Duke:Are you flirting with me? Cause that’s exactly what I’m wearing right now.
Me:Apparently our office rules don’t mean anything here.
Duke:In that case, I’ll meet you downstairs in two minutes.
Me:You heard your grandpa. No hanky-panky.
Duke:Question…did I hear my grandma say she had a nightgown for you to wear tonight? Can I get a picture?
Me:What happens in the pink room stays in the pink room.
Me:By the way…I love your grandparents.
Duke:Guess I’m going to have to bring you back for another visit. Sweet dreams, Nora.
Full disclosure:I was all set to wear the nightgown from Duke’s sweet grandma—until she said that bit about Bart loving her in said nightgown. So I put it aside to definitely NOT wear it. I then proceeded to go back and forth for two miserable hours from being too cold and way too exposed in my shirt and underwear, to wearing my jeans and being too uncomfortable to sleep, before finally woman-ing up and yanking on the nightgown.
Perfect temperature the rest of the night.
22
After a breakfast of sausage,scrambled eggs, and toast, Bart stole Duke to help him outside. Something about moving some dirt around in the tractor and needing a gate operator, which Duke explained to me just meant he would stand by the gate to keep any cows from getting out of the corral while his grandpa went back and forth moving dirt inside the pen.
“He doesn’t let you drive the tractor?”
A chagrined look crossed his face. “When I was a kid, I ran into the side of his shed with a tractor one summer. He’s never trusted me since,” he explained, making me smile before he followed his grandpa out the door.
Birdie and I cleaned up the kitchen table before we washed and dried the dishes by hand. She wore a loose pair of jeans, a blouse, and haphazard curlers strewn all about her hair. I kept myself near her in an attempt to be available to help if necessary, but she moved about the kitchen with the ease of a woman who had spent fifty years doing the same routine. Standing next to Birdie and drying the vintage casserole dishes she handed me felt sweet and nostalgic in a way that filled my soul up with goodness.
Once the kitchen was cleaned to Birdie’s satisfaction, we sat down at the table. Birdie slid a stack of photo albums in front of me.
“Bart helped me find some pictures to show you.”
I mentally girded up my loins to see pictures of Duke as a child. I would in no way whatsoever imagine what our children could potentially look like. That thought had my mother’s vibe all over it.
Birdie turned onto a page. Colorful pictures of Duke and his two brothers appeared. He looked to be about seven or eight if the freckles and adorably boyish face told me anything. The album was filled with images of them scaling the haystacks, shooting guns, playing with bows and arrows, and swimming in the ditch. I had to remember to tease Duke about his chipped front tooth and how he was shirtless in ninety percent of the photos in the book.
“This was after Elaine’s family had just moved back from school in Washington. Elaine is Duke’s mom and my daughter. They lived with us for four months until they found a house in Utah.”
Several pictures caught my eye as I thumbed through the next few images. A shot of all the boys lined up in a row, each of them holding a bow and arrow. Swimming in the ditch and flexing their muscles with his dad and brothers. Duke’s mom, Elaine, jumping on the trampoline. And one of the entire family posing together on the front porch. Each picture held big smiles and the bright excitement of childhood on their faces.
A surge of sadness wove over me as I wondered what my life would have looked like in pictures if I’d had a dad. What would my mom have been like? Maybe we would have had a house? A photo of all of us on a fishing or camping trip? Maybe she would have had the time to take part in the PTA or help out in my elementary school classrooms. Maybe I’d have photo albums with my sisters wearing wide smiles and summer tan lines. This void I’d carried regarding my absentee father had never been a huge crushing blow because I’d never known any different. My mom’s boyfriends were like characters in my life, not real people. My dad’s absence became a punchline pushing away any heavy grief. Even though I knew Duke’s family life hadn’t been all stars and rainbows, it had been good, and looking at this beautiful family unit caused me to ache for something I’d never known to ache for.
“Brings back some fun memories of childhood, doesn’t it?”
I laughed politely, even though she couldn’t have been more wrong. “These make Duke’s childhood seem very idyllic.”
She tapped the book with her crooked finger. “We had a great time that summer, but don’t let the highlight reel fool you. I also remember lots of crying and whining and plenty of attitude.” She laughed. “And I would know because they left those kids with me quite a lot while they were trying to find a house. I had to find ways to keep them busy, or we all went crazy.”
I smiled, tucking the hair behind my ear, grateful for her splash of realism in our conversation, and turned another page. I leaned forward, squinting at something that caught my eye.
“Is that the truck Duke drives now?”
Birdie leaned closer to examine the picture. “Yes. It was Bart’s town truck for a lot of years. Duke used to drive it when he lived with us during the summers. When Bart mentioned putting it up for sale, he jumped all over it.”
“Town truck?”
She smiled. “It’s just farmer talk, hon. We have a truck for work, full of all kinds of random tools and dirt from the farm, and another truck we take to town and church.”
