Evenfall

by Liz Michalski

  “Well, take a good look then, Andie, because I’m going. I’m gone.”

  He pivots away and pushes through the crowd, disappearing in the general direction of the door. She’s still standing there, waiting for her breathing to settle, when Neal finds her.

  “Hey there, looking for a partner?” he says, grabbing her around the waist.

  She tries to smile. “How did it go with Jake?”

  “Well, he remembers you. But he’s not what I’d call a chatty guy, although he’s fond of a few select words. Like no, for example.”

  “He won’t sell?”

  “Doesn’t look like it, at least not this time. Interesting guy, though. I may try him again later.”

  “Sorry,” Andie says, though she’s secretly glad. She can’t imagine Johnny’s without the jukebox.

  “No worries. You know me—there’s always another opportunity around the corner.”

  He spins Andie once, twice, three times, and as the room blurs past she tries hard not to think about the opportunities she’s missed, the chances that just walk away.

  Gert

  IT occurs to Gert, not for the first time, that she’s come full circle. The worthless animal bleating in front of her could be a great-great-granddaughter of those her family kept, for all its fancy pedigree and funny-looking ears. She prods its kid gently with her foot, and it maas in response.

  She’d found the kid sprawled on the ground just past dawn this morning and walked back to the cottage to call Cort and fetch a bottle of mineral oil. Then she’d returned here, but she’d be damned if she was going to be the one to wrestle the oil down the animal’s throat. Although if Cort doesn’t get here soon, she might have to.

  At last she sees his pickup truck bouncing up the hill. He’s got that ridiculous animal with him, sticking its head out the passenger-side window and grinning. Why it can’t ride in the truck bed like a normal farm dog is beyond her.

  The truck rolls to a stop, and Cort hurries out, the dog bounding down behind him. They both skid to a stop in front of the fence.

  “Is she up yet?”

  Gert shakes her head. Cort glances down over the fence, then swings the gate open and comes in, gently closing it against the dog’s inquiring face.

  “Keep her out. This kid is in no shape to be harassed,” Gert warns. But Cort, now that he’s up close, is slowly turning an interesting green color. Gert, who’d taken the precaution of putting some Vicks VapoRub under her nose when she’d stopped at the cottage, is without sympathy.

  “Holy shit,” Cort says.

  “Exactly,” Gert agrees. She starts to hand him the mineral oil but he waves it off.

  “I, ah, I left the syringe in the truck,” he says, and hurries outside the paddock. It’s a reasonable excuse, and while it takes him a few moments longer to retrieve it than Gert thinks is strictly necessary for a farmer’s son, when he returns his color is normal.

  “What do you think she got into?” Cort says. His words are a little strained, and Gert guesses it’s because he’s trying to breathe through his mouth.

  Gert opens the bottle of mineral oil and hands it to him. “If I had to guess, I’d say chokecherry. There’s some on the other side of the fence. That, combined with worms, could do it. You’ve been worming her regularly?”

  He nods. “Every four weeks, just like the schedule you made says. But when I checked the label last time, the batch had expired. I was heading in town today to pick up some more. Think we need to call the vet?”

  The kid is still on the ground, but its breathing isn’t as laborious, and when Cort kneels to press its gums, the color stays pink. The mother goat bleats anxiously, and Gert gives it an absentminded pat as Cort fills the syringe with the oil and squirts it down the kid’s throat.

  “Let’s wait a bit,” she decides. “I’ll make some tea—that’ll help.”

  Cort looks up. “I’ve got coffee in the truck, but thanks.”

  “Not for you, fool. The tea acts as a stimulant, and the tannins in it can help counteract the poison if you drench her with it.”

  “Oh.”

  “And do you have any electrolytes? They’ll help with the dehydration from the diarrhea.”

  Cort nods. “I brought some from the barn. I’ll need to mix it with water, though.”

  “Well, let’s get a move on. Take me back to the cottage and you can get some there.”

  She gives the doe a final pat and slips out of the gate, the dog twisting and twining in front of her. “Move along, you,” she says. “Shoo.” But the dog simply sits and whines.

