Story Delilah "Del"

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 10 -2

It was still dark when Mark kicked Calvin awake, a maneuver not exactly appreciated. “Dang Mark, it isn’t even daylight yet.”

“Be glad. This way we’ll get down the road some more before anyone sees us.”

Miz Lou tried to get them to stay, at least for breakfast, but Big John understood and approved the move if not the destination. He told them the areas of town that were best avoided and which families they might seek refuge with if needed.

Calvin, not quite as bad as he sometimes acted said, “Mark, I’m sorry about your family but … Uncle Rudy only wanted us to find out what the state of the town was. We’ve pretty much got that. Actually walking into town might not be the smartest thing to do and might even draw attention we don’t want.”

Mark sighed and stopped. “Cal, I have to see about Dee myself. And I have to be sure that Cici is really gone and not waiting for someone to rescue her. She’s just a fourteen year old kid … and a girl kid at that. I …” He stopped unable to continue.

Calvin then made a decision that probably saved both of their lives. “Well, you can’t go by yourself and Del would likely kill me if I came back without you. Just promise me this quest or whatever you’re on won’t take us any further than the town and that we go back to the farm right afterwards.”

Mark nodded in agreement. They didn’t see anyone until about mid-day and since they looked like some of the out-of-towners they ducked into an empty shed.

The people were soon followed by others, many dressed in the urban-thug style. They were scavenging and begging from the few people that lived in the neighborhood. Everyone looked too beat down to be any trouble but then a fight broke out over some bit of something that had been found and the guys had to re-evaluate their opinion.

“You’d think they’d have better things to do,” said Calvin.

“Problem is they might not have enough to do. Or maybe not even know what to do so they are just doing what they saw people do in the movies.”

After a couple of hours the scavengers left and the guys were able to be on their way again. As night fell they finally reached the house they sought. Mark had prepared himself for bad but this was way on the other side of that.

The last time he has seen the place the yard had been a pristine monument to southern gentility with a fountain and bird bath in the front, carefully tended shrubbery, and large oaks and maples that were a riot of color in the autumn. The house was a faux southern mansion on the outside and was a cliché of every McMansion on the inside. It is like someone had turned the house into the local fundraising haunted house.

The yard was badly overgrown and debris lay like flotsam at a pier all over the place. Not a single window in the two-story house was intact. The wraparound porch was partially destroyed where a pick up truck had been run up onto it and Dee’s prize Cadillac sat in the fountain and the bird bath had been thrown through its windshield. The entire neighborhood looked wrecked and abandoned but Dee’s house looked particularly bad … or maybe it was just the contrasting memories from Mark’s childhood that made it appear so.

Strangely enough when they mounted the front porch they found the heavy front door locked. “He knew his doors and locks, I’ll give him that,” Mark muttered under his breath before turning to Calvin and saying, “Come around back. The less noise the better. I swear I feel someone or something staring at us.”

“Dude, what are you doing?” Calvin asked as Mark bent down beside the back porch.

“I used to sneak in and out of the house this way. We’re gonna have to crawl but I doubt they ever found the secret passage.”

“Cool,” Calvin said, up for the sudden adventure. Mark just shook his head and hoped the trap door hadn’t been nailed shut.

After crawling under the house and finding the gouges he had made to guide him in the dark before he was even a teenager, he finally reached what he was looking for.

“Bro, this is … amazing,” Calvin breathed, impressed at the very idea of having a hidden entrance and exit that the teenage Mark could use whenever he felt like it. “I always wondered how you got in and out without Dee’s husband killing you.”

“They remodeled the house and took out the old laundry chute. Instead of fixing the floor the right way, the guys just put a piece of plywood over it and built a closet around it in the downstairs room that became my bedroom.” The entrance didn’t seem to be quite as big as Mark remembered but they both managed to get through so long as they went one shoulder at a time.

The house smelled foul. “Gag, man Mark, check out your room Bro. I think I’m gonna puke.”

Human waste had been smeared on the walls spelling out the foulest obscenities. The carpet reeked of urine. Mark, in a shocked voice said, “It smells like a zoo … a human zoo.”

“Well, Miz Lou said that these people acted like animals.”

“Cal …” Mark said, un-amused at the attempt at humor.

“Sorry Mark,” Calvin said, truly contrite. “I know this was your room, your home.”

“My room yes, my home never; it was just a place I used to live,” Mark said accepting Calvin’s apology.

Mark turned to leave when he spotted something he had previously overlooked. A pastel green envelope had been taped to the wall next to his secret exit. It looked like the ones that Dee always preferred and he pulled it off of the wall. It was so much cleaner than everything else that it stood out and was sealed with something inside it, but was unaddressed.

Opening the envelope a key fell out along with several sheets of paper the same color as the envelope.

“Mark,” it started in a scrawl that dug a pit in his stomach. “I’m putting this here and hope that you find it before any more scavengers break into the house. You are probably surprised that I knew about your rabbit hole but I figured after all you put up with you should be allowed to keep some secrets.

I don’t want to hurt you more and I am sorry to have to say goodbye in a letter again but I am glad you haven’t come any sooner. I don’t like what this world has turned into. It is too scary and I am glad to be leaving it.

I made an awful mess of my life. But I loved him, still do despite it all. I’m not asking you to understand that, I don’t understand it myself. I won’t go over everything that has happened, that would be too sad and I don’t have the time or strength. He made such awful mistakes. Then he made worse mistakes trying to fix the other mistakes. Eventually it killed him and now it looks like it has killed me too.

