Hah! I thought Dad had finally told you. Be over after work.
He shoved his phone in his pocket, along with the feeling that his entire family was playing a joke on him. Only his father, the originator of the joke, was dead and Kelly hadn’t ever been interested in traditional gender roles, so this wasn’t a joke he would have played on purpose. Which made this nothing more than a painful reminder of how little connection he’d had to this place after his mother died. In the hereafter, his father was likely cackling that Trey’s discomfort at being surprised was just punishment for only calling his dad on occasional birthdays and Christmas.
A dog barked when he knocked on the door, and from somewhere inside Max called out, “Sit.” When she opened the door a mottled black, white and tan dog was at her feet, looking at Trey with a mix of curiosity and annoyance. It was much the same way Trey had felt looking at Max, when he had wrongfully thought she didn’t belong on his father’s property shooting cans, before he knew she was Max.
“This is Ashes. Don’t mind him. Cattle dogs are a protective breed.” As if to prove her point, the dog growled. Trey thought about growling back—this is my land—but pissing contests only rewarded the fool who drank too much. Better to be smart than a bloated idiot. Plus, for all he cared, the dog could claim the land by peeing on every blade of grass; Trey sure didn’t want ownership of the useless hunk of clay.
With this inauspicious start, Trey stepped through the doorway into Max’s barn. “I figured the barn would have fallen down by now.”
The last time he’d been here, for his mother’s funeral, the barn door had been missing and some of the beams had been rotted through. Now it was downright cozy with stairs leading up to a loft, a large woven rug on the floor and a woodstove along one wall. Trey blinked and took a second look.
The walls and floor were bare wood and the kitchen at the back had a small fridge and an even smaller stove, giving the place the look of someone’s hunting cabin instead of a renovated barn where people lived. So maybe not cozy, but livable, which was still a damn sight better than it had been five years ago.
“The first winter I lived in the farmhouse with your father while we renovated the barn to make it livable.” She blinked and opened her pink, cracking lips like she was going to say something else. Her lips opened and shut one more time before she’d made up her mind about continuing. “I’d planned to move into the farmhouse and use the barn for housing when I finally bought the place but...”
He realized that whatever leasing agreements she had with his father carried over with the property, but that didn’t mean Trey couldn’t toss them all out the window and eat the breach of contract cost just to wash his hands clean of the place once and for all. That was if he even owned the farm. They could both hope that his father had left the property to Max in his will. Because truthfully, Trey didn’t care if his father had left it to the Earnhardt Foundation, so long as he didn’t have to come down here again.
“Anyway, no matter what you decide to do, it seemed crass to move into the house right now.”
“Better to wait until after the funeral?”
“That wasn’t...” she said, but he waved off her apology.
“I know that wasn’t what you meant. I don’t want the farm, though I probably now own it. I’m sure whatever agreement you had with my father will be fine with me. We’ll sort this out. You can move into the farmhouse and I can go back to D.C. Hell, you could move in now, for all I care.”
Trey supposed sadness was the proper emotion to feel after his father’s death, but the only emotions coursing through him were relief that the man had only killed himself and nobody else in the car accident, and irritation that he hadn’t sold the land before dying. The man had been a drunk and a bastard—why did he also have to be irresponsible?
The kettle on the stove whistled and the dog cocked his head to the sound, but didn’t bark. Max pointed at a dog bed in front of the woodstove before heading to the kitchen, and the dog obediently went to lie down.
“Sorry about the mess on the table,” she called over her shoulder. “If you could dump the papers and laptop in the box by the table, we’ll have space for our food.”
As Trey shoveled everything into the box, the receipts and invoices for seeds, straw and ladybugs didn’t surprise him, but the resumes did. What did he know about farming anyway? He’d worked on his uncle’s tobacco farm only because he had to, but when college brochure time had come around, he’d tossed into the trash any pamphlet with Ag or Tech or State on the front. He’d wanted to toss all the applications for North Carolina colleges in the trash, too, but money had been short. In the end, a degree from Carolina and the connections of a fraternity brother had gotten him to D.C. and a congressman’s office and that was enough. He realized he was staring at an invoice for strawberry plants—probably had been doing so for a while. He shook his head, tossed the invoice into the box and then placed the laptop in last, weighing down the pile of papers.
