The Farmhouse

by Elizabeth Bromke

  “I’ve got an idea. Let’s see if there’s a crowbar in that barn out back,” Gretchen suggested.

  Maggie scooped Briar into her arms and out they went, through the weedy path toward what once must have been a thing of beauty. The red paint had long begun to fade and peel, but the old barn was broad and sturdy-looking.

  It was filled with possibilities.

  As though Gretchen were reading her mother’s mind, she said, “Mom, we could do something with this.” She waved her hand out across the front.

  “Yeah, Gretch. Rent it out maybe? Get a little income going.”

  Gretchen peered at Maggie out of the corner of her eye. “I could set up my crafting station in here. I really could start learning to sew! Who knows, maybe Marguerite or Mimi Devereux left behind an old Singer.” The teenager glowed with excitement, and Maggie knew better than to quell it.

  They arrived at the doors to learn the boys had been right. A sturdy chain hung down from the latch, rust obscuring its level of effectiveness. An old padlock dragged the chain low. Maggie set Briar down and lifted the padlock, latent red dust smudging onto her skin as she pulled with all her might.

  “Do you have a key?” Gretchen asked.

  Maggie shook her head. “I tried all the keys the other day. None worked.”

  “Hmm, well...” Gretchen glanced around, searching for something.

  “Did we bring any of Daddy’s tools from the shed?” Maggie asked her daughter, feeling the pull of exhaustion blur her memory.

  Gretchen shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought we brought everything.”

  “Let’s check. Maybe Zack or Stedman hauled it over.”

  The women rounded back to the side of the house, where boxes marked Exterior sat waiting, ready to rot into the earth.

  After rummaging through every last one, they came up empty.

  “The milk is going to spoil,” Gretchen pointed out.

  Maggie sighed. “That’s not helpful. Maybe you should take the groceries to the Pine Tree house for now. I’ll keep looking for a key or a crowbar, okay?”

  “What about Briar?” Gretchen gestured to the little girl who had since wandered back toward the barn, collecting as many weeds as she could in her grubby little hands.

  “I’ll watch her. You go. We can’t afford to waste so much as a dozen eggs.” Maggie hadn’t intended on transferring her stress to her daughter, but it was best Gretchen realize the gravity of their situation now. Maggie added, “Oh, Gretch. It’s after three. Can you pick up the boys, too?”

  Gretchen nodded and packed the bags back into the SUV without complaining and peeled away from the house and up the dirt road back to town.

  And then Maggie’s phone rang.

  “THIS IS A WILD QUESTION, and I know that,” came the voice on the other end. It was Becky, who was driving back from Corydon as she spoke.

  Maggie strode back to the house where she could start setting up mattresses with sheets and blankets, Briar whining behind her about being cold.

  Fortunately the parlor had a fireplace and every last one of Maggie’s space heaters was running on full blast, but still the place felt chilly.

  “I like wild questions,” Maggie answered, directing Briar to a snack at the kitchen table and wrapping her in an extra towel she hadn’t yet employed in her mission to deep clean every last corner.

  Becky went on, “Didn’t you used to own chickens? Like... hens or something?”

  “Wait, what?” Maggie wasn’t certain she heard Becky right. “Well, yes. But, why?”

  “Maggie, I bought a darn chicken. It was an impulse purchase. I don’t know what I was thinking except the idea of having fresh eggs was super enticing and—-”

  “Becky, a chicken? Who is selling chickens in January in Indiana? Is it just one? Not a chick but a full-grown chicken? Like a hen?”

  “Yeah, Maggie, listen, they were rehoming her and a few others, and she was dirt cheap, and I thought Memaw still had her old coop...”

  “But...” Maggie prompted her friend, seeing clearly where this could be going, and it was almost maddening.

  “Well Memaw doesn’t have a coop anymore. We looked everywhere, and she’s mad at me. But I did notice the other day that your farmhouse has one, so...”

  “So you want to board your single chicken here, in the middle of my catastrophe?” Maggie should have been annoyed. She should have been angry, even, that her friend was completely deaf to all of Maggie’s problems at that moment and wanted to unload yet another problem on her.

