by Nance Sparks
Aren shook her head. “Other women, I tried. I went out on a few dates, took some of them to bed, enjoyed the moment, the sex, but none of them could win my heart. I was still in love with Jen, totally committed to her. It took me some time to realize that back then. I guess I was just waiting for her to see the light of day, to realize that the men she picked were abusive, drunks, or perpetually unemployed. Waiting for her to see that I could give her a stable, secure life. I went to school, landed a good job, saved a ton of money and kept waiting for her to call and say, ‘come and get me, I love you!’”
“But you never did get that call, did you?” Carol asked.
“We talked almost every day on the phone. We were the best of friends and I loved her with every ounce of my heart, body and soul. She’d tell me about the men she was dating at any given moment. I’d listen and tell her how I hoped this one worked out for her. I’d tell her about the horses and my work. She’d ask if I was doing anything besides working, like going out and meeting people. By people she’d mean women. I’d tell her I’d met some, gone out on a few dates, but it wasn’t right and she’d just tell me I was a hermit and needed to get out more. Sometimes we’d talk several times a day if there was a lot of news.” Aren continued to milk the cow out of habit, while movie reels played vividly in her mind. “It was young love, and usually that just fizzles out, right? You move on. But for me, that intensity never went away.”
“Had you ever told her how you felt?” Carol asked.
Aren grew quiet for a few minutes before answering, “No, Carol, I never told her how I felt. What was the point? She didn’t want to be with me, be with a woman. She didn’t want a life with me. She wanted to go out and socialize, she wanted men. I wanted a home and quiet time, romance. I wanted a life with her. No, I got other calls instead. When Ron’s health took a turn, I started to get calls to send money home because Phyllis couldn’t pay the bills. Then Ron died, so I got a call to send money home because Phyllis couldn’t afford Ron’s funeral, send money home, so she could go to the doctor…” Aren trailed off.
“That’s when you found out she had cancer? Where did it originate?” Carol asked.
Aren led Cinnamon out and brought in Ginger for her turn at the milking stand.
“She had cervical cancer from an ignored case of HPV. She refused all treatment. I tried to take her on a small vacation, fill the one bucket list trip, but she became too sick. She passed away a couple of months after I came back.”
Carol became quiet, just sat there watching Aren milk the cow. After a few minutes went by, she asked, “Why didn’t you return to Kentucky after Jennifer passed away? Why did you stay here with all the memories? Stay with all the judgment?”
Aren sat on her milking stool quietly. It was time to share, time for her to be honest. Jen would want her to open up to someone. She inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. She finished milking Ginger and sent her back out to the pasture before she spoke again. “I’m going to ask you a sincere question. I’m not trying to be a smart-ass here. Would you like the short or the long version?”
Without skipping a beat, Carol gave her answer. “I want the long version. And just so I’m clear, I’ll always want the long version. I want to know about your life.”
Aren shook her head. “Well then, let’s finish the chores really quick. I’ll call Bailey in for supper and then tell you the long version over dinner and coffee.”
Chapter Twenty-three
They decided to heat up the leftover stew from the night before. Aren got a pot of coffee percolating while their meal heated in a saucepan on the other burner. She fixed Bailey a bowl of dog food with some stew stirred in and set it next to her water bowl. Instead of sitting at the dining table, they sat in their favorite chairs facing the screened-in loft door. The rain continued to fall steadily.
“I’m glad there’s been no lightning with this storm,” Carol said, sitting down with her stew and milk.
“I understand why, but I must admit, I love a good thunderstorm. Your thunderstorm was a scary exception, but I love to hear the thunder and watch the landscape light up. I was up watching the storm that night. That’s how I knew the tree had been struck, that it had fallen.” Aren motioned toward the house with her spoon.
“And I’m very thankful that you love to sit up in the middle of the night and watch the storms or I might not be sitting here in such great company.” Carol smiled sweetly. “Now, before you can weasel out of it, you promised me a long version.”
