Twenty
DAHLIA
I’VE feared this moment but here we are. I want to pull over, take her hand in mine, and gently ease into the subject, but then I don’t. My mother knows she owns the farm, and that’s not the part that’s hard for me to talk about. She doesn’t want others in her business—not even me, her own daughter—but here we are, like it or not, and I need to know how the transfer of an estate of this magnitude came about and if it relates to the life we lived.
“You packed up the entire house?” my mother asks, hands folded in her lap.
“Most of it is in storage. Some of it is at the new place.”
“Where is the new place?” she asks.
Why did she leave this farm behind? Why the secrecy? As much as she wants to believe that her vagabond ways were a notion of freedom, it was the opposite. Yes, we were able to pack up and leave, stuff our belongings in a trunk and the backseat of whatever car she owned at the time, and just move on, but there was one thing we never had: options. We were free by all accounts, free as in untethered, but we weren’t free to choose where to live, where to work. We had to live where no credit checks or references from prior landlords were required. My mother worked jobs that required no skill and probably no W-2s, or any kind of résumé. We were free within the limited means of the lifestyle her poor choices imposed on us. Yes, owning the farm poses a question. The transferred deed is another thing altogether. I imagine legal ramifications, but I won’t know until I ask.
How do I start? No need to freak out, but . . . I know that you know where we’re going. Why is this place in your name? Who is Quinn Creel and how did you get her to give you an entire farm? I’ve rehearsed this in my mind, more than once, have weighed the pros and cons of honesty versus sugarcoating, and I decided to just allow it to play out.
“So, here’s the thing,” I say as I look straight ahead, giving the road more attention than it actually needs. I feel anger at the fact that she acts as if she’s oblivious to where we are. I tell her how I found her purse, and the cricket jars, one in the window on the farm and the other under her sink. I tell her about the deed from the courthouse, and the one among the charred remains of the fire she set. “Creel Hollow Farm,” I add.
Not a word comes out of her mouth. She stares at the landscape passing us by, the town behind us by then, fields like a checkered quilt of squares, an occasional fence separating the green from yellow, brown from gold. She begins to tremble. Not an all-out shaking of her body—more like a silent tremor, from the inside out.
I tell her that she owes me the truth.
She continues to stare straight ahead. I allow her to remain in that silence, allow her to work out whatever needs working out, hoping she’s aligning the facts in her mind.
As we drive down the dirt road, she shifts in her seat and her eyes scan the surroundings as if she’s on the lookout for something.
When we arrive at the farm, she is calm except for the persistent tremor of her hands. She seems to be able to keep her body under control, yet her hands escape her.
My mother gets out of the car and makes straight for the porch, pulls out a fan from her purse. It is ornately carved with a black tassel dangling at the end of it. I wonder where she buys this stuff. She wears a dress and full makeup; she even painted her nails—sloppily, yet they are painted. She continues to fan herself. The motion of the fan renders her face blurry, like an ill-taken photograph.
“Is there electricity?” she asks as if that’s the requirement for her to stay. She’s trying to camouflage her trembling but I know her well, at least the anxious parts of her: her hands are what she can’t hide, even while fanning herself.
“Yes, there’s electricity,” I say. “I’ll get a couple of window units to cool the place down.” After I find a job, that is. I can always clean houses, maybe get a subcontract at a local school. Things need cleaning; there’s job security in the messes people make. “The plumber should show up any moment,” I add and scan the road.
Having electricity restored was an easy feat, but the water is a problem I haven’t figured out yet. I thought it’d be as simple as calling the city and asking them to turn on the water but I was told that there’s no record of the Creel Hollow Farm ever having received water from the municipality and that there must be a well on the farm.
We both look up as a white van with blue letters roars up the driveway, unsuccessful in avoiding potholes. A ladder strapped to the top of the van bounces and slides about but stays put.
The plumber touches the rim of his hat as he passes my mother, who has her legs crossed and the fan on her lap. “Ma’am,” he says and I’m aware that he’s checking out her still slim and tanned legs. She’s always been attractive, and she still is, even though she’s in her sixties.
He inspects the well by the barn—a casing sticking up about a foot out of the ground—then returns to his truck to retrieve tools and parts. He agrees to mail the bill and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Here’s the thing,” I say to my mother after he leaves. I sit next to her on the porch, a dirty jar from underneath the kitchen counter in hand. “He exchanged parts and we have running water but we need to have the quality tested.”
She continues to fan herself, staring to her right, where the meadow is in full bloom with a carpet of wildflowers.
“I need to find a clean container for the water sample. Any ideas?”
“Just use a plastic bottle,” she says.
“Let’s see if there’s something in the shed we can use?” I insist.
“I’m not setting foot in that shed. For all I know it’ll collapse on top of us. I doubt it’s safe to go in there.”
