When Daddy got to the store, I didn’t wait for him to come in and get me. Instead Otis helped me carry the groceries that Mrs. Whitener was paying me with. A loaf of light bread, a bag of dried pinto beans, and a MoonPie each for Ida and Ellie.
Otis opened the door of Daddy’s truck and that’s when I remembered the pasteboard box full of clothes. “Daddy,” I said, “I invited Otis to ride along with us, but I forgot about this box. Do you reckon we can put it in the bed of the truck?”
Daddy squinted at me and then at Otis. He wasn’t going to be rude and refuse to give him a ride, but I could see I had some explaining to do. He gave Otis a little nod.
I just pushed on the box a little and started climbing in the truck. There wasn’t much else my daddy could do, so he got out, shut the pasteboard flaps up tight, and put the box in the back. I noticed he had changed into his old garden shoes and they had fresh dirt on them. What was he doing all day?
I scooted myself to the middle of the seat and Otis climbed in too. He offered Daddy a cigarette. Just like that, I was riding toward home with Daddy on one side of me smoking and Otis on the other, doing the same thing.
I talked the whole two miles about who came in and out of the store that day. When our mailbox was in sight I told Daddy why Otis was with us. I told him about Otis wanting to talk about the war and Joe telling him to let it go.
“But Daddy,” I said. “Maybe Otis needs to talk about it. And maybe you do too. You can’t talk to somebody who doesn’t want to hear it. But you can talk to each other. It’ll do you a world of good. I know, on account of me being at Warm Springs. It was the best thing you could’ve done for me—sending me down there with other people who been through the same things as me. So Otis and you are going to talk. Okay? He’s willing, aren’t you, Otis?”
Otis lifted his hat and scratched his head. We were in our lane now and Daddy had stopped the truck. I was wishing Otis would open his door so I could get out.
Daddy turned off the engine and sat there staring at the dashboard while Mr. Shoes yapped outside. Finally he said, “Ann Fay, reckon what your momma and me ever done before you come along? I bet you’re surprised we made it for two minutes without you there to fix things.”
The sarcasm in his voice made me real nervous.
I started inching toward Otis, hoping he’d let me out of the truck. But then Daddy reached for the handle to his door and he got out and went around to Otis’s side. I kept an eye on him while I slid under the steering wheel and climbed down on the driver’s side. Daddy reached through the window, took the groceries from Otis, and carried them to the porch. Then he went back to the truck.
Mr. Shoes was yipping and trying to climb my leg, so I sat on the step and held him while Daddy and Otis drove out of there.
“Thank you!” I hollered. I didn’t want Otis to think I didn’t appreciate what he was doing for me. And I sure hoped he didn’t regret it.
What in the world were the two of them going to say to each other? There was no telling. If I hadn’t learned anything else from Whitener’s Store, I had seen that the way men get along is a far sight different from how women do.
Ida and Ellie came out on the porch and Ellie sat down on the step beside me. “Daddy planted ’taters today,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Ida. “And Ellie took him iced tea and baloney sandwiches. And cake.”
So that’s why Daddy had garden dirt on his boots! He must have been trying to act like it was a normal Saturday. Trying to impress my momma. Hoping she’d take him back.
And then again, maybe he was just trying his best to be his true-blue self—the way he was before the war.