“Not right now. Went home to check on Concord. Poor dog’s feeling neglected.”
“Oh. Well. That’s nice of him.”
“Sure is. But then, he’s a nice guy.”
She wanted me to say something. I could feel it. So I did. “Give me a call in the morning if you need a ride home. I’ll be glad to come get you.”
She grunted. “Or have Lucy come get me, more like. Forget it. Bryan will take me home.”
“But if I—”
“Goodnight, Stella.” And she hung up.
Shit.
I put the phone back in its cradle and stood up. Blood rushed to my head, and I quickly sank back into the chair. The fuzziness in my head was soon replaced by the throbbing of my temples, and I opened a desk drawer to get some ibuprofen.
The bottle was empty.
I looked at the ceiling. Looked out the window. Blew my bangs off my forehead. And pushed myself back up to make the trek to the house.
Lucy was standing in the middle of a row of cows, her rag dripping soapy water back into the bucket as she watched me lumber through. Neither of us said anything.
Outside, Lenny and Tess were climbing onto his bike, helmets on. I hoped he’d wait to start it until my pounding head and I were behind the closed door of my house.
“You look like crap,” Lenny said.
“Gee, thanks.”
“Didn’t mean it bad. Need some help?”
I shook my head, then regretted it. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for coming over here for supper.”
“No problem. We always enjoy seeing you.”
Tess didn’t look so sure, but that could’ve been because I was wincing with each step.
I passed the bike and began the trek up the sidewalk. “I’ll see you guys soon.”
“Sure.” And he started the bike.
I went as fast as I could up the steps, but by the time I made it to the door he was already out the lane. I pushed my way inside and into the bathroom, where I found a partially filled bottle of painkillers. I downed the recommended dose and sank onto the sofa.
The sound of the door woke me, and I peered up at Lucy.
“Come on,” she said.
She half-lifted me off the sofa and helped me up the stairs, where she peeled Dr. Peterson’s sweatpants off of me, made sure I didn’t pass out in the bathroom, and tucked me into bed.
“Need anything else?”
I glanced at my nightstand to make sure the phone was on its cradle, and lay back on the pillow. “Nothing else.”
“All right. Call anytime. And don’t get up for milking in the morning. Zach and I will take care of it.”
I thought for a second she was going to kiss me goodnight, but better sense prevailed and she walked toward the door.
“Luce?”
She stopped.
“Thanks.”
She smiled, and was gone. Her footsteps were quiet on the stairs.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared to fall asleep.
But of course I couldn’t.
I counted sheep. I counted calves. I counted rows and rows of cornstalks, tassels blowing in the wind.
None of it worked.
I reached over, finally, and got the phone. I heard Nick pick up on the first ring, and started in before he could even say hello. “You’re never going to believe my day.”
So I told him. I told him about Carla being stuck in the hospital, I told him about Katherine’s office getting vandalized, I told him about Lucy’s defense of the still-unproven Bryan, and I told him about my broken foot. When I stopped to take a breath, he waited.
“I’m done,” I said.
I could almost feel his sigh of relief. “Sounds like it’s dangerous to be a woman up there these days. Maybe you’d be better off staying down here.”
My throat went dry, and the ibuprofen that had been working suddenly stopped. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, maybe so.”
He laughed quietly. “Just joking, Stella. You know that. It was just a joke.”
But jokes aren’t supposed to make your stomach hurt.
When I woke up I felt sort of like a new person. My clock said six forty-five and I struggled to remember the last time I’d slept in that late. Maybe Saturdays in junior high, when my mother was still alive and Howie took care of the milking. But thinking about Howie, whose death the previous summer had almost destroyed me, threatened to get my head back to hurting, so I pushed all thoughts of him from my mind.
I sat up carefully and eased my legs over the side of the bed. The worst throbbing was gone, but a dull ache had settled into my leg, and it seemed to weigh twice its familiar heft. My morning trip to the bathroom took more than its usual time, and I washed the best I could, since I didn’t feel up to waterproofing my cast yet. By the time I made it down to the kitchen for a bowl of Cheerios it was almost seven-thirty.
