Nobody's Child

by Austin Boyd

  Laura Ann stopped in her tracks, mentally rerunning the day, her one desperate opportunity to get the fields ready for planting. After yesterday’s trip to Morgantown, and today’s unbearable pain, she’d lost track.

  Date night.

  “Oh, no! Ian, I’m sorry. I — “

  He put a finger to his lips, a big smile lighting up his bony face. Ian stepped forward and took her hand. “Gonna rain tomorrow, girl. We’d better be plowing.” He tarried, as though searching in her eyes for some news she wouldn’t share. “We’ll catch a movie Saturday after I get off.”

  She started to protest, but Ian shook his head, dropping her hand to move past. With a foot on the bed of the tractor and a hand on the wheel, he launched himself into the seat. Moments later, before she could pull him back, he’d lifted the gang of four plows, put the big diesel in reverse, and backed out of the jam she’d created minutes ago.

  “Take my truck and go get the other tractor,” he yelled over the acceleration of the engine. “I already hooked up the disc. I’ll finish this off and get the other disc when I’m done.” And with that, he drove away, his blades spilling out four new ribbons of soil.

  Ten minutes later, Laura Ann sat on the old blue Ford, a disc harrow hooked up behind her. With both of them working the field, the job could be finished by dark. He’d given up his favorite evening to plow. To be with her.

  Laura Ann eased the tractor into the plowed field, setting her disc into soft rows of fresh dirt. Sharp silver wheels sliced through curled furrows, chopping soil into crumbles. Robins and boat-tailed grackles swooped in on the worm pie that spread out behind Laura Ann’s tractor, a seedbed filled with a feast of night crawlers. The sun dipped into the tops of the poplars, now adorned in a brilliant life-green of new leaves. Pass after pass, working her way across the new field, she pummeled fresh plowing into new planting soil. The first cool of evening gripped her when Ian shifted from plow to harrow. His tractor worked the far half of the field, the two of them growing twelve feet closer each pass they made, closing the gap from opposite sides of the seedbed. The place deep inside that seared her minutes ago now glowed warm for him, their paths slowly winding across fresh dirt toward an eventual intersection.

  The damp of the Middle Island Creek crept up from the valley, a misty fog in the moist April evening. Early night air blanketed the farm. Acres of freshly turned earth filled the air with the perfume of farming, faintly musty, faintly sweet. This was the aroma of life, like the fields after a rain.

  Laura Ann raised her head high, capturing the musky fragrance of tilled earth, her mouth open as though she could drink it in and make it hers to remember every day. Something powerful about the smell of plowed soil made it amorous, even sensual. Acres of fertile dirt spread out before her, prepared by loving hands, ready to accept seed and spring forth with new life.

  Romantic.

  That was the word. God had inclined her nose—surely her entire body — to adore this bouquet.

  Laura Ann finished her pass down the length of the field and spun the tractor for her last line of disc work, one that would put her on an intersecting path with Ian. She determined to meet him midfield, then cook him a late dinner and wrap him in her arms to thank him — in a special way—for this sacrifice.

  “I came over to the farm yesterday,” Ian said after a long silence. They sat together on a porch swing watching the night fog roll over the valley and its acres of new fields. Laura Ann curled her head into his shoulder, her arms wrapped tight about his chest. The bony protrusions of his ribs were distinct washboards below his khaki shirt. “You didn’t answer the house phone and I was worried.”

  She hesitated, her fingers caressing the stiff cotton of his official shirt.

  “You got back late last night,” he continued. His voice went high on the word late.

  Laura Ann released her grip about his chest, pushing up in the seat to look him in the eye. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged, avoiding her eye.

  “Granny Apple called me,” he offered at last. “She was fretting too. She called you several times, then heard you went to see a doctor.”

  Laura Ann stiffened, then responded. “I was. At a doctor in Morgantown.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, moving his head to catch her gaze again. He took her hand and squeezed it.

  “Yes. But I have to go back in three weeks.” She paused, hoping he wouldn’t ask more.

  “What’s the problem?” Ian asked, folding both her hands in his. “I want to be there for you, and to pray for you.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not important.”

