells her,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019ll make it about you. She\u2019ll portray you as the villain. I know how she operates.\u201d He looked down at me. \u201cIt\u2019s my money too. It\u2019s my mom. I\u2019ll tell her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Five: Springfield<\/p>\n
On Monday morning, I took a personal day and drove Dad to the audiologist in Springfield.<\/p>\n
I called Dr. Heller at seven and informed her I had a family emergency. She didn\u2019t ask questions. She\u2019s been my boss for nine years.<\/p>\n
Then I drove to Buffalo and picked up Dad. He was waiting on his front porch in a clean shirt. A plaid one, not the blue. I believe the blue one was still drying on the line in the back.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t know where we were headed. I had simply texted him: Picking you up at 8. Wear shoes.<\/p>\n
He got in the car and looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere to, sis?\u201d Too loud.<\/p>\n
I held up the legal pad I had brought. I had written it on the first page in large black letters.<\/p>\n
SPRINGFIELD. HEARING AIDS.<\/p>\n
He read it. He looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cKayla,\u201d he said. \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I flipped the page. I had already written the next one.<\/p>\n
ALREADY MADE THE APPOINTMENT.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t afford it,\u201d he insisted. \u201cYou know I can\u2019t. I\u2019ll get the cheap ones. At Walmart.\u201d<\/p>\n
I flipped the page.<\/p>\n
AUDIOLOGIST SAID NO. TOO WEAK FOR YOU.<\/p>\n
He gazed out the windshield. His jaw clenched.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll save up,\u201d he said. \u201cLike last time.\u201d<\/p>\n
I flipped the page. I didn\u2019t have anything written on it. I grabbed the pen from the cup holder and wrote quickly.<\/p>\n
IT\u2019LL TAKE 2 YEARS. YOU\u2019LL BE ALONE IN THAT HOUSE FOR 2 YEARS.<\/p>\n
He read it. He didn\u2019t say anything further.<\/p>\n
I put the car in drive.<\/p>\n
The audiologist\u2019s office was in a medical building on Battlefield Road. Ozarks Hearing Center. The same place as before.<\/p>\n
Dr. Anjali Patel came out to the waiting room herself. She\u2019s around forty, with dark hair in a bun and kind eyes. She remembered Dad.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Pruitt,\u201d she said, loud and slow, facing him so he could read her lips. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry about what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad nodded. He looked embarrassed.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on back,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She tested him again. Forty-five minutes in a soundproof booth, with headphones on, pressing a button every time he heard a beep.<\/p>\n
His hearing had worsened. Not drastically. But some. Dr. Patel showed me the chart afterward. A line that dipped down, like a ski slope.<\/p>\n
\u201cSevere to profound in the high frequencies,\u201d she said. \u201cModerately severe in the lows. He needs power. The over-the-counter devices only accommodate mild to moderate loss. They\u2019d be like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the same model?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe newer version,\u201d she replied. \u201cBetter feedback control. Bluetooth, so he can stream phone calls directly into his ears.\u201d She paused. \u201cAnd a rechargeable battery. No more fiddling with those little batteries. His hands had trouble with those last time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much?\u201d<\/p>\n
She glanced at her computer.<\/p>\n
\u201cFour thousand three hundred,\u201d she stated. \u201cThat includes the fitting, follow-ups for three years, and a three-year loss and damage warranty.\u201d She hesitated. \u201cI\u2019ll be honest, Mrs. Meeks. I\u2019d advise getting him a waterproof case and a clip. After this.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wrote the check at the front desk. From the account with the little tag that read MOM\u2019S CRUISE.<\/p>\n
Four thousand three hundred dollars. That left two hundred in the account.<\/p>\n
The receptionist handed me a receipt. I folded it and placed it in my purse.<\/p>\n
Dad stood next to me at the counter. He watched me write the check. He didn\u2019t say anything. His face was very red.<\/p>\n
Outside at the car, Dad continued shaking his head.<\/p>\n
He stood by the passenger door in the hot parking lot with his hands in his pockets. He wouldn\u2019t get in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s your money, Kayla,\u201d he said. Too loud. A woman entering the building turned around and stared at us. \u201cThat\u2019s your and Josh\u2019s money. I saw the account. I saw what it said on there.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t realized he had seen it. I had tried to conceal the checkbook register.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Cindy\u2019s cruise,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t take Cindy\u2019s cruise. Not after\u2026 not after all this. She\u2019ll never forgive you. She\u2019ll never forgive Josh.\u201d<\/p>\n
