I got to the home at a quarter till ten.
Daddy was dressed and shaved, sitting up in his recliner with his good cardigan on. The green one Mama knitted for him the last Christmas before she passed. He had his hat on the table beside him and his hands folded in his lap.
Sherry came in at five till.
She had on her church coat. On a Monday. Her face was pale, and her eyes were already red. She stood in the doorway like a girl called to the principal’s office.
She’s 59, three years older than me.
“Sit down, Sherry,” Daddy said.
His voice was kind. That was the worst of it for her, I think. If he’d been angry, she could have been angry back.
She sat in the chair by the window. I stood by the door. Daddy looked at her for a long time.
“I went out to the place yesterday,” he said. “First time in three years. The beans made fifty-two on the bottom. Bobby’s keeping it nice.”
Sherry nodded. She was twisting the strap of her purse around and around her fingers.
“He told me where he’s been mailing my rent,” Daddy said. “I’d like you to tell me where it went after that.”
Sherry looked at me.
I looked right back at her, and I didn’t look away.
Then she looked down at the floor and started to cry. Not loud. Just a steady leaking that she kept wiping with the back of her hand.
“It went to the hospital,” she said. “Roger’s hospital. Daddy, it all went to the hospital.”
And then it came pouring out of her. All of it. In a rush, like water out of a busted pipe.
Three years ago, the same fall Daddy broke his hip, Roger had a heart attack at the lumberyard. He went down in the middle of the loading yard with a sheet of plywood in his hands.
They flew him to Louisville by helicopter and did a triple bypass. Then there were complications. An infection. A second surgery. Five weeks in the hospital.
Roger’s insurance through the lumberyard covered most of it. Most. But the helicopter was out of network. The second surgeon was out of network. And Roger was out of work for seven months on short-term disability that only paid sixty percent of his check.
When it was all added up, they owed a little over sixty-one thousand dollars.
“They were calling the house every day,” Sherry said. “Every single day. Collection agencies. The hospital. The helicopter company. One of them sent a letter saying they were going to court to put a judgment lien on our house.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth.
“Roger was laying in the bed with his chest stapled shut, and every time that phone rang, his color went bad. The doctor pulled me out in the hallway and told me stress could kill him. Kill him, Daddy.”
She was crying hard now.
“And then Bobby’s check came that first November. Thirteen thousand dollars. And I was sitting at your kitchen table going through your mail, and I held it in my hand, and I thought, Daddy’s not going to miss it. Teresa said she’d help with the bill. Daddy’s still got the land.”
She shook her head.
“And I thought I’d pay it back. I swear to God I was going to pay it back.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a little spiral notebook. The kind you get at the dollar store, with a blue cardboard cover. She held it out to Daddy with both hands, like an offering.
“I wrote down every one,” she said. “Every check. Every date. I’ve got it all written down. I was going to pay back every dime when Roger got back on his feet.”
Daddy took the notebook. He opened it and turned the pages slowly.
From across the room, I could see her round handwriting. The same handwriting that used to write my name on my lunch sack in the third grade.
“Does Roger know?” Daddy asked.
Sherry shook her head.
“He thinks the hospital forgave part of it. He thinks we got on a payment plan. He’s not well enough to know. He’s still not well enough.”
“You told me the rent was paying my bill,” Daddy said quietly.
“I know.”
“And you told your sister I was broke.”
“I know.” She could barely get the words out. “I know, Daddy. I knew if I told Teresa the rent was still coming in, she’d ask where it went. And I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell anybody. I just kept thinking, next month I’ll figure something out. And then it was a year. And then it was three.”
Daddy closed the notebook. He sat with it in his lap a long time, his big hands resting on top of it.
“Sherry,” he said. “Look at me.”
She looked up at him.
“Why didn’t you just ask me?”
She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
“I’ve got 200 acres of ground,” Daddy said. “I’ve got a renter who’s paid on time every year for twenty-two years. Your husband was laying in a hospital with his chest cut open. You think I’d have said no?”
His voice rose for the first time.
“You think there’s anything on God’s green earth I wouldn’t have given to keep Roger alive?”
Sherry put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“I’d have given it to you,” Daddy said, softer now. “I’d have signed it over at the kitchen table. All you had to do was ask me like I was still somebody.”
That one landed on both of us.
I felt it go right through me where I stood by the door. Because I hadn’t asked him either. Not once in three years. I’d paid his bill, and I’d never once sat down beside him and said, “Daddy, let’s look at your money.”
I’d treated him like a man who couldn’t be bothered. The same as Sherry had.
He let Sherry cry for a while. Then he said, “Teresa. Come here and sit down.”
I pulled the other chair up right next to Sherry’s. Daddy looked from one of us to the other.
“Here is how this is going to go,” he said. “And I don’t want one word of argument from either one of you. I’m 84 years old, and I’ve earned the right to say a thing once and be done.”
We both nodded.
“Bobby’s mailing the rent to me from now on. I told him that yesterday. It comes here, to me, in room fourteen. And I’ll sign it over to this place myself. That ought to cover what my checks don’t, near enough.”
He turned to me.
“Teresa, you’re done paying. Not one more dollar out of your pocket for me. You hear?”
“Daddy, I don’t mind.”
“I mind,” he said. “That’s the end of that.”
Then he turned to Sherry.
“Sherry, you’ll keep my power of attorney for now. Because if I have a stroke, somebody’s got to have it, and you live close. But you will not write one check on my account again unless I’ve seen it with my own eyes first.”
He turned back to me.
“And Teresa, you’re going to come by here on the first of every month and go over my bank statement with me. Line by line. Both of you are going to have the password to look at my account on the computer. And we’re going to the bank next week, all three of us, and having the Farmers National people put both your names on as people who can see the statements. No more secrets in this family. Not one.”
Sherry nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Now. The money,” Daddy said. “The rent you took. I’m not going to ask for it back.”
Sherry looked up, startled.
“It went to keep Roger alive,” Daddy said. “I’d have given it to him. So I’m giving it to him now. That’s done.”
He held up one finger before she could speak.
“But your sister paid my bill for three years while that money was in your hands. The way I see it, that’s her money you spent. Hers and Doug’s. So you’ll pay her back. Every dollar. As you’re able. But every dollar.”
“I will,” Sherry whispered. “I will, Daddy.”
“I’ll tell you what you’ll pay,” Daddy said. “Five hundred a month. You’ll start the first of December. And if Roger takes a bad turn and you can’t make it one month, you come tell me. Don’t you ever hide a thing from me again. You come sit right in that chair and tell me to my face.”
