Universal Harvester(16)

He drove home up Interstate 35, the sky so dark, the air cold. Reading the highway signs for Saylorville Lake he got that sentimental urge some men get to spend a day fishing with their sons. It seemed like a good opening. When he got home and found Jeremy in the living room watching the highlight reel, he tried it out: “Passed Saylorville Lake on the way home,” he said.

“Yeah? Bob Pietsch says he had to throw back more bluegill than he could take home last time he went out,” Jeremy said.

“We should get out there sometime,” Steve offered, pleased with himself: no false notes in the opening. They were talking like guys at work.

“Sure,” said Jeremy.

Steve kept his eye on the TV as he spoke. “Had dinner with Shauna Kinzer,” he said. “Did I tell you about Shauna Kinzer?”

Jeremy looked at his dad over there on the other end of the couch, the screenlight flickering on his face. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“Well, she’s somebody I met at a job site.” Baylor was beating the Cyclones again. “We kept running into each other and then tonight we got supper together. It was kind of a date.”

State couldn’t seem to do anything against ranked opponents this year. Jeremy wanted to tell his dad it was all right if he went out on a date, but he wasn’t sure if he meant it or if it just felt like the right thing to say, so he waited.

“We had a good time. She’s a really nice person. It’s nice to have somebody to talk to. I’d like to ask her out again.”

“You shouldn’t feel bad if you want to spend time with somebody, Dad,” said Jeremy, very tenderly, trying to help. “Like, go on dates. I mean, it’s fine. It’s great. But you don’t have to ask my permission. Or my blessing, I don’t know. It’s all right.”

Steve regarded his son for a second. All grown up. He wondered what somebody else in his shoes might have done, but he couldn’t think of many similar cases. Bob Pietsch, maybe. Maybe not. “I know I don’t,” he said then. “It just feels a little strange. I thought we should might have a little talk about it, I guess. I don’t know.”

There was a space of a few breaths. Steve looked up at the shelf by the sliding glass door that led to the backyard: there was a framed family portrait from Oceans of Fun, back when Jeremy was in grade school.

“It’s always going to feel strange without Mom,” Jeremy said.

“Do you think—do you think it’d be all right with your mom?” Steve said, miles high in the darkness now, airless, trying to acclimate himself to the cold.

“Well, sure,” said Jeremy. “I mean, sure. She’d want you to meet somebody, I mean. She was like that.”

It was true. It was one of the things Steve missed most. Linda knew what was best for him, and whatever was best for him was what she wanted, too; she’d always seemed happiest if she could put him at ease. There are people who talk to their loved ones in prayer, who seek guidance and hear something in the gap between asking and the subsequent silence, but Steve Heldt had never been one of those people. Linda was buried in Nevada Municipal Cemetery. He was certain of it. He had seen her lowered into the grave.

“I want to do right by your mother,” Steve said.

Baylor scored again. Jeremy wished his mom could send some sign to Dad from somewhere: from the stars, from a dream, from down in the soil.

“You should be happy in your life, Dad,” said Jeremy. They left it there.

*

In the darkness of his room, after the game, Jeremy lay awake trying to get angry about the Cyclones not being any good this year. But in his heart he didn’t care about the Cyclones, not like he had in the past. His heart was elsewhere now, and what he really wanted to think about was Bill Veatch and that opening in receiving, what all that might look like. Bill’d pay better than Sarah Jane, there wasn’t any doubt about that; there’d be opportunities for advancement, too. Veatch & Son had offices in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, big operations. Anything involved with construction was going to be solid for a while. Out in Ames near the North Grand Mall they had whole new neighborhoods going up. Who knew where any of the people living in them were supposed to find work—maybe they were mainly students? How did their parents afford these places?—but somebody had to be buying those houses, and somebody had to build them.

Jeremy didn’t see himself like those people who just drift from job to job: friends from high school tending bar in Campustown, staying up late with the waitresses. Morning shift clerks at Kum & Go. But signing on with a growing business—he felt pretty sure Bill Veatch would hire him more or less on sight—that was a commitment. Stephanie Parsons had talked about teaching abroad once, but that wasn’t right either. Not everybody wants to get out and see the world. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want to figure out how to fit yourself into the world you already know.

Besides: there was Dad. Jeremy felt like it was time to make room for his father. It was a strange feeling, thinking about Dad like this, as a person whose life might be distinct from his own. The two of them had shaped the space they lived in around his mother’s absence; they’d made it a comfortable place you didn’t have to think about too much. It was a known quantity, a knowable outcome. In local terms, that was its strength, but some nights at dinner Jeremy looked at his father and felt a sadness he couldn’t quite name.