“Ah yes, so I did. You asked me why I stayed here and didn’t return to Kentucky. I need to go back in time a bit for the long version. I told you that Ron and Phyllis took in foster kids because Ron could no longer get work. They had taken a second mortgage on the farm to hire an attorney for their son’s trial. I don’t know how much they received each month for Jennifer and me, but they had that income for four years for me and five and a half for Jennifer. We were both fourteen when we were sent here for fostering, but Jennifer was two years behind me in school, so they received money for her until she was nineteen and a half. She was held back one year and I’d skipped a year. I graduated high school at seventeen and went on to community college and worked for that last year until I turned eighteen and I could leave.”
“So, you were fourteen when you went into foster care?” Carol asked.
“No, I was twelve, almost thirteen when I went into the system. I was fourteen when I was sent here from a different foster home. That’s a different long version.” Aren took their bowls into the kitchen and set them on the counter to wash up later. After pouring two cups of coffee, adding cream and sugar to one, she returned to continue answering the original question.
“So, I guess they could pay the bills with the income from the farm and what they received from having both me and Jennifer here. I think things started going downhill after I left for college. Ron finally landed a job down in Lansing, though I don’t believe the pay was all that great. He commuted back and forth five days a week all the while trying to keep animals fed and cared for here on the farm. Jennifer helped where she could. She’d feed and milk cows, but she had school too, so he’d take morning chores before his commute and have her do evening chores. They also had acreage planted with crops that needed care and cultivating.” Aren took a long sip of her coffee. “Phyllis wasn’t worth much on the farm. She’d say she signed on to be a farmer’s wife, not a farmer. So, she would only do stuff in the house. She kept a clean house, kept laundry up and always had a meal on the table at supper time, but she wanted nothing to do with learning how to run a tractor or milk a cow. This left a lot on Ron’s shoulders, and I think that over the years the stress just got to be too much for him. The state wouldn’t send any more foster kids to the house because Phyllis had taken to drinking a fair bit by this time and when they made a few surprise visits, let’s just say she wasn’t the least bit sober. They almost pulled Jennifer out, but by then she only had another month of school, so they let her finish high school and choose her path. Ron and Phyllis pulled a guilt trip on her and talked her into staying on at the farm and helping them for all the ‘help’ they’d given her over the years. I tried to tell her to come to Kentucky with me, but she felt obligated to stay and help.” Aren paused and took a deep breath.
Carol reached over and took hold of Aren’s hand. Carol pulled her hand onto her lap and squeezed it gently.
“Are you chilly at all? I can get that blanket for you,” Aren asked.
“Actually, I’m sitting here wishing for a reclining love seat. You always hold me when I share something emotional. Tonight, I’d love to be holding you while you share this chapter in your life with me,” Carol said. Her voice was tender and soft.
Aren gently pulled her hand free and urged Carol up out of her seat. After some coaxing she also got Bailey to move over to the dining room with Carol. She pulled the two chairs back to their previous location in front of the potbelly stove before she bolted down the stairs. Aren ran for
the back of the house. There was an Adirondack love seat that would be perfect for Carol’s request. She hoisted up the wooden loveseat over her shoulder and made her way back to the barn. It was more difficult to get up the stairs than Aren had expected. She was quite winded when she got to the top step with her load.
“Have you gone completely insane? You could seriously hurt your back doing goofy shit like that! Just because I mention something doesn’t mean you have to jump right up and do it!” Carol said.
“Let me catch my breath before you chew me out,” Aren said, breathing heavily, “I’ll finish moving that in a minute, I have to run down and get the foot stool that goes with it.” And with that, she was back down the stairs before Carol could stop her.
Aren set up the new couch with fluffy pillows for the back rest and cushions from the dining room chairs on the seats. She decided not to use the slanting foot stool, choosing instead to keep the bale of hay in place so Carol wouldn’t have pressure on her leg. Only then did she invite Carol to sit on the new loveseat and snuggle deep into her arms beneath the light blanket. If she was going to have to delve into the darkness of her past, at least she could enjoy some comfort in the present.
Chapter Twenty-four
The rain continued to fall. Carol nudged Aren to continue her story. When Aren didn’t take the hint, she prodded her with words.
“Jennifer stayed out of obligation after she graduated high school. So, you were what, a sophomore in college at the time?” Carol asked.