“I don’t have a water bottle that fits into the casing. All I have are gallon containers, and they are too big.” She can’t argue with that and she doesn’t, just stares off into the distance. “Mom,” I say, gently now. “I don’t know what the big deal is. Just help me find a clean jar. You know your way around here, don’t you?” Know your way around might be the right choice of words. Not You should know what’s in that shed, or You know all about this farm, or Tell the truth already, but a generic statement, hopefully coaxing her out of her shell.
“You can test water from the faucet. Why that man told you to collect from the well, I have no clue, but he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” She wipes some invisible specks of dust off her dress but makes no attempt to get up and follow me.
“Just help me look,” I say and turn my back to her.
I hear the snick-snick-snick of the lighter. Then I smell smoke.
“I’ll look by myself then,” I say.
“Suit yourself.”
The shed is about twenty by twenty feet, covered in a red, rusty color, roofed with shingles. There are two small windows on each side of the door but they don’t seem to be the opening kind, as if glass panes were used to skimp on building material and were smacked in between the wood panels making up the walls. The door is warped and there’s a heavy-duty drop latch below a door pull. It looks rusted and the warped wood has pulled it into a contorted state of being, no longer horizontal, as if the wood of this damned shed holds power to forge metal. I try to wiggle the latch but it’s stuck. I look around for a tool of some sort, even a sturdy branch to get the latch to lift, but the only tree is a meek and knotted sapling with leaves as spiky as thorns.
“Dahlia.” I hear my mother’s voice from behind me. “Come here. Hurry.”
“I need to open this lock, it’s completely stuck,” I say as I shimmy the lock. I turn around. My mother’s face seems out of sorts, her forehead wrinkled, her nose slightly curled upward.
“Something’s wrong with your dog. She’s collapsed.”
I run toward the house and see Tallulah in the dirt, flat on her side. I fall to my knees and pet her head, realizing that her ears are burning up. I check her b
ody for any sings of injury or snakebites, but I can’t find any. Her eyes are open, staring straight ahead. I think heatstroke but remember her napping in the shade of the porch earlier and that I refilled her water bowl twice.
“I need to take her to the vet,” I say and scoop her up. Her weight makes me stumble but I manage to get her into the backseat.
As I drive off, in the review mirror, I see my mother on the porch, lighting another cigarette, lazily blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth.
—
It takes mere seconds for a male technician in magenta scrubs to take Tallulah from my arms. Another tech appears and she leads me into a room with posters of dog breeds and a small sink. I’m close to tears and we check off Tallulah’s medical history.
In one word: unknown. Yes, she’s been eating and drinking, no, there wasn’t any strange behavior before the collapse, yes, she’s been going to the bathroom, no, there was no diarrhea.
“Her ears are hot. She might have a fever,” I say and wipe the tears off my cheeks.
“How long have you had her?” the tech asks, her eyes big, her voice low and calming.
“I adopted her from the pound a few days ago.”
“Did she get into the garbage?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Was she out in the heat when she collapsed?”
“Yes, outside. We live on a farm,” I say, surprised how easy those words come off my lips.
“Any snakes around?”
“No.”
“What did she do right before she collapsed?”
“She napped in the shade.”
“Was she walking around right before, acting normal?”
“Yes.”
“The doctor will be right with you, okay?”
She leaves the room and I sit on the bench staring at the posters on the wall. Within seconds a short freckled female vet in a white coat and Mary Janes enters the room.
“She’s stable right now. We are giving her fluids. I did an exam and felt hardening around her uterus. It could be a tumor. We are about to do an ultrasound, but I need a signature from you.”
She folds down a small wall-mounted table and checks off every single item once I nod. Between the exam, the ultrasound, and possible surgery, I’m looking at over one thousand dollars I don’t have.
“Usually we sedate and do an X-ray but she’s in no shape to go under right now. We’ll know more after the ultrasound, okay?”
I have no idea how to pay for this bill and I still don’t have running water at the farm, and the one check coming my way is already spent on the plumber.
“You can wait or we can give you a call later?”
“I’ll wait,” I say. “Do you offer a payment plan?”
“The ladies up front will assist you with that,” she says and gathers the paperwork.
Later, as I sift through paperwork and tediously sign and initial page after page, I hear the receptionist call my name. The doctor appears, asking me to step back into the same room I was in earlier. My heart sinks as I watch her face. It’s blank.
I see a tablet propped up on the folding table with a picture of an ultrasound. I can clearly recognize a rib cage and hip joints. Toward the back, tucked off to the side, is what seems like a half-moon made up of tiny nuggets.
“This here,” the vet says and drags the tip of her finger across the screen, “is Tallulah’s pelvis. And this”—she drags the half-moon shape apart and enlarges it—“is the mummified remains of a puppy she never delivered.”
I stare at the tablet.
“See, she was pregnant at one point and delivered a litter but one remained in her womb. It is very small and would have been stillborn, judging by the size of it, but she never delivered it. It was small enough not to cause any problems, but her body was unable to absorb it. She developed an infection.”
“That’s horrible” is all I can think of saying.