  “It is to me,” he insisted. “More than you realize.”

  “This is embarrassing, Ian. Private. I’d rather not talk about it.” She moved away from him and stood up, pushing the porch swing hard as she left it. Wiping at a tear in her eye, she faced away from him and stood at a porch post, staring into the night. Rising fog blanketed much of the low farmland near the Middle Island Creek, muffling sounds from the forest. The distinctive call of a night-feeding whip-poor-will echoed up from the creek bottom. Laura Ann counted each accented syllable of the call.

  Whip-poor-will.

  Ian moved from the swing to the far side of the steps, gazing out into the night. She hoped he’d stay there, and not move closer for a while.

  “I’ve been practicing a long time for what I’d planned to say tonight,” he said, clinging to a post, eyes focused somewhere in the distant dark. “But …”

  Laura Ann’s heart leapt with his first words, then died in the silence that followed.

  “You went to Morgantown in the middle of that insane snowstorm back in February. Remember? You told me then too that it was female stuff. I prayed all day, Laura Ann. Prayed for whatever it was that you felt you couldn’t share with me, in hopes you’d be healed or cared for.”

  Ian never moved from his post. “We’ve walked through some hard times since Christmas, but we’ve been together every day, even if I had to work late. There was no doubt in my mind that we’re right for each other—no doubt until today.”

  Until today?

  Laura Ann’s heart raced, every fiber straining for her to lift a hand, move a foot, or say something to stop his next words before he could utter them. She turned to face Ian. She moved too late.

  “When I realized you were on the ground — “ His voice cracked and he turned away, drawing in another deep breath. “When I saw you there, I thought I’d lost you. I drove like a madman across the field to get to you.” He wiped at his own eyes and walked away to the end of the porch.

  Laura Ann followed, holding her distance. Wars raged inside her to run and wrap her arms about him.

  Ian turned back to face her, welling tears reflecting in the dim light from the living room window. “I didn’t plan to confront you with this, but the stranger you act, the more distant you become. This secret of yours—what you call ‘female stuff’ — is coming between us.”

  He drew in a deep breath and stepped toward her, raising a hand in her direction. “I love you, Laura Ann.” He stood there, waiting for her response, then continued. “But I hate secrets.” He coughed, and then added, “I have my reasons.”

  “Think, then speak,” Daddy used to say. She measured her next words, desperate to scream them.

  “I’m sorry, Ian—but it’s my business.”

  “It’s our business, Laura Ann. Whatever this is about. I’ve been here every day helping you to keep the farm afloat.” He paused. “I thought we were a team.”

  “We are. We were —,” she said, choking on the last word.

  “Were?” he blurted out. His footsteps were the only sound in the silence that followed. He approached and put a hand on her shoulder, tugging at her to turn.

  Laura Ann backed away, bumping into the porch rail. She could run no further, withering in the face of the first anger she’d seen from him in months.

  “The farm —,” she began.

 
Ian cut her off. “No! I’ve heard all about your dreams, and know just what problems we’re facing. We are facing.”

  “I’d do anything — “

  “Old news, Laura Ann. Tell me something I don’t know. You’re going to the doctor, or at least you say you are. I want to know what ails you — and that’s where I can’t tolerate secrecy.” He lowered his eyes a moment, and then looked back up. “I’m sorry. I just want to help.”

  Ian backed away from her, gritting teeth that clamped down on words she was sure he’d swallowed. “I’ve hidden nothing from you, Laura Ann. And I don’t ever intend to.” He gulped and looked away.

  Whip-poor-will. The bird cried out, the echo of its song muffled in the fog. No bird called back. Solitary. Isolated. Alone.

  She gripped the porch rail behind her, backed into a corner she could not escape. “I’m not exactly sick, Ian.”

  “Then?”

  “A gynecologist in Morgantown has me on some strong medications to regulate my cycle.”

  “That’s all?” he asked, a nervous laugh mixed in the question. He laid his hands on her shoulders, long gentle fingers clutching her with a familiar vigor. “Nothing else?”

