Part 7

Half on the apron, half in the street, angled like she hadn’t quite decided whether she was staying.

She sat in the car for a long minute.

Engine running. Hands on the wheel. Looking out the windshield at the pickup truck. At the cardboard sign. At the corn on the hood of Engine 1.

At her grandchildren.

Jeff saw her too. He went still beside me.

“Amy,” he said quietly.

“I know,” I said.

The engine turned off.

The car door opened.

Dean got out slowly. Her bad knees. She held on to the door for a second.

She was wearing her church dress. Blue, with little white flowers. She must have come straight from the rummage sale setup at St. Paul’s. The church ladies must have told her.

She walked across the apron.

Past the flagpole. Past the open bay door. Past Engine 1 with the corn on its hood.

She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at Jeff.

She walked straight up to the tailgate.

The crowd went quiet.

Not all at once. But the people near the truck noticed. They knew who she was. Everybody in New Bremen knows Dean Lund. And by then, after the Facebook post, I think half of them knew the story.

The hardware man stopped talking. The church ladies stopped bagging. Chief Barnes set down his coffee.

Dean stood at the tailgate.

She looked at the cardboard sign. Grown by Caleb & Hannah Lund. She read it twice. I watched her lips move.

She looked at the crates of corn. Baker’s dozens. Tied with twine. Exactly the way she’d taught them.

She looked at Caleb, standing beside the truck with his arms crossed. He didn’t say anything. He just looked back at her.

Then she looked at Hannah.

My daughter. Standing on her pickle bucket. Behind the coffee can with the unicorn stickers.

Dean opened her purse.

She got out her little change purse. Black leather, worn at the corners. The one with the clasp that snaps. She’s had it as long as I’ve known her.

She opened it. She took out a five-dollar bill. She unfolded it carefully.

“I’ll take a dozen,” she said.

Her voice was not the porch voice.

It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t flat. It wasn’t the voice of a woman keeping books.

It was small. And it shook a little.

Hannah looked up at her from the bucket.

I held my breath.

I had not told my girl what to do.

I’d thought about it. Of course I had. All week, I’d wondered if Dean might show up. I’d thought about pulling Hannah aside and telling her what to say. Be polite. Be kind. Don’t say anything about last summer.

But I didn’t.

Because it wasn’t my corn.

It was hers.

Part Fifteen: What Hannah Did Hannah looked at her grandmother for a long time.

At her blue church dress with the little white flowers. At her bad knees. At the five-dollar bill shaking a little in her hand.

The whole apron was silent. I could hear the flag snapping on the flagpole. A car idling at the four-way stop.

Then Hannah climbed down off her bucket.

She walked to the end of the tailgate. She looked through the crates. She took her time.

She picked out a dozen. Not just any dozen. She held up ears one at a time. She squeezed them. She checked the silk. Brown and dry. She felt for fat kernels all the way to the tip.

Thirteen ears. The best ones in the truck.

She tied them with twine. A double knot, the way Dean had taught her.

She walked back to her grandmother.

She held out the corn with both hands.

Dean held out the five.

Hannah didn’t take it.

“That’s five dollars, Grandma,” Hannah said. “That’s what it costs.”

She looked at the five-dollar bill. Then she looked up at her grandmother.

“But you don’t have to pay me,” she said.

Dean’s face went very still.

“Why not?” she asked quietly.

Hannah thought about it. The way she thinks about everything. With her whole face scrunched up.