“Found this in the shed,” he said. “Back on a shelf behind the grease guns. Took me a while to get the
lid loose.” He set it down on the dock next to me. “It was Earl’s.”
I looked at it. I knew it. I’d seen it a hundred times. Every summer. Grandpa would set it between his bucket and mine, and open it, and take out the nightcrawlers and the extra hooks and the little lead
sinkers.
My hand moved toward the latch.
Then I stopped.
“Not yet,” I said. “I want to wait for Brit.”
Vern nodded. Like that was the right answer.
“I’ll get on back up the hill,” he said. “Give you girls some room.”
He went back up through the pasture. Slowly. I watched him go. At the top of the hill he stopped by his truck and stood there, looking down at the pond, with his hands in the pockets of his overalls.
