“I want to see his face,” I said. “That’s all. I want to be standing right in front of him when he tells me.”

“Then what?”

“Then I’ll know what to do.”

Ardis looked at me for a long time over the plate of crackers.

Then she got up. She took the calendar off the wall. It was the one from the co-op, with a different John Deere tractor every month. She counted on her fingers.

“Our lease here runs through April,” she said. “We’ll lose the rest of it.”

“I know.”

“And Brett will see us coming, Gordon. Vern will tell somebody. Or somebody will see the Toyota at the Casey’s and mention it at church.”

“Then he’ll see us coming,” I said. “I’m not sneaking up on my own house.”

The next morning, we told the park manager we had a family matter back home.

She was nice about it. Everybody down there is nice about it. Because everybody down there has a family matter back home, sooner or later.

We spent three days shutting the place down.

Ardis cleaned out the refrigerator and wiped down every shelf. I drained the hoses, took in the folding chairs, and pulled the little welcome flag off the post. The one with the cardinal on it.

Our friends from Spirit Lake, Don and Lorraine, had us over for a goodbye supper on Saturday night. Tater tot hotdish and bars.

They didn’t ask us a single question. Not one.

That’s about the kindest thing one Iowa couple can do for another.

We pulled out of the park on Sunday morning at daybreak.

It’s 1,480 miles from that lot in Mesa to our driveway in Iowa. The way I drive it, anyway.

I’d done it twelve times. Down in November, up in May.

I’d never once done it in March.