  “No, no, no,” Becky replied. “I just need the coop, that’s all.”

  Maggie blew out a sigh and told her to come on over. “And bring the chicken with you.”

  “ANY WORD FROM TRAVIS?” It was the first thing to slip out of Becky’s mouth, despite the fact that she had a restless, wild-eyed hen locked up in a cage in the bed of her truck in the dead of winter.

  Maggie shook her head, “Not a peep. Zack said he has a certain timeline to respond before other things happen, but frankly I don’t even care. I need to get this place in decent shape. Whatever else happens is just noise.”

  “Like the hen,” Becky answered, amusement filling her face.

  Maggie cracked a smile. “My disaster is not a joke, Becky,” she tsked. “Now that poor chicken must be freezing. You’re going to need more than a century-old chicken outdoor coop, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. But it sounds like you do.”

  “Yes. We had chickens on Pine Tree Lane. Years ago. When I was still young and deluded that my life was perfect.”

  Becky frowned. “Aw, Mags,” she began as they huddled together in the cold.

  A single tear welled along Maggie’s lower eyelid, dancing there for a moment until the breeze cut in through the trees and whisked it off the rim of her lashes and smeared it into the bridge of her nose. Maggie wiped the wetness with the back of her hand, thankful it was a renegade and the floodgates were still securely in place.

  That was the benefit of hard labor; it kept you from falling in on yourself.

  But then Becky took her by surprise and grabbed her in a hard hug, threatening Maggie’s emotional state yet again. Her friend whispered into Maggie’s ear, “Just because it doesn’t seem perfect now, doesn’t mean you didn’t have happy times.”

  Maggie nodded her head and forced herself to concentrate on the tasks in her mental to-do list: a sleeping room, functioning fridge, hot water. Those were the priorities. In that order. Following up on Travis was useless and would result in nothing but stress.

  Maggie squeezed her friend back, thankful for the perspective she brought and the silliness of her visit. “Let’s see the darn thing. I think this could be a good distraction for me,” she announced.

  Becky hefted a small wire cage from the bed of the truck. Inside, a panicked chicken bobbed its head about.

  “I can’t believe you did this. Is Memaw like super mad?”

  Becky was living with her grandmother on the Linden family farm off of Main Street. She’d probably stay there until sweet Memaw passed on. Becky, like Fern, loved old things. Maggie often wondered why they hadn’t formed a tighter bond. Then again, perhaps they had and Maggie was too consumed to realize it. A stupid adolescent jealousy might have taken root in Maggie’s heart over Fern and Becky and their potential for closeness. But she was too exhausted to care or be bothered over such trivialities.

  “Memaw is not happy about it. She made me feel five-years-old all over again and said I’d better figure something out because she wasn’t lifting a finger, period. She said she’d done her fair share of chicken rearing and for far too long. Her chicken days are over, I guess.”

  “You have no coop, you have an unsupportive roommate, it’s the dead of winter, and your best friend in the world is going through pure hell. And you bought a chicken.”

  “She’s a hen, remember,” Becky pointed out sheepishly. “But, I can take her back. You’re right. It’s like I’m going
through a midlife crisis. I don’t know. Zack won’t be happy, either; I can assure you of that.”

  “Oh great, Beck.” Just then the SUV came blowing up the dirt drive. Once Gretchen parked, the kids poured out like jelly from an overstuffed PB&J sandwich. Briar, who’d been inside, intuited the excitement and tumbled down the front deck, on the precipice of crying but too determined to be part of the big kids’ discovery to care that she scraped her knee.

  “Is that a chicken?” Ky hollered, sprinting full speed in his puffy winter jacket. Dakota and Briar rushed in, too.

  Gretchen, heavy-lidded and irritable, said, “I went to drop the groceries at our house.”

  “Thanks, Gretchen,” Maggie began to answer but the teenager interrupted.

  “I couldn’t, though.” Her face was serious. As she grew nearer, Maggie realized she wasn’t irritated or tired.

