Tribulations

by Richard Thomas

  In the beginning, she thought it was just part of her education. No school anymore, so Grandpa would toss out math questions, give her writing assignments, talk to her about history, and even human anatomy. It used to be exams at the kitchen table—stethoscope on her bony chest where breasts refused to grow—seemed she’d always been twelve years old. He’d look in her eyes and make noises, humming to himself, muttering okay and yes and just fine as he looked in her nose, checked out her sinuses, made her stick out her tongue.

  He didn’t start taking her out to the barn until her incident with the fingers. She came to him as he sat in the recliner, a book in his lap. Father was nowhere to be found. And if Rebecca had probed her memories, she’d find that to be very accurate—at first. She was pale as a sheet, sweat running down her face, the fingers on her right hand bent back and sideways at strange angles—no blood, merely broken bones, bent fingers.

  “Grandpa?” she said, “Grandpa, help me, help me…something’s wrong.”

  He leaped out of his seat, the book falling to the floor, Sadie sitting up, always the same weight, always black, her muzzle never getting gray, barking at the sudden movement and Rebecca’s panicked voice.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” he said, rushing to her, as she stared down at her mangled hand, holding it gingerly but feeling no pain, sick to her stomach, and yet, no blood gushed forth. He put his hands on her shoulders.

  “It’s okay, I can fix it, I can splint it,” he said.

  She felt his hands on her neck, her shoulders, pressing down, as if searching for something, and then she fainted.

  When she woke up her right hand was in a cast.

  “It’s okay, honey,” her grandfather said. “It wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought. A few fingers were merely jammed, two fractured, but I set them right. You should be okay. Any pain?” he asked.

  Rebecca shook her head. There was no pain, none at all. She sat up on the cold metal table and looked around the barn. Sadie jumped up and placed her front paws on the steel table, licking Rebecca’s bare leg.

  And then, her father was around more. Suddenly he was a dominant presence on the farm—always keeping an eye on her, chopping wood, feeding the chickens, no longer the ghost or rumor that he used to be. Used to be, she’d think. She searched her memory for her father—she saw him driving away in a beige sedan, a salesman she thought, the letters popping up in her head like a neon sign. Then she saw him with a briefcase, walking in the front door. She saw him place airline tickets on the kitchen table and pour himself a cup of coffee. Yes, she saw her father well.

  After the accident, she would meet Grandpa in the barn on a monthly basis, but only when her father was out cutting the grass or running the thresher. Her grandfather said it was because he had to run tests, diagnostics he called them, make sure everything was working right, and that it was okay for a doctor, for him now, but not in front of her father—he wouldn’t understand. It always made her sleepy, lying on the table. He poked and prodded, mostly by her head, always studying her eyes, what he called optics, when he muttered to himself. He was gentle, always gentle, and by the time his hands were on her shoulders, her head, she’d fallen asleep.

  The questions certainly didn’t make Rebecca’s father feel included, the way she and Grandpa would talk in the living room, math and science, complex equations and theorems, always going quiet when her father came into the room. They would laugh, and say that he had plenty of education already, go milk the cows, they’d chuckle, go toss some hay around, and they’d both make muscles, flex them, and her father would scowl, and leave the room. He never had a good sense of humor.

  Her father was a quiet man, a big guy, strong and silent, a bit of a worker bee, she used to think to herself. Grandpa would say that he was so grateful her father was around more—now that he was getting old, and she could see it in his eyes, his hair and beard sprouting more white every day, the way his skin wrinkled, and the spots by his wrists. She worried about him. But it gave Rebecca comfort to see her father outside in the yard, splitting timber, lugging buckets of water or slop, bales of hay tossed around as if they were nothing, a downed tree cut and cut and split, only the trunk left, a chain attached, a tractor pulling it, and then his massive arms wrapping around the roots, pulling it out and lifting it up, as if it were made of paper.