  She opens the cab door and is boosting herself in when Cort jogs over. “No, no, I can do it,” she says, waving him away.

  He shakes his head. “You Murphy women kill me. Although at least your niece likes the dog.”

  “It’s her taste in men that’s questionable,” Gert says before she can stop herself. She’s out of breath and irritable from the struggle into the truck. The second she’s settled, the dog bounds up and tries to push its way into her lap. “Shoo, I said!”

  “Back, girl,” Cort says, and the dog scrambles into the cargo space. It twists around so that its head rests on the back of the seat, breathing hot doggy breath into Gert’s ear.

  “See, she likes you,” Cort says, starting the truck.

  “Then her taste is questionable as well,” Gert says, but she lets the beast’s head stay where it is.

  They bump along the pasture’s track, scaring up bobwhite and the occasional oriole. When they pass the big house, the dog’s breathing quickens and it whines softly, thumping its tail behind the seat. There’s movement at the attic window. The lace curtain moves sideways, and Gert’s fairly certain she sees her niece’s form at the glass.

  “Just passing through, girl,” Cort says, and the dog falls silent.

  They bounce down the driveway and onto the road, then turn just a few hundred feet later onto the cottage’s own driveway. The little house looks tidy for the first time in years, with a fresh coat of yellow paint and powder blue shutters framing each window. The morning glories, mowed down in their prime, have been replanted, along with climbing roses and clematis, stretching their new leaves toward the sky. There’s even a wicker rocker on the front porch, a little worn but respectable again in a fresh coat of white paint. Cort found it in the shed when he was hauling junk to the dump and fixed it up over Gert’s protests. Now, it’s her favorite spot in the evening.

  He kills the engine and they sit in silence for a second. “It’s looking pretty good, don’t you think?” he says.

  “Not bad,” Gert agrees. “But there’s plenty more to be done.” In truth, once he paints the big house, she’ll be hard-pressed to find enough work to keep Cort around. She’d counted on the fact that proximity to Andie would be enough to bring the two of them together, but it seems she’d misjudged the boy’s spirit. Or perhaps their relationship was doomed to a quiet death, slated to end with the fall’s first chill even without the appearance of Neal.

  “Miss Gert?”

  The boy’s standing at her door side, and she has to blink to bring herself back to the present.

  “You need a hand?”

  “Just gathering my strength—fending off your animal has sucked the energy right out of me,” she says.

  She climbs carefully out of the truck, ignoring his outstretched hand, and takes her time up the steps to the cottage. Buddy’s curled in a small puddle of sun in the porch corner. When the dog sniffs him, he yawns, stretches, and twists onto his back, luring the dog in closer.

  “Watch him,” Gert warns, but it’s too late. The cat’s paw snakes out like lightning, scratching the dog’s nose. The dog yelps in surprise, and the cat scrambles for the porch railing, its back arched, hissing. Another bark and it jumps off the railing and stalks toward the woods.

  “Jesus. Nice pet you’ve got there, Miss Gert,” Cort says, shaking his head. He kneels to inspect the dog’s nose.

  “It’s not m
ine—just a stray who stops by sometimes,” Gert says. “And if you’d control your animal, none of it would have happened.”

  Inside, she washes her hands and puts the kettle on. While it heats, she fills a metal bowl that she keeps for the cat with cold water, then searches the bathroom cabinet for a tube of antibacterial cream and some cotton swabs.

  She brings the water outside and sets it on the porch floor. “Don’t think you’re coming inside,” she warns the dog, which thumps its tail enthusiastically at her voice. Cort’s sitting on the floor next to it, rubbing its ears. She hands the tube and the swabs to him.

  “Use this on its nose. Cat scratches can be nasty.”

  The kettle is starting its metallic shriek, so she heads back inside, shaking her head at the steadfast optimism of dogs. Scold or shove them and they’ll lick your hands, confident your ire is just a misunderstanding between friends. Simply look at a cat the wrong way and it’ll take offense. She can’t decide which outlook is better.

