by Jaclyn Dawn
“Then maybe I should stay a little longer,” I said. I don’t know who was more surprised, Mom or me.
“Will the bistro give you more days off?”
“The bistro?” Mom assumed I still had a job waiting for me in Vancouver.
“I can call and explain the situation,” she offered.
“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I’m pretty sure the bistro won’t mind.”
“Good, and don’t worry about the extra time off financially. We will be paying you for your work here.” Mom held up her hand before I could protest. “We know you are determined to make it on your own in the big city, Miss Independent. You would be working hard for the money just like any other hired hand.” Mom bumped her elbow against mine in a contrived sort of way. This had been her plan all along, I realized.
I scrubbed another dish, a little harder than necessary, and handed it to her to dry. I didn’t like being fed information on a need-to-know basis like a child.
“Speaking of hired hands, how did Mike end up working here?” I asked, risking the fragile peace we had shared since Dad’s doctor appointment.
“I’ve been waiting for that one,” she said. For someone who had been expecting the question, she took a long time to answer. “We hired Mike out of respect for Edith and Peter and for business. Your dad has been negotiating with Travis.”
Edith and Peter Hayes had three children: Claire, Laura, and Travis. Then eight years later they had a surprise: Mike.
“That’s nepotism. And negotiating what?”
“Travis is expanding, and Mike wants in on it. Last fall Travis told Mike he would partner with him on two conditions: he needed to prove for a year that he can stick to something, and he needed to pay for his own cattle.”
“Mike’s been working here since the fall and you didn’t say anything! Wait, I was here for Christmas and you didn’t say anything!”
I stopped scrubbing the casserole dish in my hands and glared at Mom’s profile. She deliberately kept her eyes on the mixing bowl she was drying.
“Mike was the one who had suggested Travis talk to your dad. The idea was that Mike learns the ropes, earns a bit to cut in his share, and the Hayeses buy us out.”
“What? Why? You’re trusting Mike!”
“We’re trusting Travis. Cattle are a lot of work and prices are really good right now. We’re going to turn the pasture into farmland. Your dad and I aren’t spring chickens anymore.”
With my teeth clenched, I resumed scrubbing the casserole dish. I thought of the wolf howling at Dad’s door. I also thought of Mike and his all-too-familiar rat-a-tat-tat when he smelled banana bread.
“Maybe Mike has finally found his calling,” Mom said. “Before your dad’s accident, Mike showed up like clockwork four days a week. And he’s been here every morning since the accident. Your dad said all of those odd jobs Mike has had are proving kind of handy.”
People see what they want to see. Maybe I would have said as much, but a knock—a normal knock—at the front door interrupted our conversation.
I stayed in the kitchen and put dishes away while Mom answered the door. I assumed she hadn’t returned because she was avoiding me, but on my way to the living room I heard that her company hadn’t left yet. I recognized the voice immediately and stopped out of sight to listen.
“This is a great idea,” Danika said. “I ended up with a second set of baby monitors after Abby was born, so keep this one as long as you need.”
“It was Miah’s idea,” Mom said. “Are you sure you can’t come in for a few minutes? She’s just in the kitchen.”
“No, I’m sorry. Abby and Benton are waiting in the car. It’s too bad Miah and I didn’t get a chance to really catch up. I invited her to the creek for the Canada Day fireworks, but she’s leaving.”
“I think she mentioned that,” Mom said. I hadn’t mentioned it. I had purposely avoided mentioning it. “But it works out perfectly because Miah will be home now.”
“Oh?” Danika’s obvious lack of enthusiasm stung.
“Yes,” Mom pressed, “so you can just pick her up like old times.”
They said their friendly goodbyes, and Mom closed the door.
“Judith,” Dad said again in the same warning tone he had used in the kitchen.
“Oh, you never mind,” she said.
Mom went down the hall and into the bathroom. The path to the recliner was clear. Dad opened one eye to peek at me as I sat down.
“I hear you’re staying awhile,” he said.
“News travels fast.”
Dad smiled. “Good. It’s been nice having you home. Your mom needs you. I think she’s losing her marbles.”