  She shook her head, tears flowing unchecked. Ian gripped her with the warm strength she’d yearned to feel. No money was worth losing him, not even the thousands she’d been promised if she’d return to the Morgantown clinic one last time. She buried her head in his shoulder, hiding her face as he wrapped his arms about her.

  “No. That’s all,” she said, her voice cracking in a desperate mix of secrets, tears — and lies.

  CHAPTER 9

  JUNE 21

  “You need me, girl. With my help you can pay for this place.”

  “I’ll manage — without you.” Laura Ann watched Uncle Jack’s every move where he stood at the edge of the drive, mindful of Granny Apple’s warnings about him.

  “You won’t survive.” Uncle Jack flipped a cigarette butt into the middle of her garden. “How much you got, anyway? A few thousand dollars? Paying the bank at twenty-three hundred a month? You’re gonna crash. That is, if the bank doesn’t call your note first.”

  “My bank account is none of your business. If my father were here,” she continued, “he’d thrash you for talking to me this way.”

  “Is that so? Well, he’s dead and gone, isn’t he? But no matter.” Her uncle kicked at the swinging gate on the picket that surrounded her herb garden, slamming it back hard. The entire fence shuddered under his ire.

  “Let’s hope the bank doesn’t come calling with an audit of your worthless mortgage,” he threatened, walking toward his blue pickup. “My offer might not be there when you come looking for help.”

  “Be assured, you’re the last person I’d ask,” she said, working to control the quivering in her voice.

  “Stubborn girl. Like your old man.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her grip tightened on the hoe handle at her side. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Stupid too.”

  Uncle Jack lingered at the driver’s door, as if his words might have stirred some special desire in Laura Ann to relent to his wishes. He watched her, a deep frown creasing his face. In her twenty years, she’d only seen him smile once. Every visit to the farm ended like this. On the best of days a honk summoned Auntie Rose to the car. Explosive visits — and there were many — always ended with Daddy standing in the drive, holding his ground as Uncle Jack slunk away. Her uncle’s swearing would start soon.

  “Better get that tobacco in the ground this month” — his hand gripped the lip of the door, white knuckles showing on thick fingers — “or it’s over.”

  “It is over, Uncle Jack. There won’t be any planting, and I won’t sell the allotment. Not to anybody.” She jammed her hoe handle into the dirt, an exclamation point on her determination. No matter what, Uncle Jack would never grow that noxious weed on this land.

  “You’re a fool. When the bank takes this place, I’ll be standing on the curb laughing.”

  “I have no doubt of that.”

  Uncle Jack cocked his head to the side, and then shrugged. “Call me when you change your mind.” He opened the door and started to slide into the seat, stopping to throw one more insult her way through the gap between the door and the frame.

  “About time for another of those big deposits, isn’t it?” He turned and spit, then looked back at her before he slid into the seat. “Tell your sugar daddy I’m watching him.”

  Uncle Jack slammed the door. He spun the big Ford’s wheels in reverse, and rocks shot out when he kicked the truck into drive, some of them peppering the fence in front of her.

  A middle-finger salute made his parting message quite clear.

  Laura Ann’s knees buckled and she sank to the ground in her herb garden, legs folded. She lowered the hoe with shaking hands, setting its sharp blade in the pea gravel of the garden path. Daddy’s white picket fence surrounded a twenty-foot square plot, each pointed slat cut in the woodshop last year during his final summer.

  Laura Ann leaned into the wooden form of a small raised garden bed, nine squares like a giant tic-tac-toe filled with spices for her kitchen. Anise sprung up behind her, serrated leaves and flat clusters of white flowers shooting up for salad garnish and the licorice-like flavoring in her Christmas cake. Narrow leathery shoots of rosemary fought for control of the soil in the same bed. Their fragrance filled the air, mixing with the scent of fresh earth where she’d been pulling weeds before Uncle Jack’s uncivil visit.

  My “sugar daddy”?

  If Uncle Jack really knew what price she’d paid to make it this far, he’d crush her in the town’s rumor mill. She leaned over, her head resting on the low wooden form. How much longer until she ran out of options? Barely hanging on, she determined to make this work — if at all possible — without the Morgantown doctor’s money.

