by Callan Wink
“I got my old job back at the Heart K,” he said. “I’ve set up my schedule so I have school three days a week. I’ll be able to work at least two days; weekends, too, if I want. I was out there the other day and we were moving some of the herd down to a lower pasture. I had Sally with me and she was running around like crazy trying to follow the older dogs they’ve got out there. You could just see her watching, figuring out what she was supposed to do. She already rides on the back of the four-wheeler just fine. Gets her nose up in the wind and her ears start flapping. Pretty funny.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I understand that you need to get out and see a bit of the world. I’m not stupid enough to think that you’d want to just spend your whole life here doing this. But it’s going to be yours. You know that? It’s not a ranch, it’s not a spread. But it’ll be yours, and you can do with it what you want.”
There was a two-hour time difference, and August figured his father was done with the chores for the day. Sitting on his porch with his boots off, dirty white socks, lighting the citronella candle to fend off the last of the summer’s mosquitos. “You look at the almanac to see what they’re forecasting for this winter?” August said.
There was a momentary silence, then a long exhale. “No, I haven’t looked yet. Never seems to be all that accurate anyway.”
“I guess not. Something to talk about, though.”
“When we first started dating and I would start in on the weather, your mother would just raise her middle finger at me until I stopped. Amazing how hard it can be to keep coming up with other stuff to say. I guess I stopped trying after a while. Probably that was a good chunk of the problem, to tell the truth.”
“That sounds like her. I heard a good one the other day. Wherever you go, you always take the weather with you. Made me think of you.”
“That is a good one. I like that. I know you understand, even though your mom never did. Most of the time I feel like the weather is the only subject that’s worth wasting talk on. Who said that, about taking the weather with you?”
“It was in a song I heard. Jimmy Buffett.”
“Jimmy Buffett? Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
August’s father was laughing now, and August joined him. He laughed so loud that Sally jumped to her feet, looking at him with her ears cocked back. His strange behavior continued on long enough that eventually she thought something was wrong and started barking out her concern.
On his way out to the Heart K, August swung into the diner to fill his coffee thermos. The fire was still burning out in the Bridgers, and this morning the sun had risen a murderous red through the smoke. Back when he was at the Virostok place they’d gotten their eggs from the Hutterites. On several occasions he’d cracked one in the pan for breakfast only to discover the yolk was a watery, bloody mass. He thought the sun coming up through the wildfire haze looked just like that. This time of year, everyone held their breath. Summer was still hanging on, but it was stretched and faded. A certain metallic smell on the clouds. Every day he heard the snarl of chainsaws, people out in the Forest Service land cutting deadfall for firewood.
The diner was busy with the usual mix of early risers. August left his truck running, and Sally stuck her head out the lowered window and watched him intently through the diner doors. August had capped his thermos and paid his two dollars and was turning to leave when he saw her. June was in a corner booth, facing him but with her head lowered, a half-eaten pancake next to the book she was reading. She had her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore oversized tortoiseshell glasses and a loose blue tank top with one of the shoulder straps fallen down her arm.
Before thinking it through, he walked to her table. He realized he was repeatedly tightening and loosening his thermos cap, fidgeting, and he forced himself to stop. He stood before her, and she raised her eyes from the book. She regarded him without saying anything, then picked up her fork, cut a piece of the pancake, swirled it in the syrup, chewed. Watching him the whole time. August wondered why she was up so early. He wondered if she had a hard time sleeping. Had she dropped out of school? Was she just visiting? He stood, face growing hot, mutilated hand jammed awkwardly in his jeans pocket.
“Can I buy your breakfast?” he said. He immediately knew it was the wrong thing. He should have just said hello. He should have asked her what she was reading. Said something stupid about the weather, the fire smoke, anything. But now the words were out and he couldn’t stuff them back down his throat.
Her face registered no change. She took a sip of her coffee. “No,” she said.
August knew he should leave. He ground his heel into the floor and lowered his head.
“Are you having a good summer?” He’d said it too loud. He was standing over her at the table, and he felt that other people in the diner were watching. He would have liked to sit down but there was no way to ask.
“My summer was fine,” she said.
“Mine is going okay, too,” he said. “I had an accident. Lost some fingers.” He had his hand out of his pocket now. He looked down at it, as if seeing it for the first time.
She raised her eyebrows.
“It doesn’t bother me too much anymore.”
“Oh. Good.” She had a small smile fixed on her face, looking past him, out the window over his shoulder.
“That’s my dog, Sally,” he said.
“Cute.”
“I guess.” There was silence, and someone dropped a plate back in the kitchen. A muffled curse. June was looking at him, and he knew he had to say something now. Something real. But there wasn’t a single thing to say. All the words in the world and no combination of them made any sense. He tensed to leave. Then blurted it out: “Did you ever jump off the railroad trestle bridge?”
