by KT Morrison
“Hey, ha ha,” he said and elbowed Maceo good-naturedly.
“Wow, how you say,” Maceo said grimacing, pulling up his scarf to cover his cheeks looking like a bandit in a western movie, his how-you-say getting lost in the wool.
“Pretty cold, huh? How’s the snow in Italy?”
Through the layers of wool scarf, Maceo said, “In Rome, it’s no, but we have, you know, we go in the Alps,” he said and drew a mountain peak with a fingertip in the air.
“Yeah, I bet it’s cold up there. But nothing like Buffalo in January.”
Janie had her scarf around her face now too, coming out of the sliding doors and putting her sunglasses on and pulling up her fur-trimmed hood. One of the good things about being a big guy like he was—a big burly guy with a beard—was a certain limited invulnerability to cold. He wouldn’t survive in the elements overnight, but he didn’t flinch walking in winter from a building to his truck. Jacket open, no scarf, no gloves, he strode proudly with Maceo’s luggage, chest out, leading the way.
They’d parked in the preferred lot, open air, but right up front, and they passed through the garage which gave them a break from the wind. But by the time they got to the truck he couldn’t feel his hands, though he wouldn’t tell anybody that. Janie took the keys out of his pocket and flicked the fob to unlock all four doors on the F250. Maceo was awed by the size of the truck. Jane opened the rear door, and he slid Maceo’s luggage in. When Maceo moved to climb into the back, Janie stopped him, saying, “No, Maceo, you sit up front, I want you to take a good look around.”
Maceo put both hands up and shook them, saying, “No, no, I sit in the back, the lady sits up front.”
“The lady,” John said, “look at you impressing my wife with your manners.” Janie swatted at him, and he laughed, walking around to the other side saying, “You two sort it out, I know I’m driving.”
* * *
Maceo insisted on her sitting up front and she didn’t want to fight anymore because it was cold outside and he wasn’t really dressed for northern winter. So now he was in the back bench, and the heat was blasting. It was a sunny and bright day, and they were leaving Buffalo and heading east on the 90 taking them out of the city. Maceo sat directly behind her, but she could see him in the side mirror as he watched out the window at the grim, frigid expanse of rural upstate. She said, “What do you think?”
“So much open space,” he said.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
She could see him shake his head, not saying no, but almost as if to clear away webs of bewilderment. He said, “I can’t believe I’m here. It really is beautiful, really something.”
John laughed. “Buffalo—beautiful? Okay, then why’s everyone want to go to Europe for the sightseeing?”
Maceo still watched out the window, studying the passing landscape, seeing something in its bleakness, maybe. She wondered what she would think of Buffalo if she’d never seen it before, came from somewhere completely different. “What are you thinking about?” she asked him.
“I want to paint it,” he said.
“That’s a great idea,” she said, looking over to John. Now she leaned to her left side and turned around to look at Maceo sitting in the backseat. She said, “We cleared space at the house for you to work. I went out to Chesborough, and I picked up supplies. Easel and paints, and a bunch of other things they had for you. I brought them home and set them up in my studio.”
“Hey,” he said, leaning forward and holding the leather side of the passenger chair, “me and you, we paint together?”
“We can do that,” she said, her eyes fixed on the size of his hand where it curled around her seat. John was a big, burly guy with the strongest hands she knew, but Maceo’s hands were larger, the fingers longer; well-formed and well-groomed. John’s nails were chipped, torn, his fingerprints worn bald in places, dirt embedded in some of the remaining grooves even when washed with that orange stuff, and always rough as sandpaper. Maceo’s looked soft without being feminine at all.
John said, “Your folks excited to get Evan?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “They have a big party later today. Six in the morning, but for Evan it night, so they make big meal, all my family there, my mother make everything—veal, clam, artichoke, oxtail, all kind of pasta, cake and all kind of cheese—I tell her she crazy, Evan, he want to go to sleep.”
John patted his stomach, said, “Wish I was going to Italy.”
She peeked around the edge of the chair at Maceo again, saying, “I hope you’re not ready for sleep...”
* * *
Their homestead was in Iroquois Falls, between Buffalo and Rochester, outside Batavia; a decidedly and unapologetically rural area but a good cheap spot to live and run two fields of trucks from, serving two developed areas: Buffalo and Rochester. Now they were heading north on Old Ogden Road; Maceo had undone his seatbelt so he could scoot forward to peer between the front seats and out the windshield. He said, “It’s all farms.” On either side of the vehicle were flat landscapes in white, dotted with the black shapes of barns and farmhouses.
Janie said, “You live in the city but do you ever get out to where it’s rural like this?”
“My uncle, he has a house in Campagna. Ah, countryside...?”
“We don’t farm, but we have a homestead,” Janie said. “Just a little plot where we can do what we want.”
“Privacy, in the land of privacy,” Maceo said, his fingers gesturing out the left and right windows indicating there was nothing around.
John said, “Heck, I don’t know about privacy, big brother and all,” but didn’t want to get into his conspiracy theories.
The open spaces narrowed and soon they were climbing into hilly country and the road grew closed with trees again. When he slowed and hit the indicator, Maceo was alert, scooting forward. John could smell some sort of faint aftershave.