That night, while I lay in the dark, I saw Danika and her happy little family at the library. I saw Mom and Dad flirting at breakfast and having entire conversations with just one look. I saw the beautiful ring in the Inquirer. I felt failure. I hadn’t cried myself to sleep for months, but that night I did.
CHAPTER 9
I STILL HADN’T HEARD BACK FROM NATHAN. I SENT HIM A TEXT, not expecting a response.
Are you waiting until I calm down or until I get home?
I was staring at the words I had just written when the blinking ‘…’ appeared. Nathan was writing a response.
Both
You’re going to be waiting a LONG time
What do you mean?
I didn’t reply because he didn’t deserve a reply, and two minutes later my cell phone started ringing. I accepted the call.
“This better be good.”
“Hi, Amiah. I miss you,” Nathan said. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”
“Should I?”
“Okay, let me explain. We have our rules. Rule one: whatever is in the contributions box is published as long as a) it has a grain of truth and b) it doesn’t land us in court, jail, or early graves. Rule two: stay neutral and anonymous. Rule three—”
“I know the rules, Nathan.” I was the one who had written the first draft of the rules he was reciting on a cocktail napkin at the Pink Rooster where Nathan bartended. We each had a copy printed, laminated, and hanging on the wall above our desks in our apartments. Everything seemed more official laminated.
“So someone actually put this crap about Mike and an engagement ring in the contributions box?” Again, I imagined someone lurking in the cereal aisle at Kingsley Grocery, waiting for Danika’s disapproving Baba to pay for a loaf of bread with the nickels and dimes at the bottom of her gigantic purse so the lie scribbled on a scrap of paper could be slipped into the contributions box. I wanted to know who. And what if it wasn’t a lie? I couldn’t discuss that with Nathan, though, because that would be admitting that I cared whether it was true or not. Nathan would ask me why I cared, and I didn’t know why I cared. I just did.
“Mostly, yes. Twice. So the article had to be written, and obviously I had to be the one to write it.” Nathan was right. Not including a story obviously suited for the Inquirer would draw unwelcome attention. “But I totally humanized your character by adding the parts about you rushing home to care for your dad and having mysterious reasons for leaving in the first place. The truth always comes out, remember?”
“I could really go for one of your apple martinis right now,” I said. I had had several of them the night the Inquirer was conceived.
“And,” Nathan continued, knowing he was weakening my resolve, “I thought this was the whole point of the Inquirer. I mean besides for our own delicious entertainment and to pay back our wretched student loans.”
When I had first moved to Vancouver, I had relied on a student loan to pay for my tuition and living expenses. A student loan I had gotten with a signature Mike didn’t technically know he had given a week before I had left Kingsley. Nathan and I had just finished paying it off with the Inquirer money.
“And the Frappuccinos and movie tickets?”
“Those were occasional rewards for all our hard work giving the Gazette a much-needed facelift. T
rust me, Amiah.”
“Trust isn’t in my dictionary,” I said, but Nathan had the closest thing to it. “I’m just sticking around here until Dad is in his cast and can manage some of the chores again. Feel free to spell that out, too.”
“You’re okay then?”
“I have nothing to hide. There’s nothing more to write anyway.”
“Exactly. So what kind of chores?”
“Tomorrow I’m going to clean stalls.”
Nathan burst out laughing. “Your plan for tomorrow is to shovel shit? By George, I reckon that’ll be more fun than the Monopoly tournament on the weekend. Don’t go mucking up them good overalls now, y’hear?”
As much as I wanted to call him of all people out on stereotypes, Mom appeared at my bedroom door.
“Goodbye, Nathan,” I said. He was still laughing at his own joke when I hung up. I was smiling and Mom smiled at that. “What’s up?” I asked before she could ask any questions.
Dad was slightly better with technology than Mom, but he had refused to help her spy on him. She enlisted me to set up the video baby monitor Danika had loaned them. At last Mom was willing to leave Dad alone for an hour. Wearing borrowed rubber boots, I clomped alongside her to the pasture for my lesson on morning chores. I didn’t have to worry about awkward conversation along the way thanks to Dad. As punishment for invading his privacy, he narrated his every move over the monitor, since we ‘were so interested and all.’
