“Barns do,” Alan said. “I see them all the time. I’ve been taking photos of some of the barns around. Most are falling down.”
“Huh,” Liz said. She was flipping through her notes.
“I brought pesto lasagna,” Alan said.
“Ooh,” Liz said. She was scribbling something in the margin of one of the pages. Her tight handwriting filled the page. She had a very particular scheme for how she took notes. Heaven help the person who tried to write something on one of Liz’s coveted yellow legal pads.
“Are you going to put that away, or should I give your lunch to Minh?”
“Sorry,” Liz said. “Sorry. I know. You know it takes me at least twenty minutes to disengage.”
Alan nodded. Liz clipped her pen to the pad and tossed it to the floor under her desk.
“Tell me about your day,” she said. She rose from her chair to tear a piece of bread from the loaf and steal another piece of cheese. Liz flopped back down in the chair.
“You’re looking at it,” Alan said. “Took me all morning to put this together.”
“You’re so sweet. Not working at Bob’s today?”
“I’ll stop in on my way home. He’s doing electrical today. He doesn’t really need help with that.”
“What about your other project?”
“The bones and heart?” Alan asked.
“The mysterious heart,” Liz said.
“As far as I know, he hasn’t heard anything,” Alan said.
“You should publish those photos,” Liz said. “Send them around to nature magazines or whatever. They’re incredible.”
Alan nodded. He didn’t have the slightest idea where to send his photos. There were some interesting ones. The shadows of the stacked bones made neat patterns against the grass mat, and the heart itself looked like a hole cut out of the center of the shot. The purple clotted blood only showed on a couple of the closeup shots. On the others the exposure must have been wrong—the heart only looked black. Bob had sent a couple of the best shots over to a friend of his who was an animal wrangler and trained zoologist.
“You should have gotten the last name of that old man. Clive?”
“Buster,” Alan said. “His name is Clyde, but everyone calls him Buster. Quid pro quo.”
“What made you say that?”
“What?”
“Quid pro quo is an exchange of goods or services. What made you say it?” Liz asked.
“It’s something Buster said. He said the town owns the cabin, quid pro quo. Bob and I have been saying it constantly ever since.”
“Well I don’t think he’s using the term right,” Liz said. “Unless the cabin was traded to the town for goods or services.”
“Maybe it was,” Alan said. “Although it sounded like the town just took the land because nobody was paying the taxes.”
Liz licked the cheese off her fingers and then stood up to dish herself some salad. She picked the olives from the bowl and put most of them on her portion—she always stole the olives.
“I’m not sure they can do that,” Liz said. “I can check with Gerald. I think that if you don’t pay your property taxes, the property goes under lien for a period of time. After that, I think you have so many years to pay off the debt with interest. Actually, I’m not sure what happens after that deadline. Maybe they do take the parcel.”
Liz picked an olive from her salad and popped it in her mouth. She smiled as she chewed.
“Did you do any more photos at the house?” Liz asked.
“Yeah, a few. I can’t get the light right for a couple I want. I did the manure shed, the spinning wheel, the bulkhead, the loft, and the rock garden. The back of the barn is problematic. This time of year the sun hits it directly in the morning. There’s nothing to soften it. Then, in the afternoon, it’s black back there. There’s no ambience.”
Alan served himself a salad from what was left in the bowl.
“I’ve been thinking more and more about Edwin’s book,” Alan said. “I’ll need a big space to spread out the photos so I can arrange them into some kind of order,” Alan said.
“Huh,” Liz said. He could see the gears turning in her head. She knew that once he laid out his photos, they would be there for months while he sorted them over and over. Alan worked with big subjects—genocide, and the overthrow of governments—and he used big prints to examine their worthiness. They weren’t the kind of photos you wanted to spread out in the dining room a few weeks before all your relatives would arrive for Thanksgiving.
“I’m thinking the attic,” Alan said.
“Oh! That sounds good,” Liz said.
“I can put a kerosene heater up there to take the edge off while I work. I’ll have to string some lights. It might make sense to pin up some insulation, just so I don’t get pneumonia while I’m working up there,” Alan said. He pressed for all the advantage he could gain while she was still relieved at the easy resolution.
“Sounds great, honey,” Liz said.
“I’ll pick up some supplies on my way home,” Alan said.
“I’m so happy you have a new project,” Liz said.
“I’m happy this one has a purpose and an end,” Alan said.
“What do you mean?” Liz asked. He put aside her fork and used her fingers to manipulate the last of the salad.
“All that shit with Joe, and the crazy garbage out in the woods—it’s all so unresolved and unsolvable. I don’t have a plan. I’m just reacting.”
“I know how you feel,” Liz said. She didn’t have the ability to listen to a problem and just sympathize—Liz was a fixer. She always had to try to solve a problem presented to her. Alan appreciated her commitment and caring, but he was sometimes frustrated that she seemed to think that she could come up with an answer to a situation he’d just declared unsolvable. It felt like she didn’t think much of his intellect. This was one of those times. “Joe probably feels like he doesn’t have any agency. He’s been dropped into a new situation and he has no influence over what happens from day to day. It’s understandable that he would want to take control of some corner of his world.”
“Liz, he thinks there are evil forces and it’s up to him to stop them. I’ve never given him any indication that the world isn’t a logical, rational place. I don’t know where he developed those ideas.”
Alan went around the back of the desk to dish out lasagna. He’d forgotten to bring a spatula. He was trying to lift a square of noodles with a knife and fork.
“Everyone comes to their own understanding of spirituality,” Liz said. “You can’t force someone to believe in evil, and you can’t force someone to not believe.”
“So we should let Joe run around beating up little girls he thinks are evil?”
Liz wrinkled her nose. “Alan—he needs to know that actions have consequences and that violence doesn’t solve problems. That doesn’t mean he has to slough off his belief that there are things beyond human understanding.”
“I’m not sure we’re having the same argument,” Alan said. “And what kind of talk is this for your half birthday?”
“You brought it up,” Liz said. She took the offered plate of lasagna. She held it in one hand while she tucked her legs underneath herself. “You want to talk about private schools again?”
“We don’t have the money,” Alan said. “And we can’t run from these problems.”
Liz nodded. She chewed and closed her eyes. “This is so good. This is like an hour on the treadmill right here, but it’s so good.”
Alan smiled.
“Do me a favor—leave the rest of that here. I don’t want it in the refrigerator at home, calling to me.”
“I’ll take home enough for me and Joe,” Alan said. “You can have twigs and sand for dinner.”