David smiled at Seamus.
“Morning, Seamus,” he said.
The old man looked at him blankly over his morning cup of tea.
By noon, David had brought the cows in from the pasture—a pool of mud and water—and cleaned their tails and hooves of the muck and filth they’d slept in and then walked through. He had milked them, fed them, and returned them to the pasture. He had groomed, fed and released the couple’s pony into the paddock when the rain started to let up; repaired a hole in the wood and wire fence on the north section of the farm; fed the chickens, careful not to lose any; and raked their yard. Seamus had toddled along behind him like some present but witless supervisor.
He hated to leave Sarah and John alone so much but Seamus and Dierdre needed him. Sarah seemed to be handling it better than he could ever have imagined. Back home, to be honest, she vacillated between being a total basketcase about the most mundane things to somewhat of a control-freak. If he hadn’t been married to her, he wouldn’t have thought it possible for one person to be both. Frankly, it wasn’t the most pleasant living situation.
When he waved to Dierdre as she hung out laundry in the cold, wet weather, he felt an insistent ache run down both arms. Was all this just another case of him not being able to say no? Surely not. This was a world crisis needing everyone to pitch in and help each other. Back home, he had developed a reputation at work—a running gag, really—for being so accommodating that he invariably ended up doing his colleagues’ donkey work as well as his own.
Do nice guys really finish last? There seemed to be an argument for that in his department, at least, where he’d seen himself passed over for promotion twice for younger and more cutthroat professors. He watched Seamus tamp down the tobacco in his pipe and gaze, unseeing, to the horizon.
This is totally different, he decided.
It suddenly occurred to him that the two farms would do better to consolidate. The thought surprised him but as it took hold, it gave him strength and purpose. He would give Dierdre a little more time to come to the same conclusion herself and make the invitation and if she didn’t, he would suggest it. It made more sense for Sarah and John and himself to move in with Dierdre and Seamus, rather than the other way around. This was a semi-working farm with livestock and a garden, not a barely furnished tourist rental, although where they’d sleep he didn’t have a clue. Buoyed by the idea, and with the sun struggling to make an appearance behind the clouds, David energetically washed the couple’s pony gig. He had failed to drag it into the barn after the couple had returned to the farm the night before and the leather seat and tires were sodden and splashed with mud.
Before he took his first bite of the lunch Dierdre had prepared for him—with yet another pot of tea to wash it all down with—he wanted nothing more than to fall face first into the couch and sleep until morning.
And he still had a full afternoon’s chores to do.
Sarah’s morning had not gone well.
First, it had rained like it would never stop, forcing John to spend a good part of the morning indoors—never ideal for parent or child. Then, Ethel acted like she had prior Intel about the afternoon’s planned activities. From the minute Sarah came into the coop, the chicken ran from her. And because she ran, the other chickens became afraid and ran, too. After fifteen minutes of stirring up more feathers and dust than a down pillow factory explosion Sarah grabbed the chicken and stuffed her in a pillowcase.
Now she was sweating and nearly as upset as the chicken. She backed out of the coop, glad that John had gone to the sheep pasture. All laughter aside, this was upsetting in anyone’s book. She hurried with her squirming, thrashing bag of chicken hysteria to the area behind the barn she’d already designated the killing ground. Dierdre had told her it would all go much better if she was fast and sure about what she was doing. Assuming she’d already pretty much botched that tactic, Sarah took a moment to try to calm her nerves. The bag twitched and convulsed maniacally at the end of her arm.
Zen, zen, ommmm, peace, she chanted inside her head. Be at peace now. There is nothing more intimate than the taking of a life for the purpose of sustenance. I am, in fact, freeing you. Oh, this is nonsense. She gripped at the chicken inside the bag, feeling for its scrawny little neck and hoping she didn’t mistake it for a leg. Within seconds she found the neck through the burlap bag and, with the adrenalin pumping through her, wrenched as hard as she could.
The motion in the bag slowed and then stopped. Bright red blood began to seep out around her hands. Afraid for a moment that she’d literally torn the bird’s head off, Sarah dropped the bag in the snow, turned and retched up her morning tea. She sat down with a hard thump in the snow beside the now still bag and burst into tears.
David examined the broken fence by the eastern pasture. The three cows grazed peacefully nearby. Seamus’ dog lay dead in the ditch.
How did he miss this, this morning?
Had the fence been deliberately broken? And if they’d broken into the gate to steal a cow, why were they all there? It would’ve made sense to butcher the cow in the pasture rather than try to steal it on the hoof—considering the speed at which cows moved that would have been seriously counterproductive. The dog had its neck slit. Why would someone kill a dog? Were they trying to take out the couple’s alarm system? Was it just an act of senseless violence? David shook his head and looked at Seamus who stared peacefully out across the pasture.
“Sorry about this, Seamus,” David said. “Did you hear him bark at all last night?”
Seamus only smiled.
David looked at the cows, then back at the dog. He hadn’t heard anything himself, but he had been so exhausted that his sleep had been more like a light coma than a slumber. The dog, if he had barked, would not have awakened him.
“Dierdre will know,” the old man said.
David nodded and turned to head back to the house.
“I’ll get the shovel,” he said. It didn’t look like he would be going home early today after all. He felt a wave of weariness and disappointment.
Sarah pulled the roast chicken out of the oven and set it on top of the cook stove. She had enough potatoes and garlic and wild rosemary to make a proper feast of the dish. She was out of yeast but David seemed to prefer the simple flour biscuits anyway. The aroma from the chicken dish nearly brought tears to her eyes. Never had she been more proud of a simple roast chicken.
She looked out the kitchen window with the hope that she’d catch a glimpse of David coming down the main road on Rocky. She frowned. It was after three and she had expected him hours ago. Out in the courtyard, she watched John as he put his dogs through their paces. He made them both sit and stay and then released them with little bits of muffin he had saved from his lunch.
She tapped on the window and he looked up.
“Let me know when you see Dad, okay?” she shouted.
He gave a thumbs up to indicate he understood and turned back to his training.
Sarah sat down with a cup of tea. She noticed a single chicken feather wafting alone in the corner of the room. The plucking and gutting had been nearly as traumatic as the killing. But the thrill of her accomplishment blotted out the pain and horror of the day. She looked at her beautiful golden brown roast, shiny with herbs and basted with goat butter.
A perfect, celebratory meal for the returning husband, she thought, her anticipation back. She stood up to look out the window again.
Four hours later, she and John finished their dinner alone. The anxiety in the pit of her stomach had made it impossible to enjoy the meal. Even John looked worried.