I opened my legal pad on the hood of the car. It was so hot I could feel it through the cardboard backing. I wrote slowly, in large letters, so he could read every word.<\/p>\n
Then I held it up.<\/p>\n
IT\u2019S FAMILY MONEY. YOU\u2019RE FAMILY.<\/p>\n
He read it. His face changed. His chin began to tremble.<\/p>\n
I flipped to a new page and wrote one more line. I held it up.<\/p>\n
AND JOSH SAID YES BEFORE I EVEN FINISHED ASKING.<\/p>\n
Dad stared at that for a long time. Then he looked away. Out at the traffic on Battlefield Road.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat boy,\u201d he said quietly. Too loud still. But quieter.<\/p>\n
He got into the car.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Six: The Mockingbird<\/p>\n
They fitted them on Thursday.<\/p>\n
I took another half day. Dr. Heller just raised an eyebrow and said, \u201cGo.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fitting took an hour. Dr. Patel inserted them in his ears and connected them to her computer with a small cable, adjusting the settings. She\u2019d say words to him. Baseball. Sidewalk. Hot dog. And he\u2019d repeat them back. Every few minutes she\u2019d turn something up or down on her screen.<\/p>\n
At the end, she leaned back in her chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Pruitt,\u201d she said. In a normal voice. Not loud. Not slow.<\/p>\n
He turned his head. Quickly. As if someone had touched him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow does that sound?\u201d she inquired.<\/p>\n
Dad didn\u2019t respond right away. He just sat in the chair with his mouth slightly open.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can hear you,\u201d he said. And he said it at a normal volume. For the first time since the reunion.<\/p>\n
Dr. Patel handed him a little black case, the charging case, and demonstrated how to use it. And a waterproof clip with a lanyard, so he could attach them to his collar when he removed them. And a little card with her phone number on it, in case anything went wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone pushes you into a pond again,\u201d she said, \u201ctake them out first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad laughed. Then he looked at me.<\/p>\n
I knew he was hearing his own laugh. I could see it on his face.<\/p>\n
Outside in the parking lot, he paused under the trees.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a row of pear trees along the edge of the lot at Ozarks Hearing Center. Bradford pears, the kind the city plants everywhere. It was hot and still, and the air smelled like asphalt and freshly cut grass.<\/p>\n
Dad stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. He tilted his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of bird is that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I listened. I hadn\u2019t even noticed it.<\/p>\n
A mockingbird. Up in one of the pear trees. Mimicking every song it knew. A cardinal. Then a blue jay. Then a robin. Then something resembling a car alarm, which mockingbirds in town often do. Then a whistle, three notes, up and down.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a mockingbird, Dad,\u201d I explained. \u201cIt\u2019s copying other birds.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t reply. He stood under the pear tree with his head tilted up and his hands at his sides.<\/p>\n
He stood there listening as if it were the first bird God ever created.<\/p>\n
I had to look at the pavement for a moment.<\/p>\n
The thing is, I knew he\u2019d heard birds before. He\u2019d had hearing aids for three and a half years. He\u2019d heard mockingbirds.<\/p>\n
But I think, for five days, he believed he\u2019d never hear one again. I think he\u2019d sat alone in his house in Buffalo for five days, with the TV on mute, and concluded this was the rest of his life.<\/p>\n
And now, here was a mockingbird in a pear tree in a parking lot in Springfield, singing as if it were putting on a performance just for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mother used to say they sing all night in May,\u201d Dad reminisced. His voice was thick. \u201cKept her awake. She\u2019d poke me in the ribs. Leon, make it stop. And I\u2019d say, what do you want me to do, climb up there and ask it nicely?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom passed away six years ago. Pancreatic cancer. She was sixty-one.<\/p>\n
I had never heard that story before.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d have loved this one,\u201d Dad said. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. \u201cThis one\u2019s a real show-off.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the drive home, he talked the entire way. Forty-five minutes. He discussed the co-op. About Mom. About the ice storm in 2007, and the time he got stuck in a bucket truck for six hours in a blizzard outside Fair Grove. About the Cardinals\u2019 bullpen.<\/p>\n
He kept pausing mid-sentence. To listen to the turn signal clicking. To the tires on the road. To my radio, which I had turned on low, playing a George Strait song.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can hear the fiddle,\u201d he said. \u201cKayla. Listen. You can hear the fiddle.\u201d<\/p>\n