The table cleared, he went to the kitchen to help Max with the plates.
“I hope egg salad is okay,” she said, as she handed him a plate and a mug of tea.
“Egg salad is great.” The plate was brimming with food. The egg salad and some lettuce was on wheat bread, cut diagonally, he noticed with a smile. Also on the plate were apple slices, a pickle and a pile of potato chips. Despite the oddness of drinking hot tea with his lunch, Trey was grateful for it. Max’s cabin wasn’t cold, but it was cool. And it was one of those odd North Carolina days when the inside was colder than the outside.
Their plates each made different clinks when they touched her small table and Trey noticed they were mismatched. So were the mugs. Max got back up to get them some water and returned with mason jars, rather than regular water glasses. He took another look around the barn. There was not a doodad or tchotchke in sight. Judging by her residence, Max had no patience for pretense and no interest in owning things that didn’t have a use. Everything was well cared for, but nothing was fussy. Even the dog, who had been fixin’ to get up from his bed before a look from Max settled him back down, probably had a job.
“Thank you for the reassurance about the house,” Max said before taking a bite of her sandwich. “Clearly, I had expected to live in the barn this summer, but having it to offer for housing will make finding seasonal help easier.”
“I have no interest in ever living back on the farm and I’m sure Kelly doesn’t, either. And the house does us no good standing empty. Kelly and I will take a week to pack up and store anything personal, then you can move in.”
He took a bite of his sandwich. The egg salad was rich with mayonnaise and the yolks were the bright orange of the eggs he remembered eating as a child, when his mother had raised hens. “Do you have chickens?” he asked, a little embarrassed that he didn’t know what Max grew, other than vegetables.
“They were Hank’s. After we finished renovating the barn, he had some leftover wood. There’s a little chicken coop on the other side of the house, built to look like a tobacco barn.” Her smile must be at the thought of the chickens; it couldn’t be at the memory of his father. “It’s cute.”
Trey tried to imagine his father designing a cute chicken coop and got a headache. He also couldn’t imagine his father wanting chickens. Trey, Kelly and his mother had built the original chicken coop after his father’s response to his mother wanting hens had been, “You want ’em, you gotta work for ’em.” Kelly and Trey had gone with their mother to pick up the chicks from a nearby farm, and though Trey had pretended to be too old and too manly at thirteen for anything cute, he still remembered having to repress a giggle at the sight of the cheeping biddies. His father, however, had never once referred to the chickens without the adjectives “smelly” or “dirty.” He’d also never once turned down fried eggs or a slice from one of his mother’s delicious sour-cream pound cakes.
<
br /> “I’m sorry about your father,” Max said. Her tone held the same sharp honesty of her stare and Trey wondered if she meant it or was the best liar on the planet. He decided to give her credit for honesty.
“I’m only sorry he didn’t sell you the land before he killed himself. Seems like that’s the only thing you should be sorry about, too.”
It was eerie, watching those short, pale lashes lower over her light eyes. Trey almost felt like he’d said something he shouldn’t have. Almost.
They finished the rest of their meal in silence.
* * *
MAX APPRECIATED BOTH Trey’s help carrying the dishes to the sink and his quick exit. She didn’t know how to respond to the anger simmering under the surface of his skin. Hank hadn’t been a paragon of anything, but he at least deserved for his children to be sad at his death.
She scrubbed the plates and stacked them in the small dish drainer. The winter season was slow on the farm, but she had to finish plotting out her fields before the spring vegetables went into the ground. And she must make sure she had enough wax boxes in stock for when the Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, began. And arrange for the intern candidates to visit. She’d been about to send those email invitations when Hank had died, then she’d wanted to wait until she’d met Trey.
