The Honoring of Al Munsel, Hired Hand

Dad keeps pestering me. He wants to go see Al and he wants me to go along. "Come on; it'll only take a little while," he coaxes. The thought of the old man, I curl my teenage lip. Even when he was staying at our house, Al and I kept out of one another's way. We couldn't work out who had the upper hand, the hired hand, the kid, or the wife. He and Mom circled one another like two dogs, not willing to put it to the test. He was Dad's man and he did Dad's work. He wasn't agreeable, hardly spoke unless obliged to. More pie? He lifted fingers slightly in refusal. Grey, everything about him grey, grey clothes, grey stubble, grey face. The farm was lost when his wife died; they said he couldn't get past it. There was a daughter somewhere; between hirings out, he went to her. He'd be with us six weeks or so, mending fences, cutting back the elderberries, whatever came to hand. Sundays he bathed and shaved and put on the clean ironed shirt and overalls folded and left for him on the bottom stair. An old black Bible on his dresser. He ate silently and afterwards sat in the rocking chair in front of the big log fire in the kitchen, rocking, suddenly gone to bed without a word. Now we come to the upstairs room in the place they call The Home. Lace curtains at the windows, carpet a little worn, an old man propped up on white pillows. He takes no notice of me but his eyes look up as Dad moves a chair to the side of the bed. The talk goes slowly. Al hardly responds. Then Dad starts in on the old days back on his dad's farm when they'd worked together, side by side, The fields they'd plowed, the sheds they'd built, the post and rail at the back pasture. Still standing, good as yesterday and the day before. Nothing for me to do, I settle down near the window, warm in the sunlight, listening lazily to the voices weaving around one another in a low hum. It starts to separate and the spaces in between the phrases stretch out until there are no more islands. I hear my father ask does he need anything, is there anything to be tended to. No. Nothing. We wait, allowing it to end. Dad takes up his chair to put it back in place. He shakes Al's hand and looks over to me. I nod without smiling. Of course! They needed a witness to the honoring of Al Munsel, hired hand! Down and around the stairs we go, Dad clearing his throat like he's going to say something only he never did. I guess he figured as usual it's better for me to work it out for myself.