Her eyes came back to him. The smile she’d had was gone. “Is there something you want? Because I’m just kind of enjoying reading my book here.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m leaving.” And then he bolted through the doors to his truck. He drove the back roads blind. Taking the corners too fast, sliding on the washboards. He thought that if everyone in the world felt this way it wouldn’t be so bad, he could chalk it up as a reality of the human condition, but as far as he could tell, everyone else was fine and it was just him that couldn’t find a way to properly live. Most of the time he didn’t want to be in his own company, but he couldn’t think of any good way out of it.
It was early October when his father called to tell him.
“Your mom already knows, of course. We’re doing this in a friendly way; everyone is getting the percentage they deserve. I was rather surprised—we’re making more than I thought we would. The Amish are going to buy it, believe it or not. Cash. They like the fact that there’s two houses up already. I think they’re going to make the old house into their regional school building. Good thing I didn’t burn it down, I guess.”
“Selling?” August said, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice. “The whole place? Why? I mean, what are you going to do?”
His father laughed. “Well, believe it or not, a guy like me might have some ideas occasionally other than getting milk from the teat. Remember last month, me telling you that Lisa and I were going to the lake? We went up there, to Traverse City, rented a little place right on the water. I’m not going to lie, she and I have had a bit of a rocky patch, but something about it up there, the water, the sand, I don’t know, it felt like a breath of fresh air. It’s easy to put your head down in a rut. You do it as a man because that’s how they raise you up, but life is short, you know? You actually inspired me a little.”
“Me? How?”
“Just the way you took off in your own direction and didn’t look back. I said to myself, Look at that, my son is not afraid to adapt to new circumstances, he’s not tethered to some rigid idea about how he needs to operate. He lives
in the goddamn Rocky Mountains, you know?”
“But I thought farming was what you liked to do.”
“It was. It is. I’m sure I’ll have some minor regrets here and there, but I shipped all the cows yesterday and I was actually surprised, those trucks heading away, kind of a weight off my shoulders. I slept in till seven-thirty this morning. It was a revelation.”
What about Skyler’s grave? August wanted to say. What about fresh milk from a mason jar in the pump room? What about wrestling matches in the haymow and Tigers games on the radio and fireflies and sun tea? “The houses have electricity, and plumbing, and stuff,” he said. “What are the Amish going to do with that?”
“I really have no idea. They’re buying up a lot of old farms around here, though. I’m sure they have some way to render everything to their liking. I know for a fact they’ve had their eye on the hardwood stand. They’ll probably cut some of the oaks, tap all the maples for syrup. They’ve been on me to tap the trees for years, and I never let them. Now they’ll be up to their beards in sap. Industrious folks. I’m actually happy it’s going to them and it will still be run as a farm. Better than some asshole trying to turn it into a trailer park. Enough of those around here as it is.”
“It seems kind of sudden. You went on vacation and then you decide to sell the farm? I mean, what are you going to do now?”
August could hear a voice in the background, Lisa saying something. “Lisa says hi,” his father said. “And, yes, it may seem sudden, but it’s a decision that’s been building for a while, and then a few events occurred and here we are.”
“What events?”
“For starters, it became clear to me that you had no real interest in stepping in and taking over, and I don’t blame you for that, I really don’t. This day and age, a dairy farm is a bit of a losing proposition. Actually, I’m not sure if it was ever a winning proposition, but these days you have to get big or get squeezed out. I could read the writing on the wall. So there’s that.”
“What other events?” There was something in his father’s voice, an undercurrent that he’d rarely ever heard, as if each word was saturated, a happiness threatening to leak around every syllable. His father was barely containing his excitement. August could hear something on the line, a jostling, Lisa’s laugh. His father saying something off the phone that sounded like, “Damn woman, you’re getting heavy.” August wanted to hang up. He didn’t want to have this conversation with his father with Lisa hearing everything.
“What other events?” he said.
“We went up there to Traverse City, like I said. We had such a good time.”
“It’s beautiful up there,” Lisa said, in the background. “So amazing. When we get settled you have to come visit, Augie.”
“What does that have to do with selling the farm?” August said. “You went on vacation and decide to move, just like that?”
“Well, let me finish,” his father said. “We went up there, and Lisa—you know she just wrapped up her vet tech training—she went off one afternoon and sniffed around a little and got a job offer at a fancy new shelter they just built up there. There’s a lot of money in Traverse City these days. Second-home people don’t want to see stray dogs uncared for or sad little kitties sleeping outside. So Lisa comes back and kind of lays it out straight for me. She’s going to take this job, and she doesn’t really see how a long-distance sort of deal is going to work. She gave me an ultimatum, basically.”
“No I didn’t!” Lisa was giggling. August wanted this whole thing to be over.
“No, you’re right, it wasn’t really an ultimatum. But I felt like I was coming to a crossroads where some decisions were going to have to be made. I told her to give me a couple weeks to think about it, and she was fair enough to agree to that.”