“I’m reaching for the remote. I’ve got the remote. Changing the channel. News. Too depressing. Changing the channel. Toilet paper commercial. The one with the cute fuzzy bear. Now dish soap. Not the stuff we use but the kind that smells like green apples.”
“As if he would know,” Mom muttered.
“Preseason football panel. Perfect. Let’s see how the Eskimos are shaping up this season.”
We were powerless to retaliate because, unlike a walkietalkie, the baby monitor allowed us to hear Dad but he couldn’t hear us.
“He does know we can see him, too, right?” I asked.
“Don’t look,” Dad said. Of course, we looked at the monitor. We had a close-up of his face as he pretended to pick his nose.
“He knows,” Mom said.
Luckily, Dad’s medication took effect or he got bored. Soon he was snoring so loudly we had to turn the volume down on the monitor to hear each other. Mom started by explaining the importance of counting cow–calf pairs. We would work our way up to cow shit-shovelling techniques.
CHAPTER 10
MY ALARM RANG AT SIX THIRTY IN THE MORNINGS. By unspoken agreement, my parents would leave me alone while I ate my oatmeal and in return I wouldn’t snap, scowl, or bite. At least I no longer had to worry about Mike showing up since Travis had him busy, and I didn’t have to make dashes for the bathroom to avoid seeing him when I heard his annoying knock. My parents probably thought oatmeal didn’t agree with my stomach. Mike didn’t agree with my stomach.
I started my mornings with a head count. Thirty calves, thirty cows, thirty calf–cow pairs. Except one morning, they weren’t all huddled near the dugout looking bored with life. I heard an awful bawling and jogged awkwardly in my borrowed rubber boots along the barbwire fence toward the noise. As I neared where the pasture dipped, I could see an agitated group of mamas crowding a calf that had managed to get tangled in the barbwire.
“What were you doing way over here?” I demanded, breathing heavily. I crouched down, bracing myself on the fencepost near the calf. The calf’s mama rushed at me. I screeched and fell backward off my haunches. I scrambled back in a crab walk and up onto my feet. The cow stood protectively near her calf as I dusted off my backside. From a safe distance, I assessed the situation. The calf had been stuck for awhile. He had given up struggling against the wire that had worked tight around his neck and front leg. He lay twisted on his side, bawling. This was beyond my mom’s tutorial. Well, almost.
“If there’s any trouble with the calves, fetch Mike,” she had said.
I looked in the direction of the ranch house, which was out of sight from the dip in the pasture. Then I looked across and down the gravel road at the Hayes place. It was closer to run there than to my Jeep. Please let me find Travis first, I thought. Anyone but Mike. I had always gotten along well with Travis and his wife, Emily.
The driveway to the Hayes house branched to two bungalow-style houses. The bigger, bluish-grey house on the right was Edith and Peter’s. The pretty yellow one with the white veranda on the left, my favourite, was Travis and Emily’s. The houses were older and not as well kept as my parents’ house, but it was a beautiful property with plenty of flowerbeds and greenery growing freely. I stood at the fork for a moment, looking stupidly from one house to the other. Neither showed signs of anyone home. I hoped everyone wasn’t out in the field.
Before I could decide which door to knock on, the front door of the main house opened and out stepped a teenage boy with dark hair and olive-coloured skin. He was too old to be one of Travis and Emily’s three kids. Their oldest boy, Levi, would only be twelve years old, making Madison ten and Graham eight. I used to spend hours building puzzles and colouring with them. The teenager didn’t look surprised to see a stranger standing in the road. His eyes travelled shamelessly from my head to my toes and not quite all the way back up again.
“Hi,” I said, fighting the urge to cross my arms over my chest.
“Hey.”
“Is Travis around?”
“He’s at the other house. Aunt Emily, too,” he said with a smirk. Embarrassed, I stepped toward the smaller house. “That’s Uncle Mike’s house. I meant the new house.” He pointed through the trees and across the field. I could see bits of a house and the framework for a very large barn.
