by Amy Scheibe
Once the water was hot enough, she filled the red rubber bags, screwed on their tops, and slipped them into the cozies her grandmother had crocheted. Emmy then took a deep breath and walked the ten paces across the kitchen to the door that led to the cellar. She touched its smooth wood and slid her hand down to the glass knob. Straightening her shoulders, she rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and jerked open the door—it had always stuck a bit at the top—and holding the rail banister, she leaned over the flight of planked stairs to grope for the fine metal chain that attached to a bare bulb. The sulfurous smell of the leaked gas caused her to sneeze.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ventured down these stairs, with their open backs and rough-hewn unfinished wood, worn smooth in the center of each plank by the boots and shoes of three generations. This was her grandfather’s sacred place. When she was really small, she would have to sit down on the top step and carefully move her bottom down each board, afraid of slipping as she bumped her way into his lair. The basement hadn’t been touched since his death, and as the bulb swung from the motion of being pulled on, she caught sight of his carefully arranged animal traps hanging from their looped chains along the wall at the bottom of the stairs, furred now only with dust. At one end were the small gopher traps with their toothless arching jaws snapped still; in the middle the slightly larger, smoother traps that Grandfather Nelson had used to trap the money pelts—fox, raccoon, badger. Emmy grimaced as she approached the biggest one, reserved for coyotes and the occasional wolf. The jaws here were immense, slotted, and cruel. She could see him even now, slipping a live mouse into the tiny cage at the spring of the trap before prying apart the jaws and setting the pin, having already secured the loop of the chain with a long spike driven into the ground. Grandfather Nelson had taken her along to check the traps until the time they had found only the gnawed ankle of a bobcat, the sight of which caused Emmy to imagine such suffering that she never went near the gun-metal traps again.
Out of instinct, Emmy reached up into the middle air of the cluttered cellar and drew on the chain of the next light, relieved that it still worked. She could make out where her father had walked across the hard-packed dirt floor toward the squat white enamel machine sitting in the corner where once a coal burner had sat. Grandfather Nelson had replaced the backbreaking beast long ago, proud of his switch to all-gas appliances years ahead of most farmers. Without further hesitation, Emmy marched to the corner of the room, ignoring the scurrying sounds of wintering rodents, and it wasn’t until she had twisted shut the gas valve and was kneeling in front of the furnace that she realized she had made this journey without matches or a flashlight to see the small pipe that needed reigniting.
Emmy sat back on her heels and looked around for matches. An odd feeling of association rose in her as she remembered a long-ago hot summer day playing down here even though she knew she wasn’t allowed, poking around in an olive green metal box that held linens and leather-bound books and old newspapers. She’d dug past these dull objects to the bottom, finding a delicately carved wooden trinket box. Inside was a ring so large she could fit two of her fingers inside of it. A delicate scene of an armor-clad knight high on a horse was carved on the flattened oval surface. Emmy had loved it instantly, imagining within the small circle a vaster place of castles and kings, princes and princesses, maybe even dragons. She had slipped the object into the treasure pocket that her grandmother always sewed into her summer dresses with a small drawstring ribbon to lace up the top. Emmy had re-ordered the large box before crawling into her favorite hide-and-go-seek space near the cool darkness of the coal bin to wait out the scorching sun high outside.
Time had passed while she daydreamed about fairy tales, maybe as little as an hour, maybe as much as three—Emmy’s grown-up grasp on the order of childhood events collapsing into the singular moment when she had realized that Grandfather Nelson had descended into the cellar. She could see now through her child’s eye the old man slumping on the short stool, opening the metal box and drawing out a rectangular white sheet. He had held the fabric in his hands for quite a long time before unfolding it and draping it around his shoulders like a cape, smoothing his hands over it as though stroking the fur of a newborn pup. She had held her breath from the dark retreat as he had then taken a smaller length of fabric—a pillowcase?—and placed it high up on his head. The tall point of it dipped limply, reminding Emmy of a storybook drawing she’d once seen of a white-faced clown wearing baggy pajamas with large black buttons down the front. She had giggled, slapping a cold hand over her mouth as Grandfather Nelson had dashed the hat from his head, taking three large strides in Emmy’s direction. Her mirth had pitched into a squeal as she tried to scurry away from his outreached hand, her bare feet scraping across the dirt floor as she was lifted swiftly up by her dress and tossed toward the stairs, where she had gained her feet and scrambled up, away from his bellowing voice, past her grandmother and mother in the kitchen, and out through the yard until she had reached the creek’s bank, where she had climbed the familiar limbs of a gnarled old beech tree and sat there silently weeping, terrified that her grandfather would hate her now, that he would replace her companionship with Birdie’s.