  The hollow look in her eyes didn’t reveal the stress and exhaustion present in each of them, at that moment.

  No.

  She was frightened.

  “Gretchen, what is it? What happened?”

  The kids fell silent. Becky grew still. Even the chicken stopped rustling in her cage.

  “Mom, when I went to the house,” she began, her eyes darting from the kids to Becky and back to Maggie. “Dad was there.”

  Chapter 27 — Gretchen

  Gretchen was not afraid of her father. But she knew better than to trust him. So she’d booked it, sacrificing fresh milk in favor of maintaining her dignity. Because if she had jumped out of the SUV to confront him, she knew it would end in an all-out sob fest with her dad winning on the basis of his indifference and her losing because she cared.

  A lot.

  Though Gretchen loved the new farmhouse and all its potential, she hated who her father was and the position he’d put them in. And she hated him for more reasons than that. She hated him because he was a loser who’d rather hit the bar than read a book to his kids, and mostly, because he left them. Without a fight and without a reason. He just left.

  What kind of father did that to his children? To his wife?

  Then Gretchen remembered that her grandfather had done that. Years ago. Not just her father’s father, but her mother’s father too.

  Gretchen came from a long line of men who left their families.

  And that sucked.

  So it was curious that she called Theo.

  Their exchange was brief, because she didn’t want Dakota or Ky to hear her conversation, but Theo promised he’d come down Friday night. He’d help. He’d be there for her. At least, that was how the conversation began.

  But then, to Gretchen’s own surprise, she’d told him no.

  It took every bit of intellectual maturity and wisdom she had to realize that she did not need Theo to fix the problem of her dad. And, even more importantly, she did not want him to.

  What she needed—and wanted—was to have someone to talk to. That was it. A friend. A confidant. A venting partner. She didn’t want romance or pillow talk or acts of bravery.

  Tragically, Theo did not want to hear that.

  Because when Gretchen told him that she didn’t need him to save her and that she just wanted to talk to a friend, he replied in the most disappointing way she could imagine.

  He said he was sick of her wishy-washiness. He said that he was her friend.

  But he also said that he wanted to be more.

  And for Gretchen, the revelation was ruinous.

  Chapter 28 — Maggie

  Becky slammed a hand down on the wood. “He told you what?”

  The three women were sitting at the breakfast table in the kitchen. The boys and Briar had been assigned to set up the chicken coop, and Maggie didn’t even care if they were dragging her good duvet out there as bedding.

  Gretchen’s news was urgent.

  “Forget about Theo for a second,” Maggie cut in. “Let’s start with Travis.”

  Poor Gretchen had borne the brunt of not only running into her derelict father but also of dealing with a teenaged boy who didn’t know quite how to handle grown-up problems, yet. Unfortunately, Gretchen failed to realize Theo had good intentions. And, she also failed to realize that Theo was a catch. She was too absorbed in her own struggles to see that or to understand that people make mistakes.

  But those mistakes don’t always have to be an ending.

  Still, Theo and his untimely comment were, frankly, secondary to the matter of Travis.

  Becky apologized and agreed. “Yes, you’re right. Sorry.”

  Maggie punched into the pop top of a Diet Coke and sipped slowly, the cool beverage coating her throat and giving her enough energy to screw her courage to the sticking place. “Gretchen, spill. What did he look like? Did he talk do you? Was he trying to move back in or something? Was he looking for his stuff?”

  After a deep inhale, the teenager offered all the details she could. “He looked tired. He had a scruffy face and his hair was growing in.” Gretchen gestured to the sides of her head like she was emulating a mad scientist.

  Travis had grown bald on top in his twenties, and ever since Maggie had pointed it out, he’d never skipped a day shaving. He’d fully embraced the bald-headed look as long as he was in control of it.

  “Like on top?” Becky asked, her eyes wide as though the biggest chunk of gossip to come from all this drama was that Travis, suddenly, had hair.

  Maggie chuckled in spite of herself. “Maybe he had the hairs from his hairy behind tweezed out and transplanted to the top of his head.”