“Oh,” I said, surprised. I had once imagined us living in that house one day. “Is Mike home? I’m kind of in a hurry and need someone quick.”
“Mike’s at the new house, too, but maybe I can be of service,” the little pervert said. I glared at him. “Okay, okay. I’m supposed to be helping haul cows. Gramps is pissed off ’cause I slept in, but Grams gave me the keys. Want a ride?”
The girls in his high school probably swooned at his feet. He creeped me out, but I was in a hurry and got into Edith’s car with him.
“Who are you, anyway?” I asked.
“Austin.”
“Oh, Claire’s kid.”
The mysterious oldest child, Claire. I only ever knew her from pictures. She lived abroad, that alone making her a super being worthy of worship at the Hayes farm and in the greater part of Kingsley. Laura and her husband farmed a few range roads over.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Amiah.”
“No way!” he exclaimed and slapped the steering wheel. Those British manners people talked about hadn’t rubbed off on him.
Austin was still wearing a stupid grin when we arrived at a fancy, if not slightly pretentious, two-storey house. I opted to wait outside on the deck. A couple minutes later, I could hear people in the porch talking as they put on their boots.
“No one told me she was hot,” Austin said.
“Stay away from ‘hot,’” another voice said. “‘Hot’ is trouble.”
My face was burning. I pretended to be admiring the construction on the barn yonder when Austin and Travis stepped out on the deck. Travis wore a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. His beer belly was a little bigger, but otherwise he was same old Travis.
“Been awhile,” I said, feeling foolish as soon as the words came out of my mouth. I missed him and his ready smile, but he didn’t smile at me.
“Not long enough,” he said. “What’s the problem?”
“We have a calf stuck in the fence,” I said, stubbornly looking him in the face. I had nothing to be ashamed of.
Travis rubbed his face and glanced at Austin, who stood in the doorway smoothing the hair swooping across his forehead. Travis shook his head, obviously thinking Austin as capable of the jo
b as I was.
“Mike!” Travis hollered into the house. “There’s a calf hung up at the Williams farm.”
“On it, boss. I’ll meet you at the shoots,” Mike called back. He appeared at the door as he put on his ball cap. “Good morning, Miah.”
Austin was grinning again. Travis had already turned his back and started toward the barn. “Austin,” he called.
Reluctant to leave us, his source of entertainment, Austin groaned and followed.
As Mike and I climbed into his truck, I told him the calf was caught in the dip. He knew exactly where I meant. He seemed comfortable as we rumbled along the gravel, but I wasn’t. My hip hurt from being pressed against the door, the furthest I could be from him, and my stomach hurt from being even that close.
“Did you actually buy a ring?” I blurted. I wasn’t feeling as brave as I had when I had stormed into the barn on Friday.
“Yes.” He took a shortcut by easing the truck down the ditch. The tools in the box of the truck made a racket as we bumped and jolted toward the agitated herd. Mike cut the ignition and pushed open the door. “Not as fancy as the one in the Inquirer, but a ring,” he said before hopping out.
The sound of the calf broke my heart.
“Stay away from that one,” I said, pointing at the particularly angry cow. “She tried to kill me.”
Mike briefly explained what had to be done and then passed me a rope and wire cutters. My mouth opened but no words came out. I hadn’t realized he would actually need my help. Maybe Austin should have come. Mike turned his ball cap backwards and grinned his Coca Cola ad-worthy grin.
“Let’s rock and roll,” he said.
Mike leaped the barbwire fence. He ran one direction, then quickly changed directions and ran in the other, playing bullfighter. Or would it be cow fighter? The cow followed, temporarily distracted from her calf. I tied one end of the rope around the calf’s neck and the other around the nearest fence post. It would have taken someone with steadier and stronger hands a lot less time, but I managed to snip in four places the barbwire that was tangled around the calf. I kept glancing at the rest of the cows. They watched but were indifferent to the process, unlike the mama, who Mike kept hollering at as he darted back and forth like a lunatic. At last the calf struggled to his feet.