by Lacey Silks
How did they manage to do that with no wings?
The banging was beginning to hurt my head and finally pulled me out of the water like a crane, right into the king-sized bed I was sleeping in.
“It’s too early,” I whined, turning in the twisted sheets.
“Come on, pretty lady. You’ve been locked up here, studying for days. It’s time to relax.”
“Derek?” I wiped the crust from the corners of my eyes. It’d been a long time since I’d slept hard enough to have gunk there. Usually I’d wipe them a few times through the night as free tears fell. I didn’t cry last night at all.
“They gotta eat.”
“Who’s gotta eat?” I mumbled.
“Your pigs.”
Oh no! The day I’d dreaded had finally come. I’d been promising Derek to help with the pigs each day, but he never insisted, and I got out of the work like a weasel.
“Please, Derek. Can you do it for me? I need to study.”
“No more excuses, Annabelle. You promised you’d help. I’ll give you the afternoon to study. Do you know how long it takes to feed fifty pigs?”
I can imagine.
“You either come out or I’m coming in, even if you ain’t wearing anything.”
I looked down at my sleepwear, laughing his threat off. “All right, all right. I’m coming.”
I pulled the covers off, wobbled out of bed, and dragged my feet forward, forcing them toward the door. A crisp beam of morning light hit my eyes on the way, and I had to shut them for a moment.
“Come in,” I said before I reached the door. It swung open, and I was greeted by the sexiest freshly shaven farmer I’d ever seen in my life. Except that he wasn’t wearing overalls or a straw hat. Derek’s faded jeans, suitable for work in Ogden, would have cost a fortune back in San Francisco. It was a wonder the amount of money people in big cities were willing to pay for a worn-out style. Derek looked as amazing as I could have imagined. The stereotypical checkered shirt and worn-out jeans belonged on a calendar of mouth-watering hunks. His broad shoulders stretched the clothing, and the top three buttons were opened probably more for comfort than the sexy look they’d added.
He was the epitome of a morning person, and my next thought was regret that I didn’t choose to meet him for breakfast the way he’d asked me to last night. Yes, that was bitchy of me. I was the most ungrateful brat living on earth, but I was afraid if I got any closer to Derek, I wouldn’t be able to let him go after I’d left for San Francisco. And that would have been torture. The longer I kept our distance, the easier it would be to leave and the less chance I’d have of hurting him.
Seeing him all fresh and ready I wondered whether I should have changed first. Suddenly self-aware, I pulled my arms in front of my sweatshirt, desperate to cover myself. I really had been behaving like a hibernating bear the past few days.
He reached forward and yanked the hood off my head.
“A sweatshirt is definitely not the sleepwear I imagined you in.” The huskiness in his voice curled through me as I swallowed the gross morning saliva. My hand flew to my mouth, covering it, hoping it’d be enough to stop my morning breath from greeting him.
“I didn’t have the strength to change last night. Gimme a sec.” I squeezed past him toward the bathroom.
“Don’t city girls need hours to get ready?” His voice followed me as I made my way through the hallway.
“Not this city girl. I’ll meet you outside?”
“Sure thing, Annabelle. And if you think of locking yourself up again, I promise to come back here and knock these doors down if I have to.”
“No, I promised I’d help. Five minutes.”
“I’ll be downstairs—with a fresh cup of coffee waiting for you.”
Just the mention of caffeine jolted me awake. I quickly brushed my teeth and changed into a T-shirt and jeans, and ten minutes later I met him outside. Derek waited for me by my truck, watching something in the distance. His shadow stretched along the yellow grass covered by some of the morning mist, and I wondered how long it would take for rain to bless this town. He handed me a cup of coffee and a raspberry muffin.
“Mom baked these for us this morning,” he said.
“She was here?”
“No, I passed by her house on my morning jog.”
“What time did you get up?”
“Five.” He looked at his watch. “And we’re already behind schedule.”
I cringed. I hadn’t seen five o’clock in the morning on a watch in years.