  She reaches into the top shelf of the cupboard for her tea, takes two bags down, and puts them into a clean glass jar. She pours the hot water in slowly, watching for breaks in the glass. When it’s full, the mild, dusty odor of tea makes her decide to brew a cup for herself. She lets the cup steep on the counter as she goes outside to check on the boy.

  He’s sitting in the same spot, one arm around the dog’s neck, the other engaged in pulling a cotton swab out of its mouth.

  “The cream is for the outside of the animal. I make no guarantees about the inside.”

  “I don’t think she ate much—it’s just a game to her,” he says, retrieving the swab. “And the scratch doesn’t look deep.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s something,” Gert says. She pats the dog on the head. “Keep your nose where it belongs next time,” she tells it, and it thumps its tail.

  “The tea should be about ready,” she says. “If you’ll give me the electrolytes, I’ll mix them in water.”

  He shakes his head. “Let me get a bucket from the truck. I don’t want to mess up any of your stuff.”

  She watches as he walks to the truck. There’s a slowness to him that she doesn’t like. His hair looks as if it hasn’t seen a comb in days, and whatever Catherine’s feeding the boy, it isn’t enough. She’s seen the boys at the market with their pants falling down around their hips, their underwear on display, but on Cort it’s not a fashion statement—it’s disinterest.

  “You’re looking a bit peaked,” she informs him when he returns.

  “Is that so,” he says. “This bucket should be big enough. The ratio is on the package. Okay if I come in to mix it?”

  “It is not. You can sit your fanny down in that rocker. I’m making you a sandwich and some tea.”

  “I don’t drink tea.”

  “You do now,” she says, pointing to the rocker. He gives her a look but does what she says.

  Inside, she scours the fridge for food. There’s not much. She settles on a turkey sandwich, white bread, a generous smear of mayonnaise. The tea in the jar is too strong, but the cup she poured for herself should be about right. She hesitates for a moment, then drags over a chair and rummages in the cupboard above the refrigerator. In the way back, behind the mixing bowls and glass pie plates, she finds a bottle of Irish whiskey that’s two-thirds empty. She uncaps it, and as the smell of alcohol rises, her stomach rolls uneasily. Gert’s not a drinker, never has been. She thanks her father for that. But the day Frank died, the pastor pressed a small tumbler on her and left behind the bottle. She’d called Andie, left a message for her brother, then sat at the table, not moving, the afternoon shadows growing longer and longer. Somewhere a dog or a coyote howled, and the sound clawed at her insides. She uncapped the bottle, poured a shot into her glass, and drank it. She studied how she felt. Not that different, really. A burning in her midsection somewhere, a faint fuzziness in her head that was rather pleasant. She didn’t see what all the fuss was about. She poured the next shot to muffle the animal’s howling, which was so loud, so close, it was tearing her apart. She took the third shot to bed, burying her face in the pillow to muffle the noise, but the howling wouldn’t go away. It raged through her, and in the morning her throat was as sore as her head.

  Standing in the kitchen now, she takes the bottle down, pours a healthy tot into Cort’s cup, recaps the bottle and puts it away. After a moment’s reflection, she adds a spoonful of honey.

  She brings the sandwich and tea out on a tray and hands it to him, so that he can balance it on his lap. “Uh, thanks, but really, I’m fine.”

  “Eat,” she says in her best charge nurse voice, and it works. He takes a bite of the sandwich, chews, swallows, and reaches for the tea. It’s halfway to his mouth when the fumes stop him. “What’s in this?” he asks suspiciously.

  “Nothing. A bit of honey, is all.”

  He takes a cautious sip. “Jesus, what is this, hundred proof?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says firmly. “Drink up.”

  “Miss Gert, do you have designs on me?” he jokes, but he downs about a third of the cup. After the sandwich is gone and the tea is mostly drunk, she can see him relax. It’s like he’s setting down a weight he’s been carrying for too long. “I ought to get back to Clarabelle,” he says, but makes no move to get up.

