It was Mama\u2019s name too. She died when Wade was nineteen, and for twenty-two years her grave had nothing but the little tin marker from the funeral home. Dad always said he\u2019d put a real stone up when he had the money. He never had the money. Wade wanted them side by side under one granite stone before the ground settled, and the monument company wanted a deposit by Friday.<\/p>\n
With no paycheck since March, the saddle was the only thing he had worth that much. He told the boys he\u2019d folded the blanket the way Grandpa taught him, and put the pawn ticket in the coffee can on purpose, because that\u2019s where Dad kept anything he meant to come back for. He\u2019d planned to redeem it with his first check from the new job he starts Monday. He just couldn\u2019t bring himself to tell me he couldn\u2019t pay his share.<\/p>\n
Tanner looked at his dad a long while, then got up and hugged him around the neck, dish towel and all. I sat down beside Owen and cried into my sleeve. Brian said the tires had waited this long and could wait a while longer. Wade said he\u2019d pay me back the $330, and I let him, twenty dollars a payday, because Dad raised us to finish what we start.<\/p>\n
The stone went up in June, Mama and Dad together, with a little rope coil carved between their names. The saddle hangs in Wade\u2019s barn now on Dad\u2019s old rack, blanket folded, corners squared. Tanner is learning to rope off it on Wade\u2019s sorrel mare, and Owen sits up front with both hands on the horn. Every Sunday after chili, the boys rub it down with neatsfoot oil, and the kitchen smells like Grandpa\u2019s truck. The wired stirrup is still on it. Nobody is ever buying a new one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was Mama\u2019s name too. She died when Wade was nineteen, and for twenty-two years her grave had nothing but the little tin marker from the funeral… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n