“No, I was a senior. Much like you with your master’s degree, I had to have something to keep my mind busy, and I dove into schoolwork. I had taken most of my associate’s degree in the next town over, and I tested out of a couple of classes, and I was working on my senior year at Michigan State for my undergraduate degree. I was accepted that year into the veterinary medicine program. I had applied for a bunch of scholarships and grants, and I got enough to get me through. I remember calling Jennifer to tell her the good news. I pushed myself hard back then, and all I did was study and attend classes. I pretty much lived in the library on campus. I had my DVM by the age of twenty-three or twenty-four and was off to Kentucky,” Aren said, not a hint of boasting evident in her voice.
Carol was thoroughly impressed. She’d worked hard to get just her master’s degree in the same amount of time.
Carol pulled away just a bit and squinted at her. “You’re not trying to get out of telling me the rest of the story, are you?”
“No, I’m sorry. I got sidetracked is all…” Aren said. “So, Jennifer stayed on after high school and got a job. She gave the Harrises most of her check each week. Ron kept working in Lansing and commuting back and forth, and Phyllis stayed the ‘farmer’s wife’ leaving all the outside chores to Ron and Jennifer. A year or so later, Daniel was murdered in prison. Now keep in mind that Phyllis had traveled all that way to see him on every visitor’s day since he’d been sentenced. Anyway, she took Daniel’s death really hard. I was already in the DVM program and couldn’t get back for his funeral, and honestly, I had no interest in going to the funeral, but it was a good excuse. Anyway, it stirred up quite a hornet’s nest. Reverend Todd refused to host the funeral at his church. Ron and Phyllis were members, but obviously they hadn’t attended since the murder. They couldn’t face the reverend or the town, but they couldn’t afford to move, either. Anyhow, after the funeral, Phyllis went deep into the bottle. Jen told me that she’d drink breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It got to the point that she didn’t recognize the Phyllis who had taken us in. Once she got to drinking, she’d become belligerent and cruel. Ron pushed himself so hard to keep things afloat that he passed away from a massive heart attack a little over two years later. Jen found him out in the field, face down. I was already in Kentucky by that time and I came back for his funeral. I admired him. I wanted to be there for him, for Jen. He was always good to me. He had his company life insurance of ten thousand dollars, but that just caught them up on their debt from the previous few years. Phyllis couldn’t even stay sober long enough to make any arrangements for the funeral, so Jen and I took care of that. The house was falling apart. There were rotten sill boards and peeling paint. Jen did all she could to keep things up, but she was working so many hours that it was quite overwhelming for her.” Aren pulled her arm out from behind Carol and got up to refill their coffee.
Carol sat there taking in all she’d heard, adding the new information to previous conversations. She felt so bad for Aren, especially for her heartbreak over Jennifer. The new understanding of how much she loved Jennifer explained a lot, especially why Aren corrected her when she’d called Jennifer her sister. Each conversation seemed to build on the previous one, adding new pieces to an extremely intricate puzzle, a puzzle that seemed far from complete. As intricate as the puzzle was, it seemed that the more she learned, the closer she felt to Aren. For Carol, the town—the place—didn’t matter, it didn’t make a home. It was the people, the special person, who mattered and who made it home. More and more every day, Aren was revealing the person who could be her home. It was a startling thought, but not an unwelcome one. Aren returned, handing Carol a cup of coffee. Aren pulled her attention back to the story by continuing right where she left off.
“So, we attended Ron’s service, and I could see that Phyllis was falling apart. I stayed an extra few days and cleaned the place up as best I could, but there was just way too much work to be done everywhere. I begged Jennifer to come back with me. I begged Phyllis to check into rehab. I even told her that I would pay for it. She refused to go, and like any addict, denied she had an issue, all the while sloshing vodka all over the floor. Jen said she couldn’t abandon Phyllis and refused to join me in Kentucky. I felt so bad, but I just couldn’t stay. I can’t stand liquor, can’t stand the smell, can’t stand what it does to people. I know I should have stayed to help, but I also knew I had to go, even if Jen refused to leave,” Aren said, shaking a bit.
Carol wrapped her arm around Aren just a little bit tighter. She knew it was good for Aren to let this out. “I can’t imagine how difficult it is for you, to share this. If you can, please keep talking, I want to hear all of this story,” Carol said softly, gently touching Aren’s cheek with her fingertips.