  Gretchen, who’d previously been on the brink of sobbing, scrunched her face in disgust. “Eww, Mom. Come on. And it was just on the sides, anyway. He looked really, well, old.”

  Becky broke out in a full-blown belly laugh, and Maggie ignored her daughter to join in.

  “Maybe it’s a toupee!” Becky added, as Maggie roared along with her.

  She threw in one last joke through the tears of laughter that streaked down her cheeks. “A toupee for a butthead!”

  It felt good. And though Maggie had always been careful never to criticize her husband to her children or in front of them, a little fun-poking had its place in light of recent events.

  Even Gretchen cracked a grin before waving her hands to continue the narrative. “Anyway,” she said, smiling still, “he mostly looked confused, honestly. He had a big box on the front porch and was talking on his cell phone.”

  “Ah, so it works still,” Maggie jumped in. “He really is just ignoring us.”

  “But that was all I saw before I drove off,” Gretchen concluded.

  Becky asked, “Did he see you?”

  Gretchen shook her head. “I don’t know. I don't know how he could have missed the SUV, but I didn’t stop to check. I just sped out of there. Sorry about the food, Mom.”

  “What food?” Becky asked.

  “She was going to take the groceries to our fridge at the old house. But, it’s so cold out, Gretch, I’m sure they’ll be fine in the SUV. Probably even better there anyway. And Becky’s here, now. Maybe she can take the meat and dairy back to her place in a while.”

  “Well, sure, but what is wrong with the fridge here?”

  “Sealed shut. We probably need to get a new one or try to bring the one from Pine Tree down here.”

  Becky nodded. “I can take your food to my place. In fact, how about you all come on over. Memaw is making fried pork chops. I’ll have her throw a couple extra in the skillet. You can shower up and sleep warm.”

  Maggie had to admit a hot shower and southern cooking sounded amazing. So she agreed readily, after nearly two weeks of brushing off her friend’s offers of a refuge. “But what about the chicken?”

  “Let’s go check,” Becky suggested. And the three rose from the table and descended from the back door toward the two boys and little Briar, who had made far more progress than Maggie would have expected.

  The coop was decrepit, but they’d added blankets and a water dish.
<
br />   “This place is starting to actually seem like a real farm,” Becky murmured, apparently in awe of the plentiful, ragamuffin children and their new pet livestock. Maggie smiled at the sight.

  “What’s the temp dropping to tonight?” Gretchen pulled out her phone. “Ugh,” she said, opening her text messaging app instead and flashing it to Maggie and Becky who gawked on in great interest over the teenage love drama.

  Maggie’s eyes scanned Theo’s latest message. It was sweet. Sincere. An apology. Sort of. “Gretch,” she began, looking to Becky for some sort of approval.

  Becky’s mouth drew down in a pout. She met Maggie’s gaze and nodded before saying, “Gretchen, I don’t want to get in the middle here, but Theo just likes you. A lot. He can’t tell if you like him back, and that’s hard. You know?”

  Gretchen smirked and swiped around on her phone. “It’s going to be 38 for a low. The chicken might be okay. We can research more at Miss Becky’s house, you all,” she called to her younger siblings.

  Maggie saw through her daughter’s act, though. “Gretchen, did you hear what Becky said to you?”

  The boys and Briar ambled off toward the SUV, Becky trailing behind slowly enough to stay part of Maggie and Gretchen’s conversation.

  “Yeah, I heard you, Miss Becky.” Gretchen’s voice dropped lower. “And I like Theo, too. But I don’t need him to ‘save’ me,” she spat, quoting the air with her fingers.

  Nodding, Maggie answered, “You don’t want to be like me, do you?”

  Gretchen turned, taken aback at her mother’s perceptiveness. “That’s not...”

  “It is what you’re thinking, and that’s good, sweetheart.” Maggie slipped her hand around her daughter’s waist. She felt thin, too thin. “Gretchen, there are good things about your dad. He provided for us very well for a very long time, you know.”