“Are you going to tell him or not?” Lisa said.
“Tell me what?” August said. “What in the hell are you guys talking about? You’re selling the farm because you went on vacation? I just don’t see it.”
His father stopped laughing, and Lisa fell silent. His father cleared his throat. “I was already considering selling, and then Lisa came home one day and told me that she was pregnant, and in that instant I pretty much made up my mind. There it is. This was not in the script, I admit, but in about six months you’ll have a sibling, and we couldn’t be happier. What do you think about that?”
“What?” August said. “Wait, what? Really?”
“Yes!” Lisa shouted. “Really! So exciting!”
“So exciting,” his father said. “We’re on cloud nine over here.”
August took a week off work. His mother rented a U-Haul truck and they set out before dawn, August behind the wheel, bleary-eyed, sipping coffee, his mother fiddling with the truck’s radio. Sally slept, curled on the seat between them. They were quiet for most of the morning until, somewhere in the sun-blasted, flat expanse of eastern Montana, his mother yawned and stretched and reached over to pat his leg. “This is kind of nice,” she said. “A little bittersweet, maybe, but there’s a certain symmetry.”
August glanced at her. She was leaning her head against the glass, looking out over the scrolling sagebrush hills. “What kind of symmetry?” he said.
“It’s like when we originally came out here, the U-Haul, the same sense of things ending. Just this time you’re driving. I’m older, relinquishing the role of caretaker, adopting, slowly, the role of care receiver.”
“I don’t think we’re quite to that point yet,” August said. “I’m sure I’ll get tired eventually and you’ll drive.”
“Maybe, but I’m just thinking of the greater symbolism. The young son drives the aging mother across the country to retrieve the few valuable artifacts that remain of a broken home before the home is sold and the chapter comes to a definitive end.”
“You’re the librarian, but I’m pretty sure metaphors don’t actually happen in real life. I’m driving you, but it’s not symbolic of anything. It’s just what I’m doing. It’s happening.”
She turned her eyes from the fields to look at him. She smiled. “I’m your mother,” she said. “Whether you like it or not, I created you to be a character in the novel of my life. Every child exists in part to further the narrative of the parent.”
“How am I a character? We’re all just living our lives.”
His mother pursed her lips in thought. A few miles later, she said, “You didn’t get to choose when and where and to what circumstances you were born, did you?”
“No.”
“Then why would you expect choices to appear magically once you’ve arrived? That’s like creating something from nothing—it goes against the laws of physics. Trust me on this one, until a human being can choose his or her parents, they’ll be no such thing as true freedom on earth.”
“Are you thinking of Dad and Lisa’s kid? Is that what this is all about?”
She laughed and dug in her purse for her Swishers. She lowered the window and lit her cigar, blowing a stream of smoke into the rush of air. “How do you feel about having a sibling?” she said.
“Half sibling.”
“If you want to think of it that way, I guess that’s your prerogative. I’m actually happy for him. He always wanted more, but having you just exhausted me in some way. I didn’t have it in me to go through it again. The world conditioned me to feel guilty about that and I did for a long time, but at this point I’ve mostly moved past it. When that kid is eighteen your father will be damn near seventy.” She shook her head and coughed. “No thanks, buddy.”
* * *
—
They arrived in the late afternoon, and right away August realized there was something naked about the place. The pastures along the driveway were still cow pocked and trampled, but empty now. For the first time he could remember, there was not a single Holstein to be seen. His mother to
ok a deep breath and then let it out slow. “Here we are,” she said.
August, stiff from the driving, did some stretches and watched Sally prowl the pasture’s edge, looking around warily for the missing cattle. “Nothing for you to do here, Sal,” August said. “Relax.”
The maples and oaks had already turned colors, but it was an unseasonably warm day. His father came down the steps, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and walked barefoot across the grass. When he reached to shake August’s hand, he did so with his left so August had no choice but to follow suit. His father grabbed his wrist and held it up for inspection then released it and raised his own, waggling the pinkie finger that stuck off at a strange angle after some long-ago accident. He gave August a punch on the shoulder. “I say never trust a man that doesn’t have at least one bum digit,” he said. “Trademark of an honest living. Good to see you, son.”
August could sense his mother behind him, and he stepped to the side.
“Dar,” she said.
“Bonnie,” he said. They hugged quickly, and then his father stepped back and bent down to rub Sally behind the ears. She was groveling at his feet, thumping her tail. “And you must be Sally,” he said. “Did she do good in the car that whole way?”
“She mostly just slept,” August said. “Got out and ran around with me at gas stations.”
His father gave Sally one more rough scrub behind the ears and then stood up, knees popping. He nodded at the U-Haul. “That thing probably guzzled the gas, eh? Fifteen or sixteen miles to the gallon, something like that?”
“I’m not totally sure, but that sounds about right.”