He said, “Is this it? Are we here?”
“Just up ahead,” Janie said.
The winding, quarter-mile hill up to their homestead—‘High Countertop,’ Janie had named it back when they were in their mid-twenties—rose at almost twenty degrees and it was a good thing he owned a plow company because a lot of plows would turn down the job of their driveway.
“Oh, ho, big climb,” Maceo said, sitting back now as the Ford pushed its way up the hill, his plowed drive heavily sanded and salted, giving him lots of traction.
Soon they were leveling out in a clearing, a pressed-down thumbprint of cleared trees in a swath of bush. Up beside their two-story country farmhouse, was a short drive with Janie’s pickup, Evan and Marissa’s Yukon, a spot for him, his detached plow up on blocks waiting to get re-engaged. On the right, at the edge of what used to be pasture, there were almost a dozen cars parked. A spiral of lazy wood stove smoke puffed its way to the cold blue sky.
Maceo watched out the side window as John pulled the truck to a stop and put it in park. Janie watched too, wondering probably how things were going in there without her, worrying about food preparation and whether Marissa had a hold on the kitchen duties she’d been left with.
Their house was a little worn-in looking—but it was the quintessential home. The Holcomb Safe Place where the two of them had raised two kids, toughed out a hard knock life and forged a strong family. The kids had all raised livestock here, had their pets, learned the basics of independence, hosted cookouts, camp-overs; Janie had even home-schooled the kids here until she’d been coaxed by Roxy to let them go public back when they were nine. It was the place where everything had happened—and now with the kids off to university and six-months into being empty-nesters it sure was nice to see their parking filled up and know the place was going to be hopping with a big group of their friends. Without the kids around, things had gone quiet. For nine years Janie rarely left this place, breast-feeding, quilting, canning, painting, reading, and chores, chores, chores; cooking meals, preparing lunches, making sure he had sandwiches and thermoses of coffee whe
n he had to head out at three in the morning because the snow was coming down in sheets. It had been a wild time, scary, too. The homestead started out as a rental—they were just two dumb kids with a baby and one income but lots of dreams. Once Marissa was born, their second child, they’d borrowed money and purchased the property, gave it its homestead name. Then when he was twenty-eight, he bought the plow company he worked for, pushing down on the homestead with a huge mortgage. But he busted his ass like a mine worker to claw that money back and to make his business profitable. It was a constant struggle.
Maceo said, “So this is the home?—it’s so beautiful, so private...”
“That’s why we bought it,” Janie said, and her pretty hand curled over the tattered sleeve of his work coat.
He agreed: “That’s why we’re here, Maceo.”
* * *
There was a chance that Maceo could be overwhelmed by their planned reception, but walking up their path from the driveway she could see him smiling. Under the overhanging cover of the wraparound porch and through the corner windows of the dining room, she could see all the people congregated inside, standing with drinks in hand and gathered in small clutches talking to each other; probably around twenty guests in her house right now prepared to greet Maceo. None of them had spied their arrival—the driveway wasn’t seen from the living area—but now one particular face turned their way and shone bright with happiness. Their daughter, Marissa, with a glass of wine in her hand—she would have to talk to her about that later—jolted, and was now bopping around in there and alerting everyone that they were home.
She led the way with Maceo behind her and John at the back carrying the kid’s bags again. They were stomping their boots now, beating the snow off them on the porch’s wooden decking, turning around the corner to get to the front door, everyone pressed up against the glass now just an arm’s length away. She smiled and waved, and familiar faces in her home smiled and waved back
She paused at the front door as the inner one was opened by Marissa, and she turned to Maceo and said, “You ready for this?—just a few people...”
Maceo smiled and nodded, and she opened the storm door and held it for him. Marissa was right there to meet them, extending both hands in exuberant greeting. The crowd behind her shouted friendly hellos. Maceo put his out and held Marissa’s right hand delicately with a thumb over the back of her knuckles. She watched her daughter’s face transform momentarily then wrestle to control itself so she wouldn’t betray her inner emotions—yes, Marissa, your brother Evan’s replacement is quite good looking. Marissa had broken up with her high school boyfriend before her first year of college. He was a sweet kid, one that she’d been with since grade 11, and she didn’t like to think of the things that may have happened right under her nose, but Marissa was a smart girl and if there was one thing that she had beaten into her it was to be careful. You could change your life very quick if you let things get out of hand...
She said, “This is, Maceo, Marissa... Maceo this is my daughter, Marissa...”
Marissa was pulling him in the house, saying, “Come on in, come in, get out of the cold, you’re not used to it...”
She let her daughter take control, Marissa liked responsibility. She smiled at John, holding the door open for him so he could get in with the bags.
Now the three of them were jammed in the foyer, surrounded on three sides in the small space by their guests. The main floor of the farmhouse was probably just over a thousand square feet, most of it taken up in the center by a huge stone column with a fireplace on the dining room side and a cookstove on the kitchen side. The whole place was open concept, kitchen on the left, dining room on the right, the back area a pantry, mudroom, and family room. Ten years ago John built her an addition that ran out behind the pantry and mudroom; an open space split between them with one side adorned with a big screen TV for John, the other half her studio space.