  All it took was one time, one instance of her walking out of the barn buttoning up her blouse, and her father’s scowl turned into rage. She heard them yelling, Grandpa assuring him it was science, there were no doctors now, he was the only mind they had, that he was just making sure Rebecca was healthy. Her father wasn’t very trusting—almost simple at times. She’d seen him cry over a dead rabbit that had been gutted by a fox, holding the creature in his lap, rocking back and forth, so distraught. It had upset Rebecca—not the dead rabbit, it was just nature after all, but him, he had upset her, his reaction. No emotion, never laughing, never joking, never singing or dancing when Grandpa put on some music, but this—crying over the rabbit. It made no sense to her.

  So she stood in the kitchen, and watched her father bury the old man, Sadie licking her hand. She was suddenly tired, her batteries run down, and so she went to her bedroom, and lay down on the floral sheets, staring out the window at the setting sun, orange turning to red, so tired, so sad. Maybe Grandpa had been sick after all, one percent of one percent of one percent.

  She closed her eyes and replayed the scene at the kitchen table, her Grandpa holding her hand, trying to explain something to her, what was out in the barn, frozen and kept for a reason. He spoke about her as if she were two entirely separate people—and he spoke of her father the same way. He talked about her mother, and when he said the word mother a jolt went through Rebecca, a wave of confusion crashing in her head—and where there should have been memories, nothing. He said he’d fix everything, in time. But he was getting old, he needed help, the work he’d done wouldn’t last forever—the radio signal must be stronger. He spoke of amplifiers and how they might have to travel, all the while holding her hand, and yet, all she could do was stare at him—mother. It didn’t add up, didn’t compute. Why had she never asked about her mother, why was there nothing to cling to, no memory? Her father had walked in and stood by the door, his face an eternal frown.

  The day after her grandfather had talked to her in earnest, trying to explain that they were running out of time, she lay in bed, not wanting to get up, a candle burning on her desk, vanilla and sandalwood drifting to the ceiling. Images of her mother came rushing back to her—hanging laundry on a clothesline outside, her auburn tresses flowing in the wind, her mother with an apron full of eggs, coming from the chicken coop, her mother singing a lullaby as she poured water over Rebecca’s head in the bath, smiling as she did it.

  “In time,” her grandfather had said, standing in the doorway. “Give me time. I’ll make it all whole again, I promise.”

  But now he was gone. Rebecca felt weak and unable to rise. On the floor by her bed, Sadie slept, hardly moving at all. Rebecca could feel the great shadow of her father in the doorway—standing there, silent.

  “Dad?” Rebecca asked, tears in her eyes. “Dad, come here.”

  The big man lumbered over, Sadie not even raising her head.

  “Tell me about my mother. I can hardly picture her. What happened, where did she go?”

  He sighed and placed his hand over hers.

  ‘I don’t know, honey.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I don’t remember.”

  Rebecca stared at him, as she felt the energy draining out of her body.

  “What do you remember?” she asked.

  Her father sat there, arms heavy, his head hanging low, a soft whirring sound filling the air, his frame suddenly growing weak, the room dark and quiet.

  “What’s the first thing you remember? Go back as far as you can, what’s your first memory?” Rebecca asked.

  Her father stared at the floor, the gear
s turning, trying to think back, to remember, something from his childhood. He held her hand, no longer warm, cool to the touch.

  “I remember a little red wagon,” he said, and she nodded. “And inside it are a bunch of puppies—little black bundles of fur.”

  Rebecca closed her eyes, two tears slipping out, as her chest moved up and down, slowly, and then, not at all.

  “They’d been born on the farm and I was taking them down to the end of the driveway, there were six of them, and we were going to give them away. Somebody told me I could keep the last one, but only the last one. Who was that?” he asked the room. But there was no response—it remained silent.

  He held his daughter’s hand, now cold, the black lab at his feet not stirring, the house around him closing in, the silence deafening.

  “What have I done?” he asked.

  Asking For Forgiveness

  We stand at the edge of the ancient forest, yellow blurry eyes weeping with sickness, as a cool breeze pushes through the leaves, the light flickering in the cabin, as the day starts to slip away. We are more than we were last month, double what was birthed last year, and none of us remember being upright—we stand on all four now as if this was how we were made.

