Hannah's Dream

by Diane Hammond

  She ate an old, stale half-order of nachos and coagulated cheese.

  She paced the perimeter of her office, hitting her shin repeatedly with Maxine’s riding crop. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. For the first time in her adult life, she didn’t know what to do. Her experience centered almost entirely on rejection, not courtship. She’d been sabotaged by praise.

  Her security radio crackled and then one of the security guards said, “Security to Ms. Biedelman-Saul. Ma’am, there’s no elephant down here. Over.”

  “What do you mean? How can there not be an elephant?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. Over.”

  “Well, are you saying she escaped?”

  “No ma’am, I wouldn’t say escaped, because there aren’t any gates open or anything. Nobody in the barn, either, for that matter. Over.”

  “Well, was the lock broken open?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t see any sign of that. Over.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Over and out.”

  Just when Sam’s flashlight batteries began to die, they broke from the woods into a meadow. “Hey!” Winslow said. “Now I know where we are! This is my grandpa’s farm. How come we’re—” Then he saw the barn, golden light flooding through two small windows. “We’re going to keep Hannah here, aren’t we?”

  “Smart boy!” Sam said, clapping Winslow on the back. “Shug’s going to stay the night, give us a chance to sort some things out.”

  Matthew came out the back door of the house as they neared the barn. Winslow ran to meet him.

  “Look who we’ve got!” he called.

  Matthew gave the boy a hug and walked with him toward the barn, where Sam, Reginald, and Hannah were standing. “Well, now!” Matthew said, shaking Sam’s hand warmly. “Did you run into any problems?”

  “No, sir,” Sam said. “Least, not once we got out the gate.”

  “Good, good.”

  Matthew slid open the barn door. The barn was a clean, dry, open place neatly holding the tools of a gentleman farmer—a ride-on tractor, hay mower, wheelbarrow, hay rake, and a few tools. The rest was a hayloft, several horse stalls with hay strewn over their dirt floors, and a lot of air. Matthew hung several Coleman lanterns to boost the golden light of the overhead bulbs. Hot white lantern light threw shadows into the corners.

  “Think this’ll do, Sam?”

  “Yes, sir. I think this should be about perfect.”

  A car crunched up the gravel drive and stopped in front of the barn.

  “Ah!” Matthew said. “Here’s my son.”

  Truman joined them in the barn, closely followed by Miles. Miles snuffled his way in while Hannah watched him with rolling eyes, reached toward him tentatively with her trunk. The little pig twitched his tail and gamely turned in a circle so Hannah could sniff all of him. Truman took the wheelbarrow to the car and came back with his two bales of hay.

  Reginald poked Winslow hard in the ribs. “That your pig?”

  “Yeah. He farts a lot.”

  Reginald snorted appreciatively, looking around. “This is real nice. You get to come over here often?”

  “Yeah,” Winslow said. “Sometimes I get to drive the tractor.”

  “Yeah? I visit my grandpa sometimes, too. He lets me do whatever I want. One time I ate twenty-two Eskimo Pies in a row.”

  “Yeah?” said Winslow.

  “Yeah. I’m going to see him again soon, and we’re going to stay up all night and play paintball.”

  “You’re lying,” Winslow said.

  “Nuh uh,” said Reginald.

  “So where does he live?”

  “Here.”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Bladenham.”

  “Yeah, but what street?”

  “I don’t know. I never paid attention.”

  “I bet you don’t even have a grandpa.”

  Reginald kicked Winslow hard on the shin, and then they were scuffling in the hay.

  “Boys!” Truman called. “Knock it off.”

  “He’s telling all these lies,” Winslow said.

  “Then he probably has a good reason,” Truman said. “Find something else to talk about.”

  Sam was telling Matthew, “Shug must think she’s died and gone to heaven with all this nice hay and pretty barn. It’s been a long time since she got to go anyplace new.”

  “Did she get through the day without too much harm?” Truman asked. He looked down at Hannah’s bloody ankle and winced.