I could hear it too. I had never noticed it before either.<\/p>\n
I dropped him off in Buffalo at four o\u2019clock. He stood on his front porch and waved as I backed out of the driveway.<\/p>\n
Then, as I was driving away, he called out something. I rolled down the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat, Dad?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said thank you,\u201d he said. At a normal volume. From his porch. Twenty feet away. \u201cI heard myself say it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Seven: Cindy\u2019s Porch<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Josh drove out to his mother\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
I went along. He didn\u2019t want me to at first. He said he\u2019d handle it. But I insisted I wasn\u2019t going to let him face that alone either.<\/p>\n
Cindy lives in the house where Josh grew up. A small white two-bedroom on the edge of Buffalo, on Hickory Street, with a carport and a porch swing and about forty wind chimes. She collects them. You can hear her house from a block away when the wind blows.<\/p>\n
It was blowing that morning. The wind chimes were going wild.<\/p>\n
Cindy descended her porch steps to greet us in the front yard.<\/p>\n
She wore capris and a T-shirt that read LIFE IS BETTER AT THE LAKE. Her hair was styled. It was Saturday, so she\u2019d been to Shear Elegance on Thursday. She sported a big smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s my boy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She extended her arms.<\/p>\n
Josh didn\u2019t embrace her.<\/p>\n
She paused. Her arms slowly lowered. She looked at him. Then at me, standing behind him by the truck.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with you two? You look like someone died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh inhaled deeply. I could see his hands trembling slightly at his sides.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no cruise.\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughed.<\/p>\n
The same laugh. The one from the dock. Light and high and a bit too loud.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery funny,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a joke, Mom,\u201d Josh stated. \u201cKayla spent it Monday. On Leon\u2019s ears.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cindy turned to me.<\/p>\n
Then back to her son.<\/p>\n
Then she opened her mouth.<\/p>\n
And what emerged was not what I anticipated.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Leon\u2019s ears,\u201d she repeated.<\/p>\n
Quietly. Flatly. Like she was saying it to herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cFour thousand three hundred dollars,\u201d I interjected. \u201cThat\u2019s what they cost. We had four thousand five hundred saved.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stared at me. The wind chimes were ringing behind her, a hundred little bells all at once.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou spent my sixtieth birthday,\u201d she said slowly, \u201con that old man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMom\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that deaf old man,\u201d she raised her voice. \u201cWho isn\u2019t even yours, Josh. He\u2019s not your father. He\u2019s her father. And you gave him my birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh turned pale.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom,\u201d he said. \u201cYou pushed him into a pond.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a joke!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s sixty-eight! He couldn\u2019t hear for six days!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he should have taken them out!\u201d Cindy was now yelling. Her face was flushed. \u201cEveryone knows you take your hearing aids out around water! That\u2019s on him! Not me!\u201d<\/p>\n
The neighbor across the street, an elderly man in a lawn chair, stood up and retreated inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou told everyone,\u201d Josh accused. His voice was very quiet. \u201cDidn\u2019t you? At the beauty shop. About the cruise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I told them! I was excited! My son was taking me on a cruise!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now you\u2019re upset because you have to inform them it\u2019s not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cindy halted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what this is about,\u201d Josh said. \u201cIsn\u2019t it? Not Leon. Not his ears. You\u2019re embarrassed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t reply. She turned around and marched back up her porch steps, stopping at the door.<\/p>\n
Then she turned back.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always been the one,\u201d she said. Her voice trembled. \u201cSince you were sixteen. Leon this, Leon that. Leon took you to the Cardinals. Leon taught you to fish. Leon helped you fix your truck.\u201d She was now crying. Angry tears. \u201cAnd I\u2019m the one who raised you, Joshua. By myself. On a cashier\u2019s paycheck. After your father\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