Derek opened the door, saying, “Let’s go, pretty lady.”
I wasn’t sure why, but when he called me that, it made me feel special. He’d had a way of making me feel important since the day I returned to Ogden.
As soon as we pulled up to the barn, the pigs began their morning grunt. Their greeting ritual was identical to when my father used to feed them. As a little girl, I’d come out here with him all the time.
A cold chill passed over me. I missed him so much. We were planning on visiting the hospital again tomorrow. The doctors had said they’d begin taking him out of the coma. He could be awake within days.
“Are you all right?” Derek asked.
I looked around the familiar-yet-different surroundings. At my request, the spot where my home used to stand had been bulldozed over with fresh soil. Only the barn, the sty, and the old house in the back remained. I shivered.
“Yes. It will take some time to adjust to all this.”
“That’s where Blake’s planning to build the house.” Derek pointed to beyond a tree line. “You’d know if you came out of the room. Everyone’s worried about you, Annabelle. And so am I.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve just had a lot of studying.”
“How’s that going?
“Good. I think I’m ready.”
“Does that mean you may find some time to relax?” he asked. I couldn’t help but return his genuine smile.
“Maybe.” I’d been repeating the course material to the point where I was beginning to recite it in my sleep. Maybe Derek was right, and perhaps a little break would help.
“Here.” He lowered a pair of galoshes out of the back of my truck, set them in front of me, then removed his shoes to put on a pair as well. “I wouldn’t want these city sneakers to get dirty while we’re shoveling.”
“Thanks... wait. What do you mean ‘shovelling’? I thought we were going to feed them.”
Derek strolled toward the barn. I quickly jumped out of my sneakers and put on the rubber boots. As soon as he opened the monstrous door, the strong smell of concentrated farm manure slammed into me.
“Do you like to eat in poop?” he asked.
I plugged my nose, pinching it tight. Then the thought of what he’d said hit me, and I realized I’d rather be smelling it than having it enter my lungs through my mouth, and so I lowered my hand. I did not remember them smelling this bad.
“This is not poop.” I pointed. “Babies make poop. And so do kittens, or even birds. This”—I pointed again—“is disgusting.”
“If it’s not poop, then what do you call it?” He smirked, guiding in a wheelbarrow.
“Manure.” I followed him in. The sound of the grunts and annoyingly ear-piercing squeaking became louder with each step. I didn’t remember them being this loud when my father took care of them. Either I had really changed and city life penetrated my bones, or these pigs had an attitude that lived up to their name. Did they not feed them enough? Or were they simply pigs?
“Ah, come on. Say it. Just once I want to hear you say it. You’re trying to be city tough all the time, but you can’t say shit.”
I laughed out loud. Why was he making such a big deal about me swearing all the time? That’s not the way I was raised, and he knew it.
“You’re silly,” I said, trying to figure out where to start. Didn’t they have these automated things where the pigs business was carried away on a conveyor belt? I was sure I’d heard my father talking
about it once.
“I’m right, Annabelle.” He stepped closer and lowered his head. His nose was inches away from mine, and as much as I wanted to inhale his intoxicating scent, I was afraid not even that could camouflage the pig’s stench. “Say shit.”
“You’re obsessed.”
That challenging look in his eyes made it that much more difficult for me to argue and prove him wrong.
“Fine.” I let out a long breath and closed my eyes. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. Shit. Happy now?” I clenched my fists and felt my cheeks heat with unwarranted embarrassment. Maybe it wasn’t my style to swear after all. Now that I had, I was sure it definitely did not make me feel well. Or maybe it was the manure diluting in my brain.
He just shook his head and dug his pitchfork into the mix of “poop” and straw. I removed my bandana from my head, tied it around my neck, and pulled it up to cover my nose as the smell of disturbed “shit” intensified. I dug in, the way Derek had, and the flies that had been resting on their feast at my feet began to swarm around my head.
“Is this done every day?” I yelled over the shrieks.