I hobbled out to the barn, my armpits sore from the last day’s pressure. Queenie trotted over and sniffed the crutches, in case they’d turned into something different overnight. I reached down and scratched her ears.
“Hey, how are you?” Lucy stood up beside Ariel.
I groaned. “Been better, been worse.”
Zach, squatting beside a cow further down the row, ignored me.
I shifted the crutches and leaned on them with my forearms, Queenie dancing away, as if the crutches had moved on their own. “Anything I can help with?”
This brought a snort from Zach, but Lucy smiled. “I don’t think so. Thanks, though.”
“Tess okay?”
“She’s at home with Lenny. He has to go into work today, but he said she can hang out at the store, at least for a while. Bart will be there, and she hasn’t gotten to spend time with him lately.”
Bart Watts, Lenny’s business partner at the Biker Barn, their Harley-Davidson store, had become “Uncle Bart” to Tess, and the two got along like they’d been playing together since her birth. He’d sworn to Lucy early on that he wouldn’t smoke around his new niece, and I was hoping it might be the catalyst for getting him off the habit. I wanted to keep him around as long as possible, and his promise to Lucy seemed like a good start.
I sank down onto a straw bale to watch Lucy and Zach work. There was always paperwork to be done in the office, but who wanted to do that that early in the morning? I sat for a while, but soon realized that watching other people milk wasn’t even close to the same experience as doing it myself. I tried to close my eyes and relax, breathing in the warm, homey smells of the cows, but at that close range it wasn’t very smart.
I pushed up from the bale and limped without my crutches over to the bulletin board to see what had been tacked up.
“Got a photo of the new calf already, I see. Thanks, Zach.”
He made some sort of noise, but didn’t actually say anything.
“Now we just need Tess to decide on a name. She come up with anything last night, Luce?”
“Nope. Nothing yet.” She stopped in the middle of the aisle. “Are you supposed to be walking around like that?”
“Why not? It’s called a walking cast.”
“But aren’t you supposed to cover it while you’re in the barn?”
A minivan pulled into the lane, sending Queenie into a frenzy, and I looked out, happy to escape Lucy’s last mothering question. The van was an Odyssey I didn’t recognize. I limped back over to the straw bale to grab my crutches, and headed outside, in Queenie’s wake.
Katherine Hershberger hopped down from the side door, then turned to offer a hand to Ma Granger, who slid slowly out. Tricia and Sarah, Katherine’s sister and niece, got out the other side, while the men—Katherine’s husband, Alan, and Tricia’s husband, David—stepped out of the front doors. Trevor, who looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, hair askew and several angry pimples adorning his chin, finally emerged, climbing through the middle seats from the back. It was like those clowns who keep getting out of the VW Bug, except this group looked a lot grumpier. I thumped toward them behind Queenie, who ran enthusiastic circles around the car, finally stopping by Ma, whom she knew. Tricia stood halfway behind her husband, as if Queenie were a threat, while Katherine looked on in amusement.
“What on earth?” Ma stopped, staring at me, her hands on her hips. She reminded me of Lucy, and I figured all these women of good Mennonite stock have that look of consternation down pat.
Katherine winced. “Cow step on you?”
“How’d you guess?”
“We grew up next to a farm. The folks there would end up limping or on crutches every so often. And that was in-between black eyes, broken noses, pulled muscles…” She smiled, shaking her head.
“Well, you’re right. I got stepped on. Anyway, Ma, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.”
“Hmpf.” She stared at me for a few moments before changing the subject. “I took these folks to The Towne for an early breakfast and thought I’d show them your place on the way home. But I guess you’re not up to it.”
“Of course I am.” If I popped another ibuprofen pretty quick. I looked at the group and wondered exactly what time Ma had roused them for breakfast, since it was barely eight-o’clock. Most of them looked at least kind of awake. “What do you want to see first?”
