In four months of driving that truck twice a day, I’d never once reached under that side of the seat.
It was still his side. I hadn’t even touched the seed corn cap sitting there.
I got down on the running board and reached under.
Log chain. Jumper cables. A coffee can of cotter pins.
And back against the cab wall, a zippered bank bag from the State Bank. The kind they give you for deposits.
The green notebook was in it.
So was an envelope.
It was a plain white envelope with a flag stamp in the corner. Addressed in my father’s block printing, the printing of a man who learned to write on a slate.
To me. My name. Our road. Elba, Nebraska.
It was sealed. He’d gotten as far as the stamp.
I sat down on the running board in the sun and opened it with my pocketknife.