  Naming farm animals is a mistake—when it comes time to eat them or put them down, you’re emotionally invested, and it clouds your thinking. Gert’s about to tell him this, but it occurs to her he must already know. Growing up on the McCallister farm, he’s breakfasted on plenty of animals he tended to the night before. She forgets sometimes, because he’s so young, that he knows how the world works in a way that her niece does not.

  “She’ll be fine for a bit.”

  “How do you know so much about goats?” he asks.

  “A misspent youth,” she says.

  “Yeah, well, to misspent youth.” He raises the cup in a toast. “To a youth misspent.”

  She didn’t pour that much whiskey. Unless, of course, the sandwich is his first meal of the day. In which case, she poured more than enough. She looks at him, and he grins happily back.

  “You haven’t had a bite to eat all day, have you?” she says, shaking her head. This is her punishment, for meddling. But if she’s going to hell, she could do worse than spend her last remaining hours in the presence of Cort.

  It’s unfortunate that her niece can’t see that. In some ways, Gert blames herself. She’s always held that family comes before all, and now she’s wondering if she’s been wrong all these years, pushing Richard on Andie. Gert’s no fool. She’s watched Oprah, she’s listened to Dr. Phil, and while she thinks most of what is said on those shows is claptrap, she knows how important a father’s influence can be on a young girl. All summer, Richard’s been calling her, checking on the progress of the big house, pushing her to put it on the market. He’s worried about her, he says. It’s too much for her, she should let him help, but Gert sees right through him. In all these calls, he’s never once mentioned his daughter.

  It makes her uneasy, this sudden attention from her brother. There’s a current beneath his words, a subtext she can’t quite read. They’ve grown apart, and she’s lost the key to him. Her fault, she supposes, although if what she did cost him, it cost her just as much. And it was for the best, she’s sure of it.

  Even now, looking back, she can’t say it was wrong. She’d been watching Andie on her summer visits, had seen the girl’s quickness despite her spotty attendance at school. She’d taken her for long weekends over the winter break, showed her the city and all its possibilities, prospects Andie would never have if she stayed in Hartman.

  She’d seen, too, the way the girl lingered over the hidden spots of Evenfall, the way she rose early to say her farewells to the farm in the privacy of the predawn air. There was an attachment there it would be best to end quickly. So at the start of summer, when Gert found her brother alone at the
kitchen table, waiting for Andie to come in and say good-bye, she’d laid her groundwork carefully.

  “Junior high is the time when her grades start to matter. Think of what she can do. The brochure shows classes in Latin, Greek, even Chinese,” she’d said, spreading the glossy pages in front of him.

  He’d glanced at them, then set his coffee cup down on the centerfold, the one that showed smiling coeds on a brilliantly green lawn. “She don’t need all that,” he said. “The school in Hartman’s good enough, and she’s got her heart set on living here. Clara’s got it all arranged.”

  “But this school has a full art studio, too,” she’d said, playing her trump card. “She has potential, Richard, potential even I can see, and it will be wasted if she stays here.” Her brother, who studied the breeding notes of his horses as carefully as other men studied the stock market, believed in potential. Wasting it was the only sin he recognized.

  He was silent a long moment. Shifted his coffee cup off the brochure and took a sip. “Even if that’s true, I don’t have the money to pay for it,” he said at last.

  “But I do,” she said. “I make good money as a nurse, and I’ve got plenty saved with no one to spend it on. I’d be honored if you’d let me use it for Andie.”

  She’d already filled out the application form, and only needed his signature to send it in. When she placed it in front of him, he gave a sardonic smile, and she saw that he knew the other reason she was doing this. It shocked her, that her brother of all people could see past the facade she’d spent so much time erecting. She had to go cautiously, now.

  “I think it might be best if the news came from you,” she said carefully. “Clara doesn’t see the benefit of an education the way we do, she’d think I was just meddling, and Andie…” She let it hang.

  “You want someone else to break the girl’s heart,” he finished. “And you figure it might as well be me.”

  She didn’t answer, just handed him the pen. He touched it to the paper, then paused. “It occurs to me—how am I supposed to be paying for this, again? A big run on the ponies and I’d have the cash to flash.”