She paused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the one who stayed,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd he gets my birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n
She went inside and slammed the door. The wind chimes rang out all at once.<\/p>\n
Josh stood in the front yard for a long time.<\/p>\n
I approached him and took his hand. It was cold, even in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s never said that before,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cAbout Leon. Not once.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t realize she felt that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gazed up at the house. At the forty wind chimes. At the porch swing his father had hung in 1998, still swinging.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Eight: The Beauty Shop<\/p>\n
By Thursday, the entire town was aware.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how it operates in Buffalo, Missouri. Population three thousand. Cindy visited Shear Elegance on Thursday afternoon, as usual. And she shared with everyone.<\/p>\n
Except it wasn\u2019t the story that transpired.<\/p>\n
My coworker Tammy informed me. Her sister-in-law gets her hair done at Shear Elegance on Thursdays as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe says you stole her cruise,\u201d Tammy mentioned at the front desk at Dr. Heller\u2019s. She said it quietly, so the patients in the waiting room wouldn\u2019t hear. \u201cShe claims you convinced Josh to retract her birthday present to cover your dad\u2019s hearing aids. She says your dad feigned being upset to extract money from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I set down the phone I was holding.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe says it was just a little joke at the reunion,\u201d Tammy continued. \u201cAnd he made a big deal out of it. And now she\u2019s not going on her cruise, and everyone\u2019s supposed to feel sorry for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that what people think?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Tammy hesitated. \u201cSome of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n
I want to be truthful about that. I wanted to. I wanted to call every woman at Shear Elegance and explain precisely what happened. I wanted to recount the shark towel, the empty ears, and the boys walking the pond until nightfall.<\/p>\n
But I thought about Dad, on the bank, leaning over to me. Too loud.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t create trouble with her on my account, sis.<\/p>\n
So I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Josh learned about it at the feed store. His cousin Cody told him at the gas station. Someone posted something on the Buffalo Community Facebook group about \u201cpeople who exploit their elderly parents to guilt-trip family members out of money.\u201d No names. But everyone knew.<\/p>\n
Josh read it on his phone at the kitchen table that night. He placed his phone face down and remained silent for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould I say something?\u201d he asked. \u201cPost something? Inform people what truly happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d I replied. \u201cWould it help?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would merely create two sides. And then everyone would have to choose one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad heard it at the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
That was the aspect I didn\u2019t consider. Dad returned to the Buffalo Caf\u00e9 the Tuesday following the acquisition of his new hearing aids. For the first time in a week. He sat at the long table in the back with the retired men, just like he used to every morning before his hearing deteriorated.<\/p>\n
And he heard everything. Every word. Clear as a bell. Better than he had in fifteen years.<\/p>\n
Including what Walt Hensley\u2019s wife said at the booth behind him to Lois Kemper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat Kayla Meeks took Cindy\u2019s cruise money and spent it on her own daddy. Can you believe that? After Cindy raised that boy all by herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad remained silent. He finished his coffee. He paid his bill. He left a dollar for the waitress.<\/p>\n
Then he went home and called me. On his phone. Which he could now hear, through the Bluetooth, directly into his ears.<\/p>\n
\u201cSis,\u201d he said. \u201cI need to ask you something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes Cindy know about Ray?\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cJosh\u2019s dad,\u201d Dad clarified. \u201cDoes she know what happened that night? In the ice storm?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe knows he died, Dad. On the job. Everyone knows.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was quiet on the line for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what I asked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Nine: The Ice Storm<\/p>\n