But right now there were more than twenty people all around the front door, blocking passage, everyone here to meet this Italian kid. Roxy was there with her daughter, Marissa’s friend from high school, her son as well, quietly watching with a can of Coke and his bottle-thick glasses; John’s business manager and good friend Mitch, Mitch’s wife; Marissa had brought four of her girlfriends from college; Elizabeth, the elderly woman who ran her own little farm a mile down the road was there, her grown-up daughter; Dr. Bernard, her family doctor and homestead friend; and a whole host of people from town, some from the co-op, from school, from her painting group. Everyone shoved hands forward to greet Maceo. John set the bags down, clapped Maceo on the back, began doing the introductions and getting help from Marissa.
She slipped herself to the kitchen side, checking how things were coming along and getting her parka off before moving into the mudroom. She hung the parka on its hood and took off her snow boots. Roxy dipped her head in, saying, “You guys get in okay? How were the roads?”
“They were fine, everything’s clear. Evan got away—God, I miss him already.”
Roxy stepped in and rubbed her shoulder. “He’s going to have a great time over there.”
“I know he is, he’s just so far away.”
Roxy leaned her back against the wall and looked out at the greetings still going on by the front door. “You can baby this one while he’s gone.”
She said, “I don’t baby Evan.”
“Sure you don’t,” Roxy laughed.
She shrugged. “What am I going to do, Roxy? He is my baby...”
Welcome Party
Mitch and Jason Beck, John’s second-in-command when it came to the plows, helped him take the bags up the stairs to Evan’s bedroom where Maceo would be staying. “At least he made his bed,” John said to them as they set the bags down in the center of the room. It was just a joke—Evan used to work at the depot and it was a constant source of fun for them all to rib him—no need to stop even if he wasn’t around. Evan wasn’t a messy kid, even when he was living at home, and it had been good to have him back over the holiday. His son was away at the University of Buffalo, in his third year of an engineering course and stayed in the dorms, but over Christmas he’d been here at home almost three weeks. He’d even spent time down at the depot, turning wrenches and driving a plow. But now the school year was back in swing and Evan was studying six weeks at the Università Roma Tre learning bridge making in Italy.
Mitch moved to the bedroom window, parted the curtain to look out at the sky. In the week between Christmas and New Year’s, they’d run trucks twenty-four hours a day, but now the weather was held up and they had a short reprieve. It was a Sunday, but he had two guys back at the shop doing maintenance, and a crew out doing cleanups.
Mitch said, “Forecast says there’s storms this week.”
“Just when I was enjoying my time off,” he said.
“What time off?” Jason said, clapping him on the back then sitting down on Evan’s bed.
“Least I didn’t work on Christmas day. That was nice this year.”
Jason looked around the room, seeing Evan’s football trophies, his shelves of young man stuff. “Kind of weird,” he said, “it’s like you’re going to have a surrogate son.”
Mitch said quietly, “I don’t think that Maceo kid’s going to be any good running the plows.”
John laughed, said, “Kid’s an artist.”
Jason said, “Bring him down to the depot, we’ll get him greasy. Any kid’s an artist would do to learn a trade or two.”
“Tell me about it,” John said.
Mitch said, “So what’s the kid doing?—art?”
“Uh-huh. Out to Rochester. Chesborough College. It’s all done through this Home Exchange program, they said there’s some hotshot instructor out there that teaches whatever Maceo’s into. Classical painting or something. But he’s really here—” now he motioned with a helicopter finger indicating his son’s room, “—to live life like an American kid.”
“In your home,” Jason said, stari
ng at the floor. He’d expressed some doubts about the whole process—but it was just something that Janie did—bringing young people into their home was nothing new, especially when it would benefit their own kids, expose them to other cultures, allow them to have friends in foreign lands for when they were older and maybe looking to travel. There was a time three to ten years ago, back when the homestead had a lot more going on, she would open up the place to teenagers to come and stay. Mostly from Europe—some from Asia, though, even a few from Africa—they would come and stay for a week or two and do farm chores in trade for room and board. It was a lot of fun; Marissa and Evan loved it, and they made friends pretty much all over the world. That was how they ended up with the Home Exchange program and this kid Maceo coming. Three years ago they had this cute little fifteen-year-old girl come to stay with them, who helped Marissa and her mom in the vegetable gardens. She was from France, and still stayed in touch with Marissa, and wrote an email saying that her sister was doing Home Exchange and maybe Marissa would want to do that, come out and live in France and trade with some kid there. There was nothing in Marissa’s program that offered a foreign sabbatical, but there was an engineering course at the school in Rome and Marissa sold Evan on the idea. Home Exchange hooked them up with Maceo.
He looked at Jason, hearing the unsaid. “What’s the big deal?”
“Having a stranger in your house.”
He shrugged, said, “We do it all the time, kids from all over the world.”
“Yeah, but your guys’s kids are all grown up now, they’re out of the house. It’ll be Janie alone.”
Mitch said, “Maceo looks like an alright kid.”
John said, “Yeah, I don’t think I have to worry about him. He’s not some weirdo.”
