“The hay’s back,” I said. “You know that. Arlen and Gene returned it. They told me what you said. That I was selling out.”
“Karen ”
“I’d like to finish.” I kept my voice calm, the schoolteacher voice, the voice that had held thirty eight-year-olds for twenty years. “You told two good men a lie, and they believed it because they trusted you,
and because it was easier to believe than not. You told them I wanted to sell. I didn’t. I never did. And you knew it.”
His eyes were fixed on his hands.
“I could have called the sheriff,” I said. “Ben wanted me to. I thought about it. You committed a crime, Dwayne. It’s called theft, and in Nebraska it’s a felony at that value.”
“I know.”
“But I didn’t. And I want you to understand why.”
He raised his head.
“It wasn’t for you,” I said. “It was for Tom.”
His face crumpled.
“He left something for you,” I said. “I found it in a box, buried in the north eighty, along with a letter. I’ve read it a dozen times. I wasn’t going to show it to you. I thought you didn’t deserve it.” I slid the envelope across the table. “But Tom wanted you to have this,
and I think I owe it to him.”
Dwayne didn’t touch it. He just stared at the envelope with an expression I’d never seen on him, helpless, stripped, a child’s face on a man’s body.
“What is it?”
“The last page of the letter. He wrote it to me, but there’s a part for you.” I swallowed. “Read it.”
He opened the envelope with trembling fingers. He read for a long time. When he finished, he let the page fall into his lap and put both hands over his face, and his shoulders began to shake.
I sat and let him. Marlene had appeared silently in the doorway. She put a hand to her mouth.
After a while, Dwayne spoke, his voice muffled.
“He knew.”
“He knew.”
“He knew all those years.” His voice cracked. “And he never said, he never once said anything. I thought he looked down on
me. I thought he thought I was a failure.”