He shared the story that night. He drove over to Bolivar after dinner and sat at our kitchen table with both of us. Josh and me.<\/p>\n
He had never disclosed it to anyone. Not in eighteen years. Not even my mother.<\/p>\n
January 13th, 2007. The ice storm.<\/p>\n
By then, Dad was a crew foreman. He had been with the co-op for twenty years. Ray Meeks was part of his crew. Ray was thirty-four. He had been a lineman for nine years. Dad trained him personally when Ray joined as an apprentice in 1998.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was good,\u201d Dad recounted. \u201cReal good. Careful. Smart. He would have been a foreman himself in a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n
They had been working for thirty-one hours straight. Half of Dallas County had no power. The ice was two inches thick on every line. Trees were falling everywhere like gunfire.<\/p>\n
Around two in the morning, they received a call about a farmhouse on Route 32 north of town. An elderly man on home oxygen. His backup generator had failed. His daughter was on the phone with dispatch, crying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sent Ray up,\u201d Dad said. \u201cI sent him up the pole. I was on the ground holding the light. It was my call.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paused. He looked down at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t see the limb,\u201d he said. \u201cA large red oak. Coated in ice. Hanging over the line. I should have seen it. It was my responsibility to see it. I was the foreman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh sat very still across the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe limb fell on the line,\u201d Dad said. \u201cRight where Ray was working. It took the line and the crossarm and Ray with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one in my kitchen breathed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI climbed up,\u201d Dad said. \u201cTo retrieve him. The pole was still standing. I don\u2019t know how. I climbed up in the ice with my spikes and got him down. He was still alive when I brought him to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at Josh.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked about you,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cAnd your sister. And your mom. He said, tell Cindy I\u2019m sorry I missed supper.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh made a sound I had never heard him make.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe died in the ambulance,\u201d Dad continued. \u201cHalfway to Springfield. I rode with him. I held his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe co-op investigated,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey determined it was an accident. No one\u2019s fault. The storm. The ice.\u201d He shook his head. \u201cBut I was the foreman. I sent him up. I didn\u2019t see the limb. And I never told your mother. I attended the funeral and stood in the back, and I never once told her I was the one who sent him up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that why?\u201d Josh asked. His voice was thick. \u201cIs that why you\u2026 when I was sixteen? The fishing? The Cardinals games?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI owed him,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t return him to you. But I thought I could at least be present.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at Josh.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then you turned out to be a good man,\u201d he said. \u201cLike him. And I didn\u2019t owe anybody anything anymore. I just loved you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh buried his face in his hands.<\/p>\n
I reached across the table and took my father\u2019s hand. It was trembling again.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad,\u201d I said. \u201cWhy are you telling us now?\u201d<\/p>\n
He gazed at me for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I heard what they\u2019re saying at the caf\u00e9,\u201d he said. \u201cAbout Cindy raising that boy all by herself. About me stealing her birthday.\u201d He took a breath. \u201cAnd she\u2019s right, Kayla. She did raise him by herself. Because of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stood up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to see her,\u201d he stated. \u201cTomorrow. And I\u2019m going to tell her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Ten: What Leon Told Her<\/p>\n
He went on a Sunday afternoon. After church.<\/p>\n
He asked us to accompany him. Not to speak. Just to be there. \u201cIn case she throws something,\u201d he said. He almost smiled.<\/p>\n
We drove out to Hickory Street in two cars. Dad in his old Silverado. Josh and I in ours. When we arrived, Cindy was sitting on her porch swing with a glass of iced tea. The wind chimes were ringing.<\/p>\n
She noticed Dad\u2019s truck and stood up.<\/p>\n
When she saw Josh\u2019s truck behind it, she sat back down.<\/p>\n
Dad walked up her front walk. Slowly. He had put on his blue button-up shirt. The one from the reunion. Washed and ironed. I don\u2019t know if he did that intentionally.<\/p>\n