Alan smiled. “Wherever you like. It’s your place.” He looked like he was giving every effort to show the early hour wasn’t bothering him, but I wasn’t fooled so easily. I knew the only thing keeping him going was that coffee cup in his hand.
Katherine, looking rather awake, nodded. “We don’t want to impose. So whatever is easiest for you.”
“This is all yours?” Sarah looked around at the various barns, her face alive. “Cool.”
David, usually the morning person from what they’d said, didn’t look it this time. Maybe Ma had dragged them out of bed so early he didn’t get his usual exercise. I laughed to myself, looking at the differences—and the similarities—between him and Alan. If I hadn’t known better, I might’ve thought they were the brothers, rather than their wives having the family ties. They had the same coloring, and the same eyes—although it was hard to tell since both men’s were half-closed. David obviously had the muscles, while Alan looked like any normal middle-aged man—healthy but not necessarily athletic. Alan, on the other hand, had a graying but full head of hair, while David’s was cut military-short, trying to hide the fact that it was thinning. So while they weren’t brothers, they easily could’ve been.
Tricia didn’t seem to care where the tour led, and Trevor wouldn’t even look at me, so I headed off. Out of necessity the tour was a slow one, with me picking my way around machines, fences, and slippery patches of manure.
“So you run this place yourself?” Alan asked as we stood in the far pasture, which Wendy had vacated the day before. Alan’s coffee was gone, and his enthusiasm seemed more genuine the longer we’d strolled around the farm. “Looks like a lot to keep track of.”
“I own it. Lucy works for me full-time, and Zach when he can. Mostly during the summers.”
“Two women and a teen-ager.” Katherine smiled. “I like that.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Me, too.”
Alan grinned at her. “I like it, too. Very enterprising. Was the farm handed down from your family?”
I felt Ma’s gaze on me as I looked at my barn. “My folks died young—my dad when I was three, my mom when I was sixteen. Howie, our farmhand, kept it going for me until I was of legal age.”
“He doesn’t work here anymore?”
I swallowed. “No. He died last summer.”
“Oh.” Alan stopped smiling and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged and flattened a thistle with the tip of one of my crutches. I certainly wasn’t going to explain how Howie was murdered on this very land, trying to protect it. Trying to protect
me
.
Katherine’s voice was gentle. “It’s hard to lose a loved one. Especially a parent, or someone who has been like one.”
Tricia inhaled sharply and stepped away from our group, giving Katherine a flat look before walking back up toward the house. David glanced at Katherine, his expression guarded, and headed off after his wife.
Katherine closed her eyes, breathing deeply, then opened them. “I’m sorry. Tricia’s still very…sensitive about our mother’s death. Can’t quite handle talking about it yet, even though it’s been a few months.”
Sarah frowned. “She has to get over it.”
“She will.” Katherine’s voice was firm.
Sarah looked away.
I watched as David caught up with his wife and fell in step beside her. “Had she been sick?”
“Our mom?” Katherine looked at Alan. “She was…it wasn’t Alzheimers, but she was beginning to lose herself. It was hard to know— She’d been living with David and Tricia—and the girls—for a long time.”
Sarah made a face. “Forever.”
“A dozen years ago or so we decided Mom couldn’t really live on her own anymore. She was doing things like leaving the burners on, or forgetting to get dressed in the morning. Alan and I both had full-time jobs, so she moved down to Lancaster to be with Tricia and David. It was just at the very end that she moved into a nursing home, and then they discovered she had Stage Four breast cancer. She died only a couple of months later.” Katherine looked up the hill toward Tricia, who was no longer in sight. “Like I said, Tricia hasn’t been able to put it behind her quite yet.”
My mother had died from breast cancer, too. And while I certainly didn’t think about it every moment, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to put it completely behind me.
Ma put her hand on Katherine’s elbow and pulled her gently away. “Who wants to head back to the car? I’m tired.”
She wasn’t tired. But I had to love her for her protectiveness. And not just of me. Of all of us, thinking about our lost loved ones.