  We watch the boy fill his bucket with sand, and then empty it, and then fill it again, sitting there with his short blonde hair and overalls, smacking his lips as we smack our warped mouths open and shut, not a care in the world, the lad, acres of dead land stretching out in every direction, her eyes on him from the kitchen, our eyes on him from the drifting shade.

  Lips cracking as our fetid grins widen, the teeth come out—sour saliva spilling onto the dirt path, our gangly limbs shaking, sores mottled with flies and squirming maggots, waiting for the right time to claim him as our own.

  The sun is descending, the moon slow to rise, and the boy still plays in the box, no sign of the change yet, a cough from him and he stands up slowly, thumb in his mouth, rubbing at his eyes with tiny fists, falling back down, and then gradually tipping over.

  The screen door creaks open and she wipes her long, slender fingers on the stained, faded apron, a stray strand of yellow hair tucked back as she steps outside, slow to approach him, humming something under her breath, hoping the boy is tired, not shifting, hoping that the movement she sees in the encroaching woods is nothing more than the fluttering wind, her sigh in unison, the boy merely asleep.

  We murmur mother, but her gaze only touches the edge of the yard, before darting away.

  We must bide our time now, we were too early it seems, so we retreat to the cave, where one by one she brought us, hand in hand, down a long, winding path, thorny branches reaching out, nipping at our bare, mottled flesh. For each of us it was a secret, something she whispered to us in the middle of the night, her vanilla lavender lips on our foreheads, her promises and apologies falling on deaf, damaged ears. She was our mother, and we were her children. We trusted her when we were submerged in the bath—soap bubbles and laughter, pushing our heads under, but then lifting us back up. Her tears were tears of joy, we thought—she always brought us back up into the light, up out of the water. She never kept us under. Perhaps those hesitations, those extra seconds, went unnoticed.

  On the nights when the moon filled the sky and the windows leaked light, she would open the creaking door and slip away for hours on end. What were we to think? She always had something to do—water from the well, fruit from the bent apple tree, down on her knees in the garden, pulling and grunting, basket over one arm, basket over the other, knife in the kitchen slicing, boiling water, oil heating, a slip here and there, a gasp and a red trickle, but these are the ways of the land. Nothing here was foreign.

  The berries on the other side of the hill, sometimes strawberries, sometimes blue, her hair filled with twigs, the scratches up and down her arms most definitely from thorns, not him, the clothes drying on the line, her delicates, never dotted with blood, it must be the berries, we told ourselves. What did we know? We were babies, then—still babies now.

  In the cave we snap at each other, and then huddle in the middle, pressed up against each other, for warmth, for companionship, out of habit, and memory, as we hope for something more. Perhaps tomorrow we will stop the cycle—or perhaps she will bring him here, the coward that she is.

  Our father was a rumor, an echo, something only to be seen out of the corner of your eye. Our father was a woodsman, arms like tree limbs, beard as if born from bear, disappearing for days, for weeks, returning with so many things—tiny bird skulls, beads on a string, flowers for mother with purple blossoms and veiny leaves. The wood was stacked along one side of the cabin as high as it could go, the steady chop, the split of the timber, just part of the day, or so we were told. Our father was the cold creek that ran south of our home, filled with silver-backed fish with blood-orange meat, whispering every time we neared it, quenching our thirst, promises of sleepy peace if only we’d step a bit closer. Our father was the frosty moon that pasted the land with silence as our breath formed clouds of pain, feet bruised and bleeding, his laughter running over the mountain, guiding us down one ravine and up the other, wandering from hill to valley and back, some elusive destination always out of reach. Our father was time, stretched in every direction, elastic as a rubber band, as slow and anchored as a wall of granite, our eyes closing, waking up sore, grey where black had been. All lies. Everything she had ever told us was a lie. She never loved us, or it wouldn’t be like this.