Aren nodded, looking tired. “It wasn’t long after Ron died that Jen called saying that she thought she needed to go to the doctor. Well, maybe it had been a year or so. It’s all a blur now. Once the results came back, I used vacation time and took leave from work. I took over everything on the farm because she was too sick to do much of anything. She was so tough, so strong, she never complained, but her eyes told me it was getting difficult to fight. She just went to sleep one night and never woke up.”
“Who found her when she passed on?” Carol asked.
Aren shifted around a bit in her seat. “I did. I checked on her every morning. She looked so peaceful. The pain was gone from her face and I stayed with her until the coroner came to take her away. Phyllis never even climbed the stairs to say good-bye.”
Carol turned to face Aren. She could just make out her facial features in the candlelight. The sadness in her eyes was heart wrenching. Her jaw muscles were rigid, her chin quivering. Carol guessed that she was trying to keep the emotion at bay. There was still something missing. “So, why did you stay after Jennifer passed on, especially with Phyllis drinking like she had been?”
Aren took in a deep breath. Carol could feel her beginning to shake again. Once again, she wrapped her arms around Aren and held her.
“Later that night, after Jen’s death, Phyllis was beyond drunk. I can’t tell you how much liquor she’d consumed that day. The power had been shut off earlier that afternoon because the bill hadn’t been paid. I lit a few candles and Phyllis kept screaming and hollering about how it was all my fault. If I’d just stayed and worked locally, Ron would probably still be alive, and Jen wouldn’t have worked herself to death. It was my fault because I had to go off and get a fancy job. After all th
ey’d done for me, how could I desert them like that? She screamed that I’d leave to go back to Kentucky, and she’d have nothing. The bank was threatening to foreclose on the farm and Phyllis was in no shape to get a job.” Aren shook her head and sighed. “She screamed and carried on for some time and then, just like that, she totally changed. She became really calm and started talking nonsense about going to be with Daniel. That they could have the whole damned farm because her son would take care of her.” Aren took a few deep breaths. “Next thing I know she smacks an empty vodka bottle on the counter. Glass shattered all over the kitchen. She had the jagged neck of the bottle in her hand. Before I could stop her, she jabbed the jagged end of it into her neck.” Aren turned to look at Carol. “I know what you’ve heard. I know people say that I stabbed her in the neck, but they weren’t there. There’s no way I could ever do something like that. They didn’t hear it, what it sounded like. The sound when glass cuts skin and tendons is indescribable, but I hear it, over and over in my sleep. No one in their right mind could ever do that to another human being.” Aren wrapped her arms around herself, haunted by the memory.
“Tell me about it, Aren. It’s time to let go. Tell me what happened that night,” she whispered.
“I tried to get the bottle out of her hand, but every time I’d come near her, she’d jab it at me before sticking herself with it again. It was dark and I couldn’t see very well. The candles were in the dining room and living room, and we were in the kitchen. I kept trying to get it away from her, and then I felt the impact in my arm, but I kept wrestling her for the bottle. The entire time she’s screaming at me to just go, get out, blaming me. There was this stench of blood, and she sounded funny, like she was under water.” Aren rolled her neck and touched her face. “I remember this intense burning on my face, and I realized she’d struck my face with the bottle. I couldn’t move because my face burned like it was on fire. My eye felt like someone was stabbing it with a red-hot poker. She swung out again, and there was more burning, more fire. I reached out, tried to stop it, but my hands wouldn’t work and I couldn’t see and everything burned. Then there was this sickening sound and at the same instant I felt a warm liquid spraying me and I heard Phyllis gurgling and choking. I ran to the dining room and got a candle so I could find her. There was blood everywhere, blood just pumping and pumping out of her neck. She gurgled some words, though I couldn’t tell you what she was trying to say. I found my cell phone, called nine-one-one. I tried to stop the bleeding but there was so much pumping out. Then, just like that, she stopped gurgling and it was over.” Aren barely finished the sentence before jumping up from her seat. “Carol, I need a break. I need light. The candles are too much. Do you mind if I blow them out? Just for a bit? I need real light.”