At my high school graduation party, Dad told me there was no money for college because “school was always harder” for me—while my 16-year-old sister had a new Jeep and $60,000 in her college fund. I already had a college acceptance letter in my pocket, but he wouldn’t even complete the financial-aid form. When I packed to move in with the uncle he called “the family loser,” Dad stood in the hallway and said, “You’ll be back by the Fourth of July.”

He was waving cars into rows right next to the grandstand, right in front of 12 white restroom trailers lined up end to end, every one of them with Emmett and Sons Pumping on the side in red. He saw me. I saw him see me. He didn’t wave. He lifted the flag a little like he was waving me through and then he turned around and waved the next car into the row.

I didn’t stop. I had a trailer down by the swine barn with a sink that wasn’t draining. That night after the last trailer was serviced and the fairgrounds were mostly dark. I drove back to Warsaw. Hoyt was sitting on the tailgate of his truck in the gravel lot. The same old white Ford eating sunflower seeds and looking at the shop.

I sat down next to him for a while. Neither of us said anything. Then I said, “I saw Dad at the fair.” “Yeah, parking cars.” Hoyt spit a shell into the gravel. Honest work. That’s what I told him 6 years ago. He almost smiled. I looked up at the sign over the shop door.

Grandpa’s sign. Emmett and Sons Pumping since 1971. The paint was peeling worse than ever, and one of the hooks was bent from the door slamming. I’m going to get that repainted, I said. Somebody in Clinton does old signs. We could fix the letters. Keep it the same. Hoyt looked at the sign for a long time. “Leave the words alone,” he said. “It says sons, Hoyt.” “I know what it says.” He handed me the bag of sunflower seeds. “Still two of us.” My dad told me I’d be back by the 4th of July.

He was right that I’d be back. He was wrong about everything else. I went home that night. It just wasn’t his.