Emmy’s grandmother had brought her a sandwich at suppertime and had handed it up to her, and Christian had come out at dusk with a ladder to carefully pluck her sleepy body out of the tree. Grandfather Nelson had died not many months after, and somehow Emmy still felt the two events conjoined, regardless of the stroke that had claimed his life. On the day of his funeral, Emmy had slipped the stolen ring into the hole they had dug for him, but the guilt of her theft still burned on her fingers eight years later.
Emmy looked around at the makeshift shelving that had been fashioned from boards wedged between the wooden supports of the house, sifting through the many canning jars filled with assorted sizes of screws and nails, the small paper boxes containing broken watches and pennies from emptied pocket change. There were milk-colored glass insulators from when the electricity was first strung to the farm from town and the linemen working on the project had given them away as souvenirs. Dust seeped into Emmy’s fingertips as she turned over objects she hadn’t been allowed to touch as a child. In fact, she had only ever come back down to the cellar when she had to fetch something for her mother. Her fingers began to ache with the cold when upon a high shelf she found a box of safety matches, which she took to the boiler, lit one for illumination and another for the gas, and, rubbing her eyes of the creeping memories, restarted the furnace and made her way up the stairs in time to hear the clank of the heat beginning to pump through the arteries of the house.
* * *
After shutting down the lower floors, Emmy carried the hot water bottles up the polished stairs and stopped at Lida’s door, listening before slowly turning the doorknob and easing herself into the room. A small lamp glowed beside the oversized four-poster, Lida’s frame tiny in the middle of her bridal bed. Emmy stroked the dear old woman’s forehead lightly and pulled her hand back as Lida’s eyes opened. She looked at Emmy and reached out the arm that hadn’t moved since the stroke, guiding her granddaughter to her side. Emmy climbed into the bed, slipping the covered rubber bottle between the sheets and blankets at Lida’s feet.
“Are you in any pain?” Emmy whispered.
“No, dear,” Lida replied, her voice weak but clearer than Emmy had expected. “I’m at peace.”
“Is there anything you need?”
“Just you.”
Emmy curled herself on the bed next to her grandmother and listened intently to her rasping breath, counting each one in order to placate the fear of the sound stopping.
“Tell me,” Lida said. “Do you love the Brann boy?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, surprised by how quickly the answer flew from her lips, and by how what she really meant was No.
“Good. Love never works,” Lida said in a small voice, almost like that of a child. “I loved Stephen,
but he loved Josie, and she loved Ray. I didn’t love Ben, but it was a good marriage.”
Emmy sat up at the strange squeak in Lida’s tone. “You mean Grandfather?” she asked. She had so infrequently heard his given name that it sounded as foreign as the others in her grandmother’s grasping list.
“Read to me, Emmaline,” Lida replied, sounding more like her usual self, as though a different part of her had come for a visit and then left on the same train. “From the Good Book.”