He paused at the bottom of her porch steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cCindy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I sit?\u201d<\/p>\n
She regarded him for a long moment. Then she nodded toward the porch chair across from the swing.<\/p>\n
He ascended the steps and sat down. Josh and I remained at the bottom of the steps, by the carport. She didn\u2019t instruct us to leave.<\/p>\n
Dad reached up and touched his right ear. The new hearing aid. Then his left.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can hear you now,\u201d he said. \u201cReal good. These are better than the old ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard,\u201d Cindy replied. Her tone was flat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to tell you something,\u201d Dad continued. \u201cSomething I should have disclosed eighteen years ago. And I want you to hear the entire story before you respond. Can you do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t reply. But she didn\u2019t get up either.<\/p>\n
He shared everything.<\/p>\n
The thirty-one hours. The farmhouse on Route 32 and the elderly man on oxygen. Sending Ray up the pole. The red oak limb he failed to notice. Climbing up in the ice to retrieve him.<\/p>\n
Tell Cindy I\u2019m sorry I missed supper.<\/p>\n
The ambulance. Halfway to Springfield. Holding Ray\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
Cindy remained motionless the entire time. She sat on her porch swing with her glass of iced tea in both hands, the wind chimes ringing, and her face shifted from red to white to something I had never seen on her before.<\/p>\n
When Dad reached the part about the ambulance, the glass slipped from her hands. It fell on the porch boards and shattered. Iced tea spilled everywhere.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t even acknowledge it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was the foreman,\u201d Dad said. \u201cIt was my decision. I\u2019ve carried that burden every day for eighteen years. I never told you because I was a coward. I feared you\u2019d despise me. I thought you\u2019d have every right to.\u201d<\/p>\n
He leaned forward in the porch chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when Josh began coming around,\u201d he said, \u201cI thought, perhaps I can do something. Maybe I can be there for this boy, because I took his daddy from him. I never intended to take your place, Cindy. I never wanted to. I merely wanted to give back a fraction of what I took.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cindy stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were there,\u201d she whispered. \u201cWhen he died.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI held his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said\u2026\u201d Her voice faltered. \u201cHe said he was sorry he missed supper.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
She covered her face with both hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI prepared meatloaf,\u201d she sobbed through her fingers. \u201cThat night. I kept it warm in the oven. Until four in the morning. I kept thinking he\u2019d return home. And then the co-op called.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wept. Big, gasping, ugly sobs. On her porch swing with forty wind chimes ringing above her.<\/p>\n
Josh ascended the steps. He sat on the swing next to his mother. He wrapped his arm around her.<\/p>\n
She turned and buried her face against his shoulder and cried.<\/p>\n
Dad sat in the porch chair across from them. He remained silent. He just sat there, tears streaming down his face as well.<\/p>\n
After a long time, Cindy lifted her head.<\/p>\n
She looked at Dad. Her face was a mess. Mascara everywhere. She appeared older than I had ever seen her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pushed you,\u201d she said. \u201cOff the dock. In front of everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a joke,\u201d she stated. \u201cNot really. I was angry with you. You were standing there on the dock, and Josh was up the hill, and he had just told me that morning that he was going to Cardinals opening day next April with you. Just you two. Like every year.\u201d She shook her head. \u201cAnd I thought, he\u2019s taking my son. He\u2019s always been taking my son. And I just\u2026\u201d She paused. \u201cI placed my hands on your back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d Dad replied again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt you lean into it,\u201d he said softly. \u201cA joke\u2019s a little shove. You leaned.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Eleven: The Claim<\/p>\n
Cindy came to our house on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
She had never visited our house without calling first. She had never come to our house without Josh inviting her. She stood on our front porch in Bolivar at seven o\u2019clock in the evening, holding a manila envelope.<\/p>\n
\u201cKayla,\u201d she said. \u201cCan I come in?\u201d<\/p>\n
I let her inside.<\/p>\n
She sat at our kitchen table. The same table where Dad shared the ice storm story. Josh entered from the garage and paused in the doorway when he saw her.<\/p>\n