  In the night there is a flash of silver, our father returned, and in the morning, I stand alone at the edge of the woods. I heard them crying, I saw him approach, his hand on each one of us, muttering kind words, his voice nearly forgotten, his muscled grip soothing, then choking, then ripping, the piercing of flesh, and my kin was held down, one by one, eyes wide open, and yet, disbelieving. I too, did not move, did not understand. Perhaps she had seen us, feared us, known what we planned to do, the bloodline destined to end by our teeth and claws and squinting eyes. Father would not allow it, he had returned with thunder and lightning and vengeance—a great rain pouring down outside, washing away our sins. I alone was spared, the eldest.

  Alone now, I’ve lost my way, finding it hard to leave the cave, until the stench grows so foul that I force myself to grab them, one by one, and drag their filthy bodies down the rocky path that spilled to the east, casting them over the edge of the mossy cliff, one by one, not looking down, not taking note, merely laboring on because questions still remained.

  Why me?

  Why any?

  With nothing left to do but watch and wait, I would wake when the sun pushed into the cave, and stumble down to the edge of the forest, smoke rising out of the stack, the woodpile never shrinking, something he could do right, and I would stare at her as she opened the creaking door, bucket of water tossed outside, a sigh and her hands on her back, bending backwards and moaning, taking a deep breath, swelling up again, the moon reaping its harvest. I wanted to hate her, as much as I wanted her praise—anything, any gesture at all, so hungry I was for even a scrap. Back inside and then out with a basket, laundry on the line, the boy stepping gingerly behind her, walking now, his head on a swivel, this way and that, sniffing the air, his hand reaching out for her hem, taller now, a twitch in his shoulders, scanning the land for what, I do not know.

  When she finally brings me the boy, I can see he is not well, this experiment she keeps trying, once again a disaster. He is naked, standing, but beginning to hunch over, his eyes a cream like spoiled milk, his lips distended, teeth pushing around his mouth in crooked horror, his hand in hers, as she stands there swelling, tears in her eyes, rubbing her mouth with the back of her hand, speaking my name. I had forgotten my name.

  Her hand is on my neck, rubbing, patting, petting, as she pleads with me to take care of him, to not grow bitter, to find it in my heart to welcome my brother into the woods, while she tries once again to find a cure. I do not hate her any longer, my mother, my beacon, for the land is
empty. My father continues his long walks in every direction—north into the cold, the winter and frost, fingers ruddy and numb; south into the dry heat, vultures, tumbleweeds and one false oasis after another.

  She will continue to try, in this barren wasteland to be the mother that no one else can be. She will not let us expire, this last great race, she will not let it all end with a whimper and a cough, a last gasp and shuddering sickness, she will swim in the water, she will kneel in the moonlight, she will pray to the lost gods, and bleed in her solitude, my father standing with his shadow cast out, darkness ever creeping, asking for forgiveness.

  Balance Sheet

  The day they came for my daughter was an ordinary day, the fields of soybeans full of lush greenery, the harvest soon to come, my retirement in full swing, Talia standing before me, angry with a red face, two men in gray jumpsuits trying to hold her still. She’d been like this for a few years now, her mother gone, possibly dead, always absent anyway, the birth never taking, the baby a shrieking alarm in her ears, until one day, she simply walked away. Unfathomable was the word I often muttered to myself, and it rattled around my skull today as I sat in my kitchen, a tiny house at the edge of the farm, a humble existence, the crop all mapped out, the plans set in motion, my years as an accountant come to an end. Talia stood tall, with her head shaved in defiance, her long black hair a distant memory, tied with a piece of string, and hidden in a drawer. But I loved my daughter, and would do anything for her, so of course I said yes—I would protect her today—that was my job, as her father, wasn’t it? And as a former CPA I have to admit that I checked off a little box in my head, this immediate idea of justice appealing to me in some way, balancing things out, accounts payable, accounts receivable. She was still a child, barely out of high school, still wandering in the world, looking for something. So, of course I said yes.