“They’re not yours to feed, Phil.”
“I’m not asking you to pay.”
“I know you’re not. That’s the trouble with it.”
He put both his hands on the top rail of the gate. He has our mother’s hands. Long in the fingers.
“What are you going to do for grass?”
“Rent some.”
“Wade.”
“I’ll rent some.”
I latched the trailer gate and drove out past him.
In the mirror, he was still standing at the rail. Behind him was the house. And in the kitchen window was the yellow curtain our mother hung in 1988.
I rented a half section of hill pasture north of Elba from a widow named Mrs. Nielsen. I’d helped her husband work calves for years before he passed.
Sixty-five dollars a pair, per month, for five months. Thirteen thousand dollars.
I shook her hand at her kitchen table. She made me take home a loaf of rye bread.
