by Ike Hamill
He did the math again. Extended day ended at four, when the day shift at the woolen mill ended.
Out at four, fifteen-minute bus ride home, five minute walk from the place where the bus turned around, and it all added up to where-the-hell-was-Joe o’clock.
Alan shut off the oven and headed down the hall.
He stopped with his hand on lever of the screen door. Alan decided to give his son another twenty minutes before he went looking.
He crossed the hot kitchen and turned the oven back on. A few minutes later, it beeped to signal it was up to temperature. Alan put the cookies in and waited. He stood, looking out the window at the quiet yard as they cooked. The window over the sink looked across the driveway to a lonely maple tree that shaded a sundial. He wondered why anyone would put a sundial in the shade and then he noticed the handles on the concrete pad. It was the cap for the septic tank. All their waste would collect in some tank in the ground. Country living.
The timer went off. Alan pulled the cookies from the oven and set the trays down on the stovetop.
He dropped the third one when the screen door banged shut.
“Shit,” Alan whispered.
“Dad, you shouldn’t say that,” Joe said. He flopped his book bag down on a chair.
“Pretend you didn’t hear that,” Alan said
“Okay,” Joe said.
Alan used a spatula to scoop the floor cookies into the trash.
“Can I have one?” Joe asked. He sat at the kitchen table. “It’s hot in here.”
“You can have one after dinner. How was school?”
“It was okay. There are two other kids named Joe in my homeroom, so the teacher said she was going to call us by our last names. One of the kids wants to be Joey though. How come you never called me Joey?”
“That’s a kangaroo name,” Alan said. “We were afraid you’d hop everywhere.”
Joe laughed.
“Where’s mom?” Joe asked. He swung his feet beneath the table and squeaked his sneakers on the floor.
“Not home yet,” Alan said. “Didn’t you get out at four? Why did it take you so long to get home?”
Joe was unzipping his book bag. He pulled out a notebook and slapped it on the table.
“The bus dropped me off last,” he said.
Alan nodded. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said.
“You have any homework?”
“I did most of it in extended day. They give us time to do homework if we want. I just have to finish memorizing some vocabulary words, but there’s no test until the end of the week.”
“The end of the week is only the day after tomorrow,” Alan said.
“I know.”
Alan sat down at the table and picked up one of the books Joe had stacked there.
“Didn’t you learn algebra last year?”
“Some of it, but I think this book goes farther.”
“Maybe you should move up to eighth grade.”
“Dad, you promised. I already know kids in my grade and all the eighth graders are bigger than me.”
“Relax, relax,” Alan said. “I didn’t mean it.”
He set the book down. There were two private schools within twenty minutes. One was for boarders only, but the other allowed for day students. If they had money to burn next year, maybe they would have the conversation again. For now, public school was their only option. Buying the house from Liz’s cousins had boxed them in substantially.
“Did you meet any new kids?”
“Yeah, a couple,” Joe said. He was flipping through blank pages of his notebook. He found his way to a list of words spaced evenly down a page. “Do we have a dictionary?”
“Yeah, of course,” Alan said. He pushed away from the table and stood up. Down the hall, at the front of the house, the Colonel’s study was still populated with the old man’s books. Alan pulled a worn book from the shelf and turned as light flashed through the window. He expected to see the carpenter standing out there on the road. Instead, he saw his wife’s BMW turning into the driveway. Alan walked back towards the kitchen.
“Mom’s home,” Joe said as Alan set down the dictionary.
Alan watched through the window as his wife pulled up to the barn. The building was huge—there was space for five cars and a boat in there—but it seemed strange to watch such a modern machine pulling into the old red structure.
A few seconds later, Liz emerged from the barn. She held her briefcase in one hand and her phone in the other. She paused in the middle of the drive while she talked on the phone. Her face was all business. Alan couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was clearly still in lawyer mode.
Liz took the phone from her ear, stabbed the screen with her thumb, and turned towards the shed door. The shed ran all the way from the house to the barn, but Liz always walked through the driveway. She said there were too many spiders in the far end of the shed. Alan heard the screen door groan and then slam shut as Liz came up the hall. Joe was flipping through the musty old dictionary.
The woman who came through the door to the kitchen had a totally different demeanor than the lawyer who had been arguing to the phone out in the driveway. That was one of the things that Alan loved most about his wife. No matter how much of a hard-ass her career made her in the real world, when she was with her husband and son, she was as sweet as a spring breeze.
Alan smiled and Liz beamed back.
“Hi, beautiful,” Alan said.
“Hey, handsome,” Liz said. She set down her bag and jacket and bounded towards Alan. He caught her in his arms and twirled her in the space between the cabinets and the refrigerator.
They smiled into each other’s eyes and then brought their lips together in the middle for a quick noisy kiss.
“Gross,” Joe said without looking up from his homework.
Alan set Liz gently back to her feet.
“What’s wrong with this one? He doesn’t hug anymore now that he’s a seventh grader?” Liz asked.
“He didn’t hug me either,” Alan said as Liz crossed the floor to their son.