“No,” he howled back. “They’re actually cleaner than people think and keep their business away from their food. But even pigs need a good cleaning once in a while. Besides, the buyers are coming in a few days, and I want them to present themselves.”
If I never heard a pig grunt again, I’d be the happiest woman alive. Yet as I worked through the manure, piling it on the wheelbarrow, I found an odd comfort. With each step forward as progress was made, a sense of self-pride and satisfaction swelled in my chest. When a fresh gust of wind blew through the sty, a peaceful feeling passed over me. Soon enough, I got lost in the memories of our happy times here: me and Eric running around the farm, barefoot; Blake throwing the heads of burdock weed into my clothes; Liz, my other good friend, coming over to bake cookies with me and Mom. For that moment, it felt like all these things happened only yesterday, and for the first time since I’d returned, I wholeheartedly missed Ogden and its tightly knit community.
My gaze flew up to Derek. How in the world did he get this far ahead? I originally doubted we’d be able to get through all this in an hour, but at the pace he was going, Derek’s muscles were getting a workout without letting me break a sweat.
He stood up straight from the work as if sensing me and turned around. “You all right?” he asked.
“I can’t wait until these pigs are gone. This is definitely much harder than I remembered.”
“Friday your wish will come true.” He lifted the wheelbarrow by its handles and rolled it toward me, setting it to the side. “You know, I’m not sure whether you remember, but your father used to run this farm without the pigs and everything was fine. It will be fine again, Annabelle. Do you even know why he bought the first pig?”
“No. But it sounds like you do.”
“My father and I joined your father to help with the crop-sale load. You were about three at the time. He lifted you up onto a pig at the market, and you rode it around the circle, screaming, ‘I want a piggy, Daddy. I want a piggy,’” he said in a higher tone. “Your father laughed so hard that at your request he bought not just the one that he was planning, but three sows and one boar. From that day they procreated, and your father continued raising them, selling the young ones when they reached their weight.”
“I think I remember that day.”
I also remembered all the days I watched him work in this sty with pride. Neither the smells nor the amount of time it took my father to work with the pigs bothered me, or him, or my mother. Most of all, I remembered each time the cute little piglets were born. It was one of the fondest memories I had.
“He did it for you, Annabelle.”
Suddenly, the prospect of the pigs being gone wasn’t as uplifting as it was a few minutes ago. And if Derek had told me that he could read my mind, I would believe him.
“Annabelle, they’re just pigs. Your father wouldn’t be able to take care of them now, and I’m sure you don’t want to, either. And in a year, they’ll be the perfect size for slaughter.”
I dropped the pitchfork and my hands flew up to cover my ears. Derek belted out a laugh loud enough to penetrate my hearing. His muscles shook underneath his shirt. Soon after, his lips started moving again.
“Please don’t say slaughtered,” I said through the hum in my ears, slowly taking my hands away.
“Annabelle, what do you think they were meant for? As pets?”
“Well, the little tiny ones are so cute. I wouldn’t mind a pet pig, just not a big one.” When I looked into a pair of round eyes and heard a pig grunt toward me as if saying Save me, I cringed. “Look, I just chose not to think about them as food.”
“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”
“No. In fact, I love bacon.”
He sighed. “And you think I say the wrong things? Come on, pretty lady, let’s keep going.”
I dug into the manure, shoving it up onto the wheelbarrow Derek had emptied. It was my third round of filling one up, but he had done four times as much as I had. Outside, I finally removed the bandana off my head. “Yuck, I’m gonna have to bathe in tomato juice afterwards.”
“An interesting image.” Derek had that look on his face as if he was actually picturing me doing so. “But I don’t think it would help. Water?” He handed me a bottle.
“Thank you.” I gulped until my stomach filled. The sun was nearing its highest point, and I’d felt as if we’d been working for hours. Once we dispensed the pig food, I changed into my sneakers and looked toward our old house. “Do you really think you can fix it?”