She opened the envelope. She retrieved a stack of papers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI contacted my insurance agent,\u201d she said. \u201cGary Pfeiffer. At Farm Bureau. Yesterday.\u201d She looked at me. \u201cYou knew, didn\u2019t you? About the liability coverage?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew,\u201d I replied. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to force you to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you didn\u2019t.\u201d She slid the papers across the table. \u201cSo I handled it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a claim form. Completed in her loopy handwriting.<\/p>\n
Under Description of Incident, she had written:<\/p>\n
On July 12, at a family reunion at my brother-in-law\u2019s farm pond, I intentionally pushed Leon Pruitt off a dock into the water. It was not an accident. His hearing aids were lost. I am responsible.<\/p>\n
\u201cGary advised me not to write intentionally,\u201d she said. \u201cHe said they might not pay if it was on purpose. He suggested I write that I bumped him by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you say?\u201d Josh inquired.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I\u2019m done lying about it,\u201d Cindy stated.<\/p>\n
She pulled out another paper. A letter from Farm Bureau. Dated that afternoon.<\/p>\n
They had approved the claim anyway. Gary Pfeiffer had driven out to see the adjuster himself and argued that a fifty-nine-year-old woman shoving a family member off a dock at a reunion as a prank was horseplay, not an intentional act to cause harm. The adjuster concurred. Personal liability coverage. No deductible.<\/p>\n
A check for four thousand one hundred dollars. The value of the original hearing aids. Made out to Leon Pruitt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI delivered it to him this morning,\u201d Cindy said. \u201cLeon signed it over. To you two.\u201d She slid it across the table. \u201cHe said to tell you it\u2019s family money.\u201d<\/p>\n
I glanced at the check. Then at my mother-in-law.<\/p>\n
\u201cCindy,\u201d I said. \u201cYour premium is going to increase. For three years, likely. Because of this claim.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d she replied. \u201cGary informed me. About two hundred a year.\u201d She almost laughed. \u201cI believe that\u2019s cheaper than a cruise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she pulled out one more item from the envelope.<\/p>\n
A brochure. Carnival Cruise Line. Galveston to Cozumel. Five nights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going,\u201d she said. \u201cNot on that money. That money is for Leon\u2019s ears. It always was.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMom\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d she said, looking at Josh, \u201cI\u2019d like to go. Someday. For my sixtieth. If you\u2019ll still take me.\u201d She turned the brochure over. \u201cI\u2019ll pay my half. I\u2019ve saved a little. And I\u2019ll need a cabin mate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d Josh asked.<\/p>\n
Cindy gazed at the table for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking,\u201d she said slowly, \u201cI\u2019d ask your sister. And Kayla.\u201d She looked up at me. \u201cIf you\u2019d want to join. A girls\u2019 trip. Me and my girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was at a loss for words. I sat at my kitchen table, looking at the woman who had informed forty people at my rehearsal dinner that I was pregnant. Who placed a whoopee cushion on Aunt Opal. Who pushed my father off a dock.<\/p>\n
Who kept a meatloaf warm in the oven until four in the morning, waiting for a man who never returned home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like that, Cindy,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
She nodded. She couldn\u2019t speak.<\/p>\n
The following Thursday, at Shear Elegance, Cindy shared the truth with everyone.<\/p>\n
Tammy\u2019s sister-in-law was present. She informed Tammy, who then told me. Cindy sat in the chair with foils in her hair and recounted the entire beauty shop. The reunion. The dock. Leaning into it. The hearing aids. The cruise money. Leon.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t mention the ice storm. That was hers. And Dad\u2019s.<\/p>\n
But she did share that she was wrong. That Kayla didn\u2019t steal anything. That it was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then she said,\u201d Tammy informed me at the front desk at Dr. Heller\u2019s, \u201cthat if anyone ever speaks a bad word about Leon Pruitt in that beauty shop again, she\u2019ll place a whoopee cushion in their chair.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014<\/p>\n
### Chapter Twelve: Next July<\/p>\n
The Meeks family reunion occurred again on the second Saturday in July. At Uncle Wade\u2019s farm pond.<\/p>\n
Forty-some people. The slip-and-slide. The Bluetooth speaker playing Alan Jackson. Uncle Wade and Josh up the hill at the smoker with the brisket.<\/p>\n
Dad attended. This time, he wore a T-shirt. A gray one from the co-op retirees\u2019 fish fry. And swim trunks.<\/p>\n