  She reached into the herb bed absentmindedly, plucking at a few weeds she’d missed around the base of the rosemary. Moist black soil, her special mix of composted manure, leaf mulch, and river-bottom sand, released with a slight tug. She tossed each weed in the rock path, pretending each successive plant was a month.

  The last of her savings — and a pittance from the clinic in Morgantown — got her through April. Twelve fat calves went to auction in May. June depended on her selling fifty stools to a buyer in New Martinsville. July and August? Sell more of Daddy’s prized Angus at auction, if her stools didn’t carry the day. September? Depend on harvest time, and perhaps find an extra source of income. If everything failed, break her secret promise, and return to the money tree that waited in Morgantown. A bright pink clinic, cold stirrups, and a sheet draped over splayed legs.

  Her mind played games, imagining a worm in the dirt clod she’d pulled to be the doctor who probed her like a vet pulling a calf at birth. No concern for her as a person, simply another girl lying naked beneath a gown, ready to be harvested.

  A harvest that kept her farm alive.

  Laura Ann wondered about Auntie Rose, strangely silent in the months since Daddy died. Uncle Jack would make sure she stayed away, locking her up with a key, a tongue lashing — and a fist if necessary — to keep her from her childhood home. Laura Ann plucked another weed, wondering how hard it would be to jerk Auntie Rose from the clutches of her oppressor. Like Uncle Jack holding Auntie Rose hostage in town, she knotted the weeds tight in one hand. She pushed up from her place on the ground and wheeled a full barrow of weeds to the compost pile.

  A June sun bore down with the full fury of today’s summer solstice. Grasshoppers jumped from her path when she crossed the lawn, its withered blades burned a crunchy brown after weeks of drought. She tarried at the old compost pile. Salty rivulets worked their way down the middle of her back, under Daddy’s old church shirt, tied in a knot across her belly.

  She shaded her eyes against the glare. Ian’s pickup appeared at the top of the ridge, billowing dust. She’d never seen him drive this fa
st. What new trouble raced her way?

  Moments later, Ian’s tires crunched on her drive. “Are you okay?” he asked when he leapt from the truck.

  She nodded, wiping soiled fingers on her jeans, then took his hand when he ran up.

  “I saw Jack when I drove in. He nearly ran me off the road.” He gasped for breath. “I almost went after him, but needed to check on you first.”

  “I’m fine.” Laura Ann squeezed his hand and placed her other hand on his arm. “He’s trying every angle. Uncle Jack came out to squeeze me into selling — or leasing — the tobacco allotment.”

  “And?” Ian asked, wiping the sweat of his own brow with the back of his arm.

  “Told him ‘no.’ He didn’t take the news too well,” she said with a grin.

  Not looking her way, Ian picked up the hoe at her side. “Rumor mill’s going full tilt.”

  “Whatever the story, Ian, I’m sure it has no basis.”

  “I hope so.” He blushed. “I mean, I’m sure there’s no basis.”

  She furrowed her brow, watching his eyes.

  Embarrassed? Or nervous?

  “What are you trying to say?” she asked.

  “Word is …” Ian coughed and started again, looking away when he spoke. “Folks are talking, Laura Ann. They say that you’re accepting paying visitors at the farm.” He bit his lip. “Male visitors.”

  She nodded toward the porch. “Do you see a red light?” She hoped for a laugh, but he frowned.

  “What?” she asked. “You believe that stuff?”

  “This affects me too, Laura Ann.”

  “Oh, really?” She crossed her arms. “And how’s that?”

  He paused, watching her for a long time, his eyes misting as he fought for the right words. “I’m the man they’re talking about. The paying kind.”

  Laura Ann’s hands went to her mouth. “How can people say that?” she asked. “Everyone knows we’re friends.”

  “Just friends?” he asked, a faint smile wrinkling his cheeks.

  “More than friends,” she replied. “Much more.”

  “I’m getting lots of questions — at the office, and around town,” he said, looking down again. “You know. Innuendo. ‘The look.’ Some snickers at Auggie’s.” He shook his head. “Not a good thing for a law enforcement officer.”