Emmy tucked the old woman tightly into her sheets, and then read aloud a few verses from the New Testament until Lida dozed back into a deep sleep. Wide awake, the confusing advice complicated further by the jumble of unfamiliar names, Emmy turned to her studies. She crossed the length of the room and rolled up the front of her grandfather’s old desk in order to spread out her geometry homework. She turned on the green-shaded lamp that sat on the shelf where the rolltop rested and opened her textbook to page 159 before realizing that she didn’t have a ruler, which she needed in order to even start the homework. She stared at the small compartments lining the interior of the desk and knew they were too small to hold even a six-inch length of wood. With an uneasiness ingrained during a childhood of being told not to open other people’s drawers, Emmy wrapped her fingers around the handle of the large file cabinet down and to the right. It stuck a little, and then slid open in response to added force, revealing nothing more than a stack of old cigar boxes, topped by one which had a colorful drawing of an Indian in full, feathered dress. Emmy slid her index finger across the gilded image, flipping open the lid and finding it stuffed with bundled squares of paper. No ruler. Her mind drifted back to the unfamiliar names—Josie, Stephen, Ray—and her grandmother’s sleepy confession. Had the stroke affected Lida’s brain in a way that could result in shifting memory? Emmy quickly searched the other drawers and came up empty-handed. She decided to move to the rocking chair next to the warming radiator with her history book instead. She read about the Civil War for a long time, and well past the moment when Pedro Gonzales’s headlights moved shadows against the wall as he passed through the yard, stopped, and then they swept back again, she finally slept, dreaming of the one thing she had successfully placed out of her mind all night: the car ride with Bobby Doyle.
Five
To Hold a Thing Unknown
Emmy woke with a start in the pitch black as the sound of slamming pickup truck doors jolted her out of sleep. She chased the tail end of her dream, searching for meaning, but it was little more than guilt-flecked vapor in the cold room. Emmy rubbed her face and rolled her head around on her stiffened neck before moving to the window. Ambrose’s truck was in the drive. Pausing to watch him unfold from the vehicle, Emmy held to the curtain, trying not to wish that it were Bobby out in the yard. She slapped her cheek lightly and turned away from the window. Still dressed from chores the night before in overalls and flannel shirt, she added an old beige cardigan that her grandmother favored with her dark dresses—a dead man’s remnant. Emmy rushed downstairs and into her work boots, pulling her father’s barn coat around her as she swung open the door to find Ambrose standing there, blowing into his cupped palms.
“That heifer’s having trouble,” he said, skipping pleasantries. “Dan Wallace is on the way. Put up a pot of coffee and call your father.” They turned away from each other as Emmy closed the door, hurrying to the kitchen to do as she was told. A surge of feeling useful coursed through her as she set to her tasks. Maybe she could do this after all, be this wife, till the fields and relight the home fires. If love never worked, then perhaps the way to a deeper meaning could be through the work itself. After all, her grandparents had trained her for this life, and her mother’s tireless efforts had set her an example that Emmy had already more than lived up to; she shouldn’t have been surprised that going through the middle-of-the-night movements of a typical farmwife felt familiar. Emmy measured out the coffee and set the pot on the stove, and then picked up the phone.
“Hello,” Birdie answered, a bit out of air on the fourth ring.
“Get Dad. The heifer’s in trouble,” Emmy rushed. She wrapped the phone cord tightly around her finger as she waited for Christian to come to the phone. Only then did Emmy look at the clock and see that it was four in the morning.
“Emmy, we’ll be there as soon as we can.” Karin’s voice came over the receiver as though a thousand miles lay between them instead of fifteen. “Go to the barn and wait.”
“Ambrose is here,” Emmy said. “Dan Wallace is coming.”
“Good. Then stay put and make some coffee.” Karin hung up.
The back door opened as Emmy was cutting slices of bread for sandwiches, and Ambrose brought a gust of biting air into the room. He took three steps across the large kitchen, welcoming the steaming mug she poured for him. He drank it black, not hesitating against the heat of it.
“Sorry,” he said, and removed his cap and sat down at the table. His closely cropped hair stood up in places, revealing more spots where it had started to thin. “I think she’ll make it, but Dan’s going to have to pull the calf. Is your father up?”
“Yes,” she said. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Okay, then. Come to the barn.”