She grabbed Joe around the back of his shoulders and squeezed him tight while laying her face against his. Liz took the seat next to Joe and picked up his math book. Alan turned his attention to wrapping each ear of corn in its own sheet of wax paper.
“It smells so good in here. What’s for dinner?” Liz asked.
“Corn, green beans, and you guys are having veggie burgers,” Alan said. “Cookies are for dessert.”
“You know what the Colonel used to say about string beans?” Liz asked Joe.
“All string, no beans,” Joe said. He was copying a definition from the dictionary to his list of vocabulary words. He didn’t look up to deliver the line.
“I guess I’ve told you that one before?” Liz.
“No,” Joe said. “I just guessed.”
Alan smiled—his son had inherited his mom’s dry wit.
“You did?” Liz asked. She grabbed Joe’s hand in both of hers. “Oh my, do you know what this means?”
“What?” Joe asked. He tried to look annoyed, but Alan saw the smile creeping in around the corners of his son’s mouth.
“It means you’re psychic, Joe,” Liz said. She pushed a blond strand of hair behind her ear. “This is a huge responsibility. You have the amazing ability to psychically guess your dead great-grandfather’s favorite expressions. You’re going to be famous all over the world.”
“Come on, mom,” Joe said. He couldn’t hide his grin anymore. “I’m trying to do homework.”
As she stood up, Liz cupped Joe’s chin and gave him a kiss on the forehead.
“I’m off to change. Don’t you boys start dinner without me.” Liz collected her bag and jacket and headed down the hall.
Alan finished his preparations for the corn and put the ears in the microwave.
“I’m going to go warm up the grill,” Alan said to Joe. He picked up the little metal tray
that held the steak and the veggie burgers. He was careful to tilt the tray so the blood from his thawing meat didn’t trickle down to the burger side.
“It’s a little early, isn’t it?” Joe asked.
“I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”
“I guess. I’ll be out in a minute. I only have a little more to do.”
Alan backed into the screen door and opened it with his elbow. Across their little dooryard and the driveway, the Colonel had paved a small parking area. Two guests could park there side by side, but they never did. Anyone who came to visit always seemed to pull directly in front of the barn, blocking the cars parked inside.
Just past the driveway, the Colonel had built a little screened-in patio dubbed, “The Cook House.” It was just the right size for a picnic table, two folding chairs, and a grill. Alan liked to sit out here in the evenings. The screens did a good job at keeping out the bugs and you could experience the house without feeling encompassed within it. He sat the tray on the counter next to the grill and took a seat. Joe was right—it was too early to cook.
A few minutes later, Liz appeared from the shed door. She held a drink in each hand. Alan stood to push open the door for her.
Liz handed him a drink.
“What’s the occasion?” Alan asked.
“It’s after five. Do we need an occasion? How about our son’s first day of middle school? Cheers,” she said and they clinked their glasses.
Alan took a sip. “You make a hell of a drink.”
Liz smiled.
“I found some of the barn paint in the shop. I’ve got plenty to do that door panel after I spackle it,” Alan said.
“Which panel?” Liz said. She turned towards the barn.
“The one with all the holes in it,” Alan said. From old photos, Alan knew that the Colonel had replaced the barn’s original sliding doors with the giant garage door it had now. The middle panel at the bottom had at least twenty small holes in it. You could see them from the road.
“That’s from when the Colonel tried to shoot a porcupine,” Liz said. “You can’t cover those holes.”
Alan laughed. “We’re memorializing the sport-shooting of rodents now?”
“Alan, can you just wait? Maybe do it after Thanksgiving, when everyone visits?”
“I can’t paint after Thanksgiving,” Alan said. “It’s getting dicey now. There’s only a few weeks of outdoor painting weather left.”
“Then can you do it next spring? Those holes have been there for years and years. One more winter isn’t going to hurt anything, is it?”
“Honey, you have to stop treating this place like a museum. We live here now. You bought the place fair and square. In fact, you were more than generous.”
“Alan.”
“No, I’m not going there. I’m just saying—this is our house. We don’t have to maintain it exactly how your cousins remember it. That wasn’t part of the deal,” Alan said.
“How about just for this year?” Liz asked. “Can we just put a pin in things for this year and then we’ll start making changes in January? That will give everyone another Thanksgiving and another Christmas with the house just as it was. Then we can start making our changes, okay?”
“You don’t think that you’re just setting the wrong expectation? I mean, painting the house purple would be one thing, but with those holes you’re drawing the line at what I would consider basic maintenance.”
“Let me tell you the story,” Liz said.
Alan wanted to roll his eyes, but he kept them steady, locked onto his wife. It was too nice a night to have a full-blown argument.
“My grandmother used to have her bridge club over every fourth Thursday. They took turns—Evelyn’s house, Louise’s, Peg’s, and then here. The Colonel would hide up the bedroom when they’d come. He’d work on a model, or a puzzle, or his writing. Halfway through their game one day, Louise said, ‘Oh, look!’ All the women rushed to the kitchen window to see. There was a little woodchuck sitting in the middle of the driveway.”
Liz’s face lit up as she told the story. Alan found himself grinning despite his frustration.