Of course, she thought as she folded the kitchen towel and hung it off the oven, she could still lose the farm for the summer. She didn’t think Trey’s promises could to be trusted. She would have to go on with her work as though everything was normal and be prepared to stand tall when everything came crashing down about her feet.
But starting the broccoli in the greenhouse would have to wait until tomorrow, since she’d wasted the morning in useless, irritated shooting and would need to spend some of the precious daylight picking up shell casings. Her irritation with herself for wasted hours would last until she turned the week in her calendar and didn’t have to look at “shot Pepsi cans” as her record for daily farm duties. Maybe if she added “made lunch for new landlord” to it, the day wouldn’t look so wasted on paper.
When she’d asked Hank what happened to the will and he’d said, “I’ve taken care of it, sugar,” she should’ve pressed him for more details. Her morning spent in target practice had been as much a reaction to her own stupidity as to not knowing what Hank had meant by taken care of it.
She whistled and Ashes eased his old bones out of his bed, stretched, then finally wagged his tail. The old dog wasn’t ready to retire from farmwork yet, but this might be his last season. The geese were starting to get the best of the old dog. She wished he could live out the rest of his days in a farmhouse with central heat rather than the often too-cold barn. She opened the door and together they set out for their respective jobs in the fields.
* * *
“SO YOU MET MAX, huh?” Kelly had let himself into the house without bothering to knock. Which was fair, Trey supposed, since their father should have left the house and all the land to both of them, though Trey would bet the farm that the old man hadn’t. The old man’s prejudices coming in strong, even in the end.
Kelly set bags of Bullock’s barbecue on the counter and the smell of vinegar, smoke and pork filled the kitchen. Trey was happy to see the food, even though he had no idea what they were going to do with all the leftover barbecue, especially with whatever food would be brought by the house tomorrow. “She’s pretty neat.”
When Trey opened the containers, it was the first moment since arriving that he was happy to be in North Carolina. Kelly had brought over barbecue, slaw, Brunswick stew, collards, butterbeans and a greasy bag of hush puppies. As Trey loaded his plate until his wrist nearly collapsed from the weight, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten so well.
“She—” Trey put the emphasis on the pronoun “—is not what I expected. I mean, Dad couldn’t find a man to lease the land to?”
“What, you leave the big city and all of a sudden women have their proper place and it ain’t anywhere outside the kitchen?”
“No, but Dad...”
“Calm down, Trey. I’m mostly just funnin’ you. Everyone but Dad was surprised when Max the farmer turned out to be Maxine the farmer. Max was Mom’s choice.”
That Mom would pick a woman to lease the farm to made sense. However... “I didn’t know they had been planning this since before Mom died.”
“What you don’t know about the farm could fill the Dean Dome. Mom has always been on Dad’s case to do something useful with the land. He finally said he’d agree to whatever her plan was if she did the legwork.” He’d probably capitulated so his wife would shut up and just bring him another beer—much the same way he’d agreed to the first chicken coop. “When she was diagnosed, she sped up her plans a little. The lease with Max was signed two weeks before Mom died.
“That’s gross, you know.”
“What?” Trey asked as Kelly pointed to his plate, where he’d mixed his slaw and barbecue into one sloppy, hot-sauce–topped mess. “I’ve been eating my barbecue this way since we were kids.”
“It was gross then and it’s gross now.” There might as well be force fields separating the food on Kelly’s plate. Even the pot likker from the collards didn’t dare seep across the expanse of white into the slaw.
“I guess I’m surprised Max is still here.” Even though Kelly was in the room, Trey said the words more to himself than to anyone else.
“You mean that Dad kept his promise to Mom or that he didn’t drive Max away by calling her his ‘lady farmer’?”
Trey winced. How had their father been able to withstand Max’s frank, cutting gaze and still say the words lady farmer aloud? “Both, I guess.”