\u201cFigured I\u2019d dress for it this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
We went on the cruise in April.<\/p>\n
Cindy, Brittany, and I. Five nights out of Galveston on the Carnival Breeze. Balcony cabin. Cozumel and Costa Maya. Cindy wore her large floppy hat and both of her new swimsuits. She got sunburned on the second day and peeled for a week.<\/p>\n
On the last night, we sat on the balcony with our feet propped on the railing, sipping pi\u00f1a coladas from plastic pineapples, watching the moon rise over the Gulf.<\/p>\n
\u201cRay always said we\u2019d take a cruise someday,\u201d Cindy reminisced. \u201cWhen the kids were grown.\u201d She gazed out at the water. \u201cI think he\u2019d enjoy this. The three of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brittany rested her head on her mother\u2019s shoulder. I reached over and took Cindy\u2019s hand. She held on.<\/p>\n
Opening day, Josh and Dad attended the Cardinals game in St. Louis, like every year.<\/p>\n
This time, they had three tickets.<\/p>\n
Cindy wore a red Cardinals T-shirt she bought at the Walmart in Bolivar. She had never been to a game. She didn\u2019t know the rules. She cheered for the wrong team twice.<\/p>\n
Dad sat between her and Josh, explaining every single pitch. She could hear him. He could hear her. They debated the designated hitter for three innings.<\/p>\n
Josh texted me a picture from the seventh-inning stretch. All three of them stood up, singing \u201cTake Me Out to the Ballgame.\u201d Cindy had her arm around Dad\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Now it was July again. At the pond.<\/p>\n
Midway through the reunion, the kids began jumping off the dock. Josh\u2019s nieces and nephews, the cousins\u2019 children, a whole crowd of them in swimsuits and life jackets. Cannonballs. Belly flops. Screams of joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandpa Leon!\u201d one of them yelled. Cody\u2019s little boy, Bentley. Six years old. \u201cGrandpa Leon, jump with us!\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not anyone\u2019s grandpa. Not yet. But they all call him that.<\/p>\n
Dad glanced at the dock. Then at me.<\/p>\n
I watched him reach up to his ears. One, then the other. He removed his hearing aids.<\/p>\n
Then he walked out onto the dock.<\/p>\n
He paused in front of Cindy.<\/p>\n
She was standing at the end of the dock, where she had stood last year. Holding a paper plate. Potato salad, a deviled egg, and a slice of watermelon.<\/p>\n
Dad extended his hand. The two little hearing aids rested in his palm.<\/p>\n
Cindy looked at them. Then at him.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say anything. He couldn\u2019t hear her anyway. He just held them out.<\/p>\n
Slowly, she set down her paper plate on the dock. She extended both hands, cupped together.<\/p>\n
He tipped the hearing aids into them.<\/p>\n
Cindy enclosed her hands around them. Gently. As if she were cradling a baby bird. She held them against her chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got them, Leon,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t hear it. But he read her lips. He\u2019s been reading lips for fifteen years.<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
Then my sixty-eight-year-old father, who climbed poles for thirty-eight years, who held a dying man\u2019s hand in an ambulance during an ice storm, who never once in his entire life asked anyone for help, turned around and ran down that dock in his swim trunks.<\/p>\n
And jumped.<\/p>\n
Cannonball. The biggest splash of the day. Brown pond water went everywhere. Bentley squealed with delight. All the kids cheered.<\/p>\n
Dad emerged, sputtering, waist-deep in the water beside the dock. Grinning like a child.<\/p>\n
Cindy stood at the end of the dock with her hands pressed against her chest. Holding his hearing aids. She was laughing.<\/p>\n
Not the laugh from the dock last year. Not the laugh from her front yard.<\/p>\n
A different one. Softer. The kind you laugh at when something is genuinely funny, and nobody\u2019s getting hurt.<\/p>\n
She looked down at him in the water. Then up the bank at me, standing in the grass in my yellow sundress.<\/p>\n
She raised her cupped hands slightly. As if to show me.<\/p>\n
See? I\u2019ve got them.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t say anything. I just nodded.<\/p>\n
Up the hill, the brisket was ready. Uncle Wade rang the old dinner bell on the porch. The kids scrambled out of the pond and raced for the tables.<\/p>\n
Dad climbed the ladder on the side of the dock. He stood there dripping, basking in the sun.<\/p>\n
Cindy opened her hands.<\/p>\n
He took his hearing aids back, one at a time, and inserted them. Left, then right.<\/p>\n
Then he tilted his head.<\/p>\n
Up in the large oak by the pond, something was singing. Mimicking every song it knew. A cardinal. A blue jay. A robin. A whistle, three notes, up and down.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen,\u201d Dad said. \u201cCindy. Listen to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
And they stood together at the end of the dock, a widow and a widower, soaking wet and dry, and listened to a mockingbird perform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"