Emmy filled a green metal thermos with the remaining coffee, grabbed a handful of tin cups, and placed the sandwiches into a picnic basket. This is what a farmwife would do, what I will do the rest of my life, she thought as she quickly raced up the stairs to check on Lida before heading out to the barn.
* * *
As Emmy crossed the frozen yard—lit to a garish yellow by the one pole light in the center of the farm—another truck pulled into the drive and Emmy’s pace relaxed with the sight of Dan Wallace, the only veterinarian her family trusted. What a life he must have, she thought, with constant middle-of-the-night calls that started in the dead of winter and kept coming well into the thaw of spring. Midwife to a cow. Emmy had seen many things over the years, but never this particular event. Being the substitute man of the house for now, she would wear that sweater and coat as best she could. She was a Nelson, after all, and they were strong people of the land. This last thought struck her as ridiculous the minute she had it, and it was with a laugh in her throat that she greeted Dan as he stepped out of his truck.
“Hello yourself, Emmaline,” he said as he went to the back of the truck and pulled out a large canvas bag that looked heavy and sounded ominous with the tools inside it clanking together. “I’m not sure this is a mirthful occasion, though.” Even as he admonished her, there was a twinkle in his eye. He had been a boy when her grandfather ran the farm, following behind his own father at visits such as these, learning the job from the hay up. By the time Emmy was a teenager, the practice was Dan’s. He was tall like Ambrose, but as thin and strong as a white birch, swaying slightly in the frigid night air. The hair on his head was completely white, even though he couldn’t have been much more than thirty. He was the kindest person Emmy knew.
“You’re right, of course,” she said. “I’ve got coffee, if you’re interested.” He ruffled her hair, a feeling she had once hated but welcomed now for its sheer infrequency.
“You should have a hat,” he said as they crunched their way over the crusted snow to the barn, where the sound of an animal laid low suddenly pierced the air. Emmy stopped. Dan put a hand on her shoulder and nodded her forward.
It was below freezing, and all the cows were inside for the night. Most were lying on their sides, a few were starting to rise and stamp, the breath streaming out of their noses in the slightly warmer room. Emmy could remember a time when this barn was end to end with animals, but now there were maybe a dozen left. It was getting toward milking time, and the cows who were accustomed to being drained first were beginning their restless shuffle, the heaviness of their udders pulling them up out of sleep. Here and there a tail lifted and a hot river of urine hit the floor. It was rank and earthy and sweet-straw-scented in here, and Emmy loved it. This was c
omfort to her, a place she could hide away when she was small and stroke the wet noses of the large, gentle animals. Equally as pleasant in memory were the afternoons spent playing in the hayloft of the Brann barn—the prickly straw felt through layers of outerwear as she hid from Ambrose, who always pretended he couldn’t find her though it mustn’t have been very hard. If she held her own in this fraternity she would be treated as a peer, and eventually a matriarch. A calm aura descended over Emmy as she strode forward with a new purpose: She would make her grandmother proud, at least for today. The golden-haired boy of her dreams was no more than a fantasy. This was real. This was her life.
In a corner pen at the far end of the barn—between Ambrose and Pedro—lay the moaning cow. The three men moved around the stall as Emmy glanced at the lowing animal long enough to see two small hooves protruding from her back end. Emmy turned hastily to the basket and set up the coffee and food on a stack of hay bales outside of the pen.
“She’s anterior. Third one tonight,” Dan said upon observing the heifer. “I can’t reckon why so many are coming early this year. Can’t be a good sign. We need to pull her.” Ambrose and Pedro nodded in silent agreement as they drank from the cups Emmy offered. Then, as if directed by some whispering conductor, the men set quickly to work: Dan slipped his arms into long black rubber gloves, scooped ointment from a large bucket, and massaged it into the cow’s birth canal; Pedro drew two chains and folded cloths out of Dan’s bag, along with an instrument with a flat metal plank attached to a long rod; and Ambrose stood off toward the face of the cow as he tipped some liquid out of a bottle and into a thick sponge before fitting it neatly into the end of a metal cone.