Kelly’s look was somewhere between pity and disgust. “I’m sorry it took Dad’s passing to get you to come back to the farm.”
CHAPTER THREE
TREY WAS ASLEEP when the first knock came on the front door. He pulled on some pants and a sweater then stumbled down the stairs to see who was there. Whoever it was hadn’t stopped knocking for even a second. His aunt Lois stood on the front porch, a dish balanced on her left arm as she knocked with her right fist. He didn’t even have a chance to wish her a good morning before she sailed past him into the house and wove her way to the kitchen.
He thought about stopping her, but no man had stopped Lois Harris since the day she was born a Mangum over fifty years ago, and he was unlikely to be the first. When he caught up to her, she was standing in front of the open fridge, shuffling take-out containers of barbecue around.
“I expected it of you,” she said into the fridge, “though your brother should’ve known better. Noreen raised y’all both to know better.”
Trey wasn’t entirely certain what he and Kelly had done—or failed to do.
The brine-only pickle jars Aunt Lois pulled out of the fridge clinked on the metal edge of the old, laminate counter. “Honestly, did Hank think he would break a nail throwin’ out empty bottles?” She pulled other empty jars and bottles out of the fridge, shuffled more stuff around before declaring the fridge as good as it was gonna get and slamming the door. She must have left the beer cans in the fridge because all that was on the counter were empty mustard bottles with a heavy layer of crust around the lip.
“Aunt Lois, what are you doing?”
The counter was now covered in trash from the fridge and his aunt was opening random drawers and pawing around.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” She didn’t even look up when she said it.
Digging through Dad’s stuff, he thought, though he had the smarts not to say that. When she found a trash bag and the jars crashed into the bag with one big sweep of her arm, Trey had a partial answer. His aunt Lois was going to clean the farmhouse. But why?
“Go out to my car and get the tea I’ve ready-made. People will be coming by f
or visitation in four hours. If you and Kelly had the sense God gave a mule, you would’ve cleaned this house yesterday.”
No wonder his brother had smirked when he’d said it was Trey’s responsibility to get ready for the visitation, that he had a project to work on and couldn’t take the entire day off.
“Lord in Heaven! Henry William Harris the Third, don’t just stand there. Get!” She made a shooing motion with her entire body. “And get my cleaning supplies while you’re at it.”
Taking a detour up the stairs to put on shoes felt devious after Aunt Lois’s clear instructions, but he needed to take a piss and get something on his feet before going outside. When he returned to the kitchen with a box full of jugs of tea and buckets of cleaning supplies, the hands on his aunt’s hips made it clear he’d dawdled.
“I found your daddy’s supplies, though Lord only knows how old some of this stuff is. Take a bucket and broom and start with the upstairs bedrooms. I’ll work down here.”
“Aunt Lois, I doubt we will have many people show up.” If Trey had been looking for excuses not to come to his father’s funeral, surely everyone else in the county was, too. “And even if we do, no one is going to see the upstairs.”
“We may not have time to give this house the scrubbing it needs, but we can dust shelves, sweep floors and make beds before everyone gets here.” As far as his aunt was concerned, if she didn’t want to hear the words, they hadn’t been said. When he didn’t move, she shoved a broom into his one hand and a bucket into the other. “I’m not your mama or your wife and I won’t do this alone. You either respect Noreen’s memory by making her house tidy for company, or I go home.”
Still feeling as if he were putting lipstick on a pig for a fair no one would come to, Trey plodded upstairs and began cleaning. Out the window of Kelly’s room—which was dusty and full of crap his brother should have thrown away or taken to his own home years ago—he saw Max load something into her truck and drive off into the fields. Dark clouds bullied away the nice weather of yesterday, but that didn’t seem to be stopping the farmer. He wondered what she was doing and why? More important, he wished he could watch her work and admire the swift, purposeful movements he had seen yesterday translated from shooting Pepsi cans to growing food.
Weekends in Carolina Page 2