“It was sitting up on its haunches and working its little hands in front of its mouth. The four women were entranced by the cute little thing. But the Colonel had a blood-feud with woodchucks. They would burrow into his garden and eat everything. So as the women watched the cute little woodchuck, BAM! It exploded into a million pieces.”
Alan laughed.
“The Colonel was up in the bedroom, and he saw the thing through the window as he stood up to stretch. All he had up there was his shotgun, so that’s what he used to dispatch the woodchuck.”
“What did the women do?” Alan asked, giggling.
“They quietly went back to their game. They didn’t include this house in their rotation for a little while, but eventually they came back. The worst part according to the Colonel was that he had to hose down the driveway before any of the women would go outside to their cars.”
“That’s a riot,” Alan said.
“So that’s why we can’t fix that panel just yet. Someone tells that story every Thanksgiving, and they always point to the door after they get to the punchline.”
“But if the woodchuck was in the middle of the driveway, his shot would have never it the barn door. Plus, if the woodchuck exploded from the shot, then the holes wouldn’t be so tightly grouped, would they?”
“The holes in the barn door are from a different time. That’s when the Colonel tried to shoot a porcupine and missed. That’s not the point. It’s just that everyone always looks at the door after someone tells the story about the woodchuck. It’s a continuity thing. People like to remember the story and then punctuate it with a glimpse into something the Colonel left behind.”
“He left all this behind,” Alan said.
“Please don’t cover up the holes,” Liz said.
“Fine. I won’t, but you have to understand—I’m running out of things to do around here. Joe and I cleared all the brush and did all the landscaping this summer. We have a shed full of wood, and I cleared all the cobwebs from the front windows of the barn.”
“Alan!”
“I’m kidding,” he said. “I know about the sanctity of the spiders. I suppose I could get a job up at Christy’s. Maybe they need someone to count the returnable bottles or pump gas.”
“It’s only a couple of months,” Liz said. “Why don’t you get your fishing license? You could fix up the boat, couldn’t you? Spend some time on the stream?”
“Fishing.” Alan said. He flattened his mouth into a line. “Fishing?”
“Lots of people enjoy it. People kill for a few months off. Can’t you enjoy it?” Liz asked.
“If either us were the type of person who would enjoy a few months off, we wouldn’t be together.”
Liz nodded. “That’s true.”
“Maybe I could build a cabin or something out back. I could do a log cabin, like they used to…”
“Oh! Why don’t you start putting together your photos for Edwin’s book? When’s that deadline?”
“He needs them by the end of February. I’ve decided to wait until January before I look at those. You know I need time before I can evaluate my work.”
“Why don’t you take some pictures around here? That would certainly make it easier on the cousins once we start to make changes next year. If you took a tasteful picture of the barn door before you fixed it, then at least we’d have the photo.”
“That’s an idea,” Alan said. He got up to light the grill. “I suck at still life, but I could try to get better. Your cousins wouldn’t know the difference, I’m sure.”
“Hey.”
“I took some terrible photos out back today. I call them ‘Blurry Finch Against Washed-Out Sky.’ They’re very tasteful.” As the flames heated the grill, Alan opened the lid so he could scrape the grates. “Can we replace this grill at least? Some of this grease dates back to before we were born.”
“The Colonel said that the black stuff gives you all the flavor.”
“I bet,” Alan said. “Hey, it’s the offspring.”
Liz turned to watch Joe cross the driveway. He had a sheet of paper in one hand and a can in the other.
“Soda?” Liz asked. She pushed open the door for him.
“It’s diet,” Joe said.
“Still.”
Joe sat at the picnic table and laid the sheet in front of himself.
“Abandon,” Joe said. “To leave someone or something.”
“Yeah?” Liz asked.
“Vocabulary,” Joe said.
“You know what abandon means. Why do you have to study abandon?” Liz asked.
“I have to get the definition just right. I can know what it means, but I have to be able to write down the definition. Can I get a dog?”
“Is non sequitur on your list?” Liz asked.
“That’s two words,” Alan said. He paused in his scraping and looked at the tool he was using. It was a paint scraper that someone had enlisted into service on the grill.
“When we moved here I wanted to get a dog, but you said we had to wait. Have we waited long enough? Can we get one now?” Joe asked.
“Ask your father,” Liz said.
Alan dropped his hands to his side and glared at his wife.
“What?” she asked.
“How are you going to ask me ‘what,’ when you just made the dog into my decision?” Alan asked.
“Well, it is mostly your decision,” Liz said. “You’re home during the day, so a lot of the responsibility would fall on your shoulders.”
“I’d take care of it the rest of the time,” Joe said. “He could sleep in my room and I’d feed him and do everything.”
“We don’t have a fenced-in yard and there would be no good way to put one in even if we wanted a fence.”
“The Colonel never had a fence,” Liz said.
“You’re not helping,”Alan said.
“Joe,” Alan said. “We’ve got a lot of company coming for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Let’s wait until after then before we jump into any big changes, okay?”
“Okay,” Joe said. He turned his attention back to his vocabulary words.