  “She got a little upset earlier, but she’ll be okay,” Sam said. “Nothing a nice little meal of hay and fruit won’t make right again.”

  Truman’s gaze went from Hannah’s leg to Sam’s. “Sam—good god!” The cuff of Sam’s khaki pants was wet with blood. “What happened?”

  “Just a nasty sore I’ve got. Bleeds sometimes, but the doctor’s got me on a new medicine that should fix it right up—that and getting off my feet for a while once shug’s settled.”

  “I hope so,” Truman said, and then car tires crunched over the gravel again. Neva pulled up and jumped out. “Did she make the trip okay?”

  Sam said, “She did just fine. I’m proud of the girl. She hasn’t been that far into the woods in a long time, but she just went right along.”

  “Thank god.” Neva approached Hannah, who had come to stand quietly beside Sam with her trunk tucked under his arm. “You’re a brave girl,” Neva told her, “and it’s just going to get better and better.”

  Sam, Truman, Winslow, Reginald, and Matthew all turned.

  She broke into a grin. “I just heard from Alice. They’ll take her as soon as we can have her ready!”

  A whoop rang out, followed by a general clamoring for information.

  “Tell us about it, for god’s sake,” Truman said. “Details—we want details!”

  Neva said, “Well, evidently this lockout was the final straw. Alice said she was pretty sure the board would have voted to accept Hannah anyway, but they weren’t planning on dealing with it until their next regular meeting in February. When she told the board chairman we’d been locked out, he called the executive committee together, and I guess they just about set the room on fire. Apparently they drew up a motion to accept Hannah on the spot, and the full board passed it by a phone vote without a single dissension.” She turned and said quietly, “Congratulations, Sam.”

  Sam shook his head. “Don’t know what to say.” Hannah bumped him with her trunk. “Baby always knows when something’s up.” The elephant wrapped her trunk around his head, explored his ear. He reached up and patted her. “It’s all right, baby doll. It’s all right now. You’re going to see the world.”

  Off to the side, Matthew was saying to Winslow, “Come with me, my boy.” The two of them trotted off.

  “What on earth?” Neva asked Truman, but he just shook his head.

  “Could I borrow your phone?” Sam asked him. “I’d like to call Mama and tell her the news. She’s going to be on the moon.” Truman extended his cell phone and Sam walked deeper into the barn.

  Truman turned to Neva, whose eyes were bright. She said, “If I know Alice, she incited a riot. The woman’s a Valkyrie when she’s pissed off.” She laughed. “God, I’d have loved to be in the room.”

  Matthew came back into the barn with Lavinia and Winslow. Winslow carried two cream sodas; Matthew had a bottle of wine and a bouquet of glasses.

  “You know we’re going to have to tell Harriet,” Truman said to Neva.

  “I thought I would do that myself in a little while. Unless you’d rather do it, of course,” Matthew said to Sam, who’d come back with Truman’s phone.

  “No, sir,” said Sam, returning Truman’s cell phone.

  “Is Corinna all right?”

  “Woman’s beside herself. I never heard her stuck for words before.”

  “Then I believe a toast is in order.” Matthew uncorked the wine and had Winslow pass around the filled wine glasses, and cream sodas fo
r the boys.

  “To Hannah!” Matthew called.

  “To Hannah!” they all echoed.

  Sam pulled Reginald aside and pointed to his watch: five-fifteen. “I forgot all about the time. When was your aunt picking you up?”

  “Five. It’s okay, though.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  “She won’t care.”

  “Course she’ll care. She’s probably worried sick or mad, one or the other, and I wouldn’t want someone to feel either way about me. You ask Mister Levy over there if you can use his cell phone, and then you tell her I’ll drive you home myself.”

  “Aw, man,” Reginald said, and shuffled over to Matthew.

  “He seems like a nice boy,” Matthew said to Sam, watching Reginald shuffle away, punching a number into Matthew’s cell phone.

  “Yeah, he just needs some attention.”

  “What kind of attention?”

  “The man kind, mostly.”

  “I gather his father’s in jail,” Matthew said.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “It about killed him to tell me that.”