Tricia and David were waiting for us by the van, David leaning against it, arms crossed, while Tricia stood a few steps away, watching Queenie as if the dog would attack her at any moment.
Lucy and Zach were done milking, on to cleaning the stalls, and when I stuck my head in the door I saw they’d been joined by Randy, who had taken over my straw bale and was watching them work. I hadn’t noticed his Caddy in the drive, but peeking back out I saw it parked to the side, under a tree.
“Hey, Randy,” I said. “What’s up?”
He glanced over at me and nodded, but kept chewing on the piece of grass he had stuck between his teeth. He turned and looked through the door at the rest of the group, but didn’t say anything to anybody. I raised my eyebrows at Lucy, and she shrugged. These teen-agers in the mornings…
I pulled my head back outside and we stood in an awkward circle outside the door, David rejoining us and gesturing for Tricia to come over. I wasn’t sure she was going to, but she finally came to stand next to him.
“Sorry.” I leaned against the doorjamb. “My tour guide duty ends here. I think I’m done in.”
“I could show them more.” Zach appeared at my elbow. “Could take them up the silo, or let ’em try out the bobcat.”
The mens’ eyes lit up at that.
“You go ahead,” Katherine said. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Me, too.”
Zach looked at me. “So can I?”
I laughed at the child-like expressions on Alan and David’s faces. Even Trevor showed some interest. I stuck my head back into the parlor and shouted to Lucy. “You need Zach anymore?”
She yelled back without looking at me. “You can have him. I’m about through.”
“Okay, Zach. Go ahead. Just be careful. Our liability insurance only goes so high.”
Alan went a shade paler, and I laughed. “Sorry. Just a joke. You’ll be fine.”
He looked mildly relieved, but not altogether sure.
“I mean it. Zach will keep you safe.” I looked at Zach. “Right?”
“Right.” He leaned into the parlor. “Coming Randy?”
Randy grunted and left his straw bale, loping along beside Zach as they led the guys toward the shortest silo.
I turned to the ladies. “What do you folks want to do?”
“They’ll really be okay?” Katherine’s forehead creased. “Alan’s not real good with heights. And Trevor doesn’t always think…”
“They’ll be
fine
.” Geez, were these people completely clueless? So much for teasing the newcomers. “What about you? Anything you’re interested in that I could manage?”
Katherine looked at Tricia until she finally met her eyes, and I could see silent conversation going on between them. I ignored Ma, whose expression left no doubt that she thought I should play lady of the house and invite the women inside, where I could be hospitable at the same time I rested my foot.
Katherine tilted her head at her sister, and Tricia turned toward me, her expression tentative.
“What?”
“Can I…would you show us your home? It’s such a great example of a period farmhouse.”
My eyebrows rose, and I ignored Ma’s expression of “I told you so.”
“Tricia’s interested in interior design,” Katherine said. “Rugged and realistic is all the rage, and she likes to get ideas wherever she can.”
“You know,” Sarah said. “Just for fun.”
I squinted toward the house. “I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Oh, Stella, surely it’s not that bad.” Ma frowned, apparently forgetting she was supposed to be feeling sorry for me.
“Remember I
do
live alone.”
“Well, then, I guess you’d better change your habits if you ever hope to cohabitate with that young man of yours.”
“Ma…” Heat crept out of my collar, but I wasn’t sure if it was from irritation or embarrassment.
“You have a boyfriend?” Sarah sounded almost disappointed.
“Well, yes, actually—”
Ma put her hand on mine. “Come on, honey. Let’s go inside, where you can sit down.” The woman was relentless.
“Oh, all right. It is a nice house, but I don’t have it fixed up anyhow special.”
In fact, the decorations were still pretty much as my mother had left them close to fifteen years before when she’d died. Not my thing, decorating. If it was practical, I used it, if not, it pretty much just hung where it had always been.
Once we’d seen the first floor I said I was done. The upstairs was only bedrooms and a bathroom. Nothing special. And I didn’t feel like struggling up the stairs or sending the women up without me.