“I wanted to see if you’d lost anything.”
“Not one head.”
“Good.” He looked across the yard at the stackyard, where the drifts lay smooth and blue under the pale sky. “That’s good hay.”
“It’s Tom’s.”
“I know.” He took off his hat. “He was cutting that field when I moved here, Karen. Fifty-one years ago. He was ten years old, riding on his father’s fender. I looked at that boy and thought, there’s a man who knows what he’s doing.” He turned the hat in his hands. “I didn’t say it enough.”
“He knew.”
“Did he?”
“He did.”
Arlen nodded slowly. For a while we stood together, two old friends in the cold, looking at the field.
“I’d like to put up your hay next summer,” he said. “If you’ll have me. My back’s gone, but I’ve got a baler and a nephew with time on his hands.”