  Reginald headed back looking dejected as they both watched. “She’s real mad,” he said when he reached them.

  “She should be, you promising her something and then breaking your word. Your word is the only thing a man’s got, so don’t you go wasting it. You tell her I’m going to bring you home?”

  “Yeah. She said good.”

  “I bet she did. All right, son, let’s go. Say goodbye to everyone.”

  “Bye, everyone!” Reginald yelled to the barn in general. “Bye, Windermere!”

  Goodbyes rang out from all over. Sam put his hand on the boy’s back and steered him to the car.

  “I think we got some things to talk about, you and me,” Sam told him as they drove away.

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Like what you want more, a future or a past.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Reginald said.

  “Looks like I’m going to have a little time on my hands pretty soon, so you stick with me and I’ll show you.”

  Neva hauled an air mattress, sleeping bag, pillow, and toilet kit out of her car and into the barn. She told Matthew, “I’m taking first watch, if that’s okay with you.”

  Matthew nodded. “You know best. Just come into the house anytime you need to. Walk right in. I’ll set some towels out for you, and Lavinia’s preparing supper.”

  Sam, back from driving Reginald home, said to her, “You sure you don’t want me to be the one to stay over? Mama could bring me a sweater and some blankets and I’d be fine.”

  “Nope. Your turn will come,” Neva assured him.

  “Uh oh,” said Winslow, pointing across the lawn.

  Approaching from across the lawn were Lavinia and Harriet Saul. Matthew stepped forward to greet her. “Hello, Harriet. What a pleasure.”

  Harriet nodded at him curtly, and then at the others. “Sam. Neva. Truman.”

  “Ma’am,” Sam said, stepping between Harriet and Hannah.

  “Martin Choi has publicly declared me Saint Francis of Assisi. If I’m going to be beatified, I’d better at least understand why.”

  Neva said to Sam, “Let me talk. She’s already fired me.”

  “That might have been a bit hasty,” Harriet said.

  “Oh, probably not.”

  “Look, I need to know. Is it absolutely necessary for Hannah to leave?” Harriet asked. “You know what it’ll do to the zoo.”

  “She’ll die if we don’t move her,” Neva said.

  “And you agree?” Harriet asked Sam.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “I assume you have someplace lined up to take her.”

  “The Pachyderm Sanctuary has agreed to take her as soon as she can be moved,” Neva said. “It’s an excellent facility near Sacramento.”

  “No doubt,” Harriet said dryly. “And what will you do, Sam? I’m sure you understand that you can’t stay at the zoo.”

  “No ma’am. I’ll be retiring,” Sam said. “I’ve got some medical things I need to take care of.”

  “Medical things?” Harriet said.

  “Diabetes, ma’am. I’ve got diabetes.”

  “You never said anything about this.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Believe it or not, I do care about these things.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sam said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Yes, well, people rarely give me the benefit of the doubt,” Harriet said. “I don’t know why that is.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Harriet nodded at Sam and Neva. “And I assume you have a plan for moving her.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we do,” Sam said.

  “All right, then,” she said. “I’m listening.”

  Matthew brought a glass of wine and a folding chair for her, and the others dragged over boxes and a bench. Harriet pulled her barn coat around her more tightly and they began.

  At ten o’clock that night, Truman and Neva were sitting on wooden crates at an upturned industrial spool they were using as a table. The remnants of a late spaghetti dinner had been loaded into black trash bags nearby, and in one of the stalls Miles blinked in porcine contentment, bedded down in fresh straw. Winslow lay on a straw bed one stall over, cozy in his down sleeping bag; Hannah stood near Neva and Truman, dozing over her tire.

  “I admire your dedication,” Truman was saying.

  “It’s just selfishness—I love what I do. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

  “You’re lucky. Most of us don’t feel that way. Lives of quiet desperation and all that.”

  “Are you desperate?”

  “Me? No. There have been moments, but no—I have choices. Actually I’ve been thinking about going to law school.” He smiled ruefully. “Three lawyers in two generations. People will run when they see us coming. Imagine being a student again at thirty-six.”