Sweat dripped off Derek’s forehead. Most of his checkered shirt was covered in wet patches and if it weren’t for the inconsiderate flies, it would make much more sense to work without a shirt—especially in this heat.
“Do you doubt me, Annabelle?” He took a step closer. The smell of his sweat was much more pleasing than the manure.
“No, of course not,” I whispered.
“Are you afraid of me getting too close to you?”
“No,” I lied.
He stuck the pitchfork into the heap at the side of the barn. “I wouldn’t hurt you if my life depended on it, Annabelle, and I can’t wait to see the day that you trust me. Wanna see the house?”
I wasn’t afraid of Derek, but I did fear hurting him. If Rick ever found out I lived here instead of Derek’s parents’ house, he’d flip. “Of course,” I replied.
We walked the narrow path to the abandoned home. I reached under the pot at the side of the porch for the extra key, pulling my hand back as if I’d been burnt. A bushy spider crawled from underneath it.
“You get it,” I whispered.
Without hesitation, Derek grasped the key. The spider slid down its string and ran away. Derek turned the key in the lock, and the door opened with ease. I expected the hinges to squeak at least, but they hadn’t. Maybe my imagination about the age of this house has been working overtime?
We stepped inside, and the smell of dust and cobwebs wafted around me. Dust motes lifted in the gentle breeze, flying into the patches of light streaming through the dirty windows. Most of the place was empty, much different than I remembered from when I was younger. I’d always thought it would be filled with boxes and items my parents no longer had use for, but I guess they moved most of it to the new house.
I followed the footsteps visible on the dirt floor further inside. Apparently, Derek had been here each day, planning out his renovations. As I passed by the threshold into the living room, my breath caught in my lungs. There on the side wall were faded pencil lines with my and Eric’s names and dates. My mother used to make us stand there every few months so that we could be measured. Now that I paid more attention to the dates, I noted they were in six-month increments.
I bit my lip, feeling my heart palpitate and breaths shorten. A gentle touch of Derek’s hands on my shoulders startled me. “Some good memories
in this house,” I said.
“Of course there are. This is the only house I remember you living in. I think I left for Haiti a few months after the new one was built.”
I walked toward the kitchen. The blue cupboards were a bit paler. The stale air was getting hotter the further in I walked, and I opened the kitchen window. “This place is not as bad as I thought.”
“It definitely has potential. Why did you tell Eric you didn’t want it in your name?”
Crap! He remembered. “When was that?” I pretended to not have a clue what he was talking about.
“Just before you ran off looking for the bathroom at the hospital. You know, the one on a different floor? What’s going on with you, Annabelle?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head.
“All right, let me put it differently then. What if I tell you a secret? One that no one, not even my family, knows. Will you open up then?”
My inquisitive mind was already working through how I could get his secret without spilling mine. “You have a secret?” I asked.
“Yes, I do. One with huge consequences if anyone finds out. Will you trust me then?”
I sat down on an old sofa covered with a dusty sheet. A puff of dirt floated upward, hanging in the air like a cloud. I couldn’t bluff. I wouldn’t make him tell me his secrets if I couldn’t share mine.
“Derek, I do trust you. And I appreciate you sharing your home with me and helping me so much. But my life is much more complicated than it seems. I just can’t get too close to anyone. I’ll end up hurting them.”
“Why, Annabelle? Is there someone else in your life? I know you heard me speak with Eric. I did check up on you in San Francisco, and I saw you leaving the bar with a guy. Was he important? Is that why you’re so distant?”
My eyes welled up. Derek had seen Rick after all, and I wondered whether he’d seen what that bastard was capable of. At times, I was grateful that I’d kept my own apartment. And while I didn’t have to live with him, Rick could drop by at any moment. One weekend I pretended not to be home. He parked outside my door for two days until I was forced to leave for work. I lied that I was sick in bed and didn’t hear him banging on my door, but of course he didn’t believe me. I couldn’t go out for a week after that day—in fact, for the first few days after he’d had his way with me, I didn’t think I’d ever see daylight again.
