Chapter 22: Floyd's Rattle

"This was Floyd's," Harlan said.

He held out the rattle in his big flat palm.

"I bought it in Kerrville the week he was born."

"Marlene says I dropped it on a cattle truck, and it never rang right after."

Floyd made a sound beside me.

"I never knew she kept it," he said.

"She kept everything." Harlan did not look at his wife. "I found it in the cedar chest on Thursday."

The hall was still half full.

People had stopped leaving to watch.

I looked at the rattle, and then at the man holding it.

He was seventy-one years old.

He stood in front of a church hall full of his neighbors with his hat under his arm.

"I'm going to say one sentence," Harlan said. "I've never said it to a soul."

"All right."

"I was wrong to ever ask whose they were, Emme."

Nobody breathed.

"I tested everyone I loved. The one man I trusted to run it wrote me every answer I asked for."

"None of it ever told me what I wanted to know."

He turned his head.

"Floyd."

"Sir."

"I've had a lot of hours in the barn this week. I made up my mind about something."

He cleared his throat.

"You were born on a cold January night."

"I held you in the hospital hall because your mother couldn't, and I was as proud as a man can be."

"I counted your toes. I knew your ear. I thought it was mine, and it wasn't, and I don't care."

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