  From his stall, Miles heaved a mighty sigh. Truman smiled at Neva, who smiled back. “Actually, it’s a relief to have him here,” Truman said. “He’s begun rearranging the furniture in the den at night.”

  “Well, he is a pig,” Neva pointed out. “They’re smart. Smart and busy.”

  “I only wish I’d known,” Truman said. “I’m going to tell Winslow goodnight. I’ll be right back. Are you all right—do you need anything, while I’m up?”

  “Are you coming back, after?”

  “I was thinking I would.”

  “Then no, there’s nothing I need.”

  Truman stretched out beside Winslow, smelling the magical essence of sweet hay and animals. The boy lay on his back, looking at the barn ceiling, deep in thought.

  “Isn’t it late to be thinking so hard?” Truman said.

  “How come you put Mom’s shoes away?”

  “Shoes?”

  “Her moccasins. The ones that always used to be by the front door.”

  Truman thought about this. “I don’t know. I was just ready, I guess. I used to love the way your mother sounded when she walked around the house in those shoes. They were way too big for her—they’d been mine, to begin with—and when she walked around the house in them you could hear them patting on the wood floors. It was the most peaceful sound, knowing we were all at home and safe together.”

  Winslow rolled onto his side, ready for sleep.

  “But now we’ve got Miles, so that’s all right, too,” Truman said.

  Winslow smiled drowsily. “We should have gotten a dog.”

  Truman adjusted Winslow’s sleeping bag, kissed his forehead, and stood up stiffly. Hannah dozed nearby, shifting her weight and flapping her ears. Who would have ever thought he’d be here minding an elephant in a barn on a late fall evening, side by side with a woman with whom he believed he was falling in love. It had been a long time since he had felt anything even approximating joy, but here it was—deep contentment; contentment and hope. With Rhonda, disaster had always been imminent, inspiring the ex
hilaration he imagined you might feel when handling explosives or diving out of a moving plane, but there had been no contentment. And then there hadn’t even been the threat of disaster by the end, because it had already happened.

  Neva broke up a piece of straw. Truman watched her until her ears turned rosy.

  “What,” she said.

  “You remind me of the kind of person who spends her summers alone with grizzly bears, or who can splint her own leg with a sleeve and a stick and hike five miles to civilization.”

  Neva laughed. “Am I really that fierce?”

  “You’re pretty fierce.”

  “I never really learned to do the girl thing.”

  “I think you’re very girl—just a very fierce girl.”

  “Sounds bad.”

  “It’s not bad.” Truman held his hands close to the Coleman lantern on the table in front of them. “What will you do, once Hannah’s gone?” Harriet had reinstated her to the ranks of a zoo employee, but only until Hannah was moved.

  “Oh, there are lots of places I can go,” Neva said. “I’ve been in the business a long time, and I have a good reputation. It’s a small pond out there where man and elephant meet, and I’m a pretty good-sized fish. I’ve had some offers.”

  Truman drew a fortifying breath. “Well, here’s an idea Winslow and I have come up with. We think what Bladenham needs is a top-drawer miniature pig breeder and trainer. No, now, wait, hear me out. Pigs are cute when they’re young. I know this from experience. And by the time they grow up, they’re someone else’s problem.”

  Neva laughed. “Me, a pig breeder?”

  “And trainer. Winslow and I will teach you everything we know.”

  “That wouldn’t take long.”

  “It might,” Truman said. “It depends on how quickly we reveal our secrets.”

  “Do you have secrets?”

  “Not many, but we could string them out. Think about staying. Please.”

  “We’ll see,” said Neva. “But in the meantime, listen: if you climb into my sleeping bag tonight, I won’t kick you out.”

  “Ah,” said Truman. “I should warn you that Miles may try to get in with me.”

  “And that,” said Neva, “is where I set my limits.”

  The next afternoon at the Beauty Spot, Corinna was coloring Bettina Jones’s hair at last. Some of the little moles on her face were gone, too. Something was up.