“We have to operate as soon as she is stable enough.”
“How much,” I say, my voice raspy.
“About fifteen hundred.” She pauses. “If you want to go through with it. I can’t make any promises but I believe that she’ll be just fine after and her chances of a complete recovery are promising.”
“Yes,” I say and feel my hands tense up around the paperwork I am holding. “Go ahead with the operation as soon as possible.”
“All right. Give me a number where I can reach you. We have to do some blood work but if everything comes back normal, I expect to do the surgery late today or tomorrow morning. For now we have to get her stabilized and hydrated.”
After I leave the vet, I drive toward Aurora City Hall’s water department. It has a small window with a sign reading Pay Water Bill Here. I explain the condition of the well to the man behind the counter. He tells me collecting the water from the tap is sufficient.
“It’s free, right?” I ask, counting the days until I can pick up my last check. Today might be a good day to pay attention to Help Wanted signs.
“The city will test private well water for free, yes.” The man behind the counter is rotund, his nose red. “There’s some paperwork you have to fill out,” he adds and disappears. He returns just as suddenly with a cardboard clipboard in his hand. “The city of Aurora tests for nitrates and bacteria. If you want water tested for pesticides or organic chemicals you have to use private laboratories that are certified to do drinking water tests. There’s a list I can give you.”
He pushes the clipboard toward me.
When I leave City Hall, on my way back to the farm, I drive by the Filling Station. It’s a hangout spot for local teens and also the only gas station with a convenience store and an arcade. It’s the same gas station where I met Bobby before I took him out to the farm, and today, again, his cruiser is sitting in the parking lot. It’s backed in, trunk toward the front door.
As I pull in, I catch a glimpse of the Lark Inn, a motel across the street. The motel was once a run-of-the-mill motel but at some point during the past decade, its condition has become dismal. The concrete parking guards have been crushed into dust and crumpled-up fast-food bags blow across the parking lot. Wobbly external stairs lead to a second floor with an identical row of doors. Nevertheless, the motel is still legendary in town; teenagers used to spend prom night there and party twenty to one room on the weekends. I was at the Lark last night was a saying in town inferring unspeakable debauchery. During the summer months, seasonal workers stay there until the grapefruit season ends and the fruits ship to the nearby industrial fruit-processing factory.
I cruise through the motel parking lot and spot a Help Wanted sign taped to the door. I enter and a bell chimes. A man sits behind the counter, flipping pages of a newspaper. He seems familiar but I can’t place him. We gawk at each other.
“You look familiar,” he says. He stares at me without blinking then his face lights up, as if something just occurred to him. “Dahlia Waller, how the hell are ya?” He smiles, yet his voice remains monotone and flat.
I scan his sharp nose and his sandy hair. There’s a hint of something in the back of my throat but I can’t put my finger on it.
“James Earl Bordeaux,” he says. His lips curl up but the rest of his face remains stoic. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember me.”
“James,” I say and point at the door. “I see you’re hiring.”
“Look at you,” he says.
“There’s a sign in the window? Help wanted?” I smile in a noncommittal and generic way.
The lobby itself hasn’t changed since I was here for prom night over fifteen years ago; the same wooden counter, a leaflet display tower in the far corner, a couple of tables with chairs. In one corner of the lobby is a makeshift breakfast bar consisting of a grimy coffeemaker, a box large enough to hold two dozen donuts, a leaning tower of upside-down sta
cked paper cups, and brown plastic stirrers in disarray. The only new things are a flat screen mounted to the wall behind the counter and a large welcome mat by the door. The floor formerly of industrial carpet is now tiled with dreary grout. The air reeks of potpourri. The place is sad, to say the least.
“I need someone reliable,” he says. He tells me two of the housekeepers had to take some time off, “some personal problems, you know how that goes,” and now all he has left is Ariana, and how “it’s like pulling teeth explaining something to her. Lots of attitude,” he says. “You’ve done this before, right?”
“Done what?”
He has a blank look on his face. Blunted, short of something. Then it hits me: James Earl Bordeaux. Ninth through twelfth grade. Stoic. Creepy. Son of the owner, worked here all the time. After school, all summer long. His formerly ashy hair has thinned and turned color to a sandy hue.
“Have you done housekeeping before? Hotel work in general?”
I look around; the place hardly qualifies as a hotel. Someone came up with the word motel for a reason; minimal accommodations, the very least of customer service. Far removed from my previous job. “I worked at the Barrington Hotel.”
“Yeah? Wow, that’s quite the place. What brings you to my superior lodgings then?”
“Like I said, looking for work.”
“Tell me why you quit.”
“I needed some time off. Medical problems.”
Bordeaux nods ever so slightly. “Medical problems? Like I said, I need someone reliable. Are you better now?”
“I am,” I say. “I just needed some time off.”
“The Barrington, huh? That’s a gem of an establishment. You’ll feel, what’s the right word, a bit overqualified here at the lovely Lark Inn.”
The Good Daughter Page 20