Those people, they just took over the house and when he objected they beat him terribly. I think it is the first time he’d ever been on the receiving end of it in his whole life. It just took a good chunk of his will to live out of him. Broke something that I don’t think was fixable. I did what I could for him – for the first time he was the weak one and I was the strong – but those people were so scary, even the women. And Cici, after seeing what her father really was, turned on him. She was just so angry. She wanted her old life back and hated everyone because it was gone for good. Then, just to hurt me, those people started to give her things, promise her things. She started acting like them, talking like them. Mark, they took our girl and … God help me … she helped to kill the father she had come to hate. I thought she was going to kill me too but she only spit on me and told me I wasn’t worth the bullet. But it didn’t matter, they’ve killed me anyway.

The only thing good to say about that is that they’ve killed themselves too. Some of the stuff they brought out of the city started making them sick, and because I had to clean up and play housekeeper so much it made me sick too. Only the outsider kids like Cici and a few of the others too low in rank to get near the stuff may have escaped but I don’t know for sure and I don’t think it even matters to me anymore.

I looked in the mirror after the healthy ones abandoned us and saw the truth. I’m dying. But I don’t regret it Mark, not now that everything is gone. The last one died during the night and I wondered what to do next. I sat at the kitchen table for hours before I decided to write this letter. I know you, you’ll eventually come. You might be angry and disappointed but you’ll still come. I just pray it’ll be too late for you to do anything. I don’t want to be rescued and it’s too late for you to save Cici, she’s made her choice.

I wasn’t a very good mother even though I tried hard. I was a terrible sister. I never stopped him from hitting you or saying all those bad things to you. I’m sorry for that. I was too scared. You turned out good anyway and took care of me when it should have been the other way around. I’m sorry for that too.

What I’m sorry for most is wasting the second chance God handed me. And then making it worse by not taking Cici in hand like I should have.

I never told him about your rabbit hole. He knew you were getting out somehow but he could never figure it out. I almost laughed at him once. It felt good. I remember that day. Almost laughing at him made me feel brave. I stole his spare keys and made copies of them at the hardware store and said they were for him. He never knew. I had the keys to his kingdom and he never knew.

You remember how he threw out some of Mommy and Daddy’s stuff and then locked the rest down in the basement in his storage room? I don’t know what is in there. I never could get up the nerve to actually use the keys. And then he threw me out and it was too late. And even after I came back it was too late because they were down there, messing around and I was only allowed in there to clean when they would let me. After a while not even then.

Here is the key to that room. I know you know how to get in there. He used to taunt us with it all the time but not so much after you got older … and bigger. Just think of the look on his face if he knew that after all that’s happened it is going to be you that gets whatever he has hidden in there. It almost makes me feel like laughing again. Almost.

But now I’m out of energy and paper. Just please try and forgive me Markie. I know I did all kinds of things wrong but I still loved you. And tell Jessie I loved him more than I knew how to tell him. And try and to say a prayer for Cici every now and then. Wherever my daughter is she is going to need it.

I think I have just enough energy left to walk down to the cemetery and sit on that bench by Mommy and Daddy. Their gravesite was the only place he never followed me to and it seems like it can’t be long now. I’m coughing up blood just like they did and when I go, I want to do it in the one place I never had to be afraid of him.

Your Loving Sister”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 10 - 3

Calvin had been reading over his shoulder. “Mark … man … I’m … I’m sorry.”

“She still outlived him and she died feeling free. That’s something. And to know she wasn’t completely blind to it all … that has to be enough.”

“What about the key? I didn’t understand everything and her handwriting kinda got bad there at the end. What did she mean?”

“Come on, let’s go see.”

Mark led Calvin to the stairs that led to the basement, also known as the King’s Room. It had at one time been decorated like an expensive men’s club with a pool table, a bar, leather sofa and lots of other masculine touches. It also had a door that led outside that he would sometimes invite special friends home through. However as they descended the stairs they saw that it was nothing but a disgusting mess. Everything was broken, ripped apart, turned over. It looked like a troop of baboons with bad manners had been allowed to run loose.

Empty liquor bottles lay all over and it looked like they’d been cooking drugs on the bar in the corner. Mark ignored it all as if it wasn’t even there. He walked straight to a wall with what looked like built in bookcases.

“Cal, help me move all of this junk on the floor out of the way. The door opens out.”

“What door?” Calvin asked. Mark ignored him as he removed a wooden fleur delis revealing a keyed lock. He inserted the key, turned, and heard a click. Then he grabbed the trim on the bookcase and pulled.

“Holy crow! What is this?” Calvin exclaimed.

“Dee’s ex used to bring the best stuff from the pawn shop and store it here. I’m pretty sure he used to deal in stolen property too. Then about the time I got into high school he decided that money wasn’t enough, he wanted social standing too, so he sold the place and turned most of the money over to some investor and he lived off of the interest. Right after I moved out to go to college is when he went for the younger women. It was a stupid big mess. To be honest I thought he would have emptied this place. Guess not.”

“No way can we carry all of this stuff. And even if we could that would be like painting a great big target on our backs.”

“You’re right,” Mark said while he fingered an old picture of his parents, Dee, and himself taken while he was in Kindergarten. “We’ll head back to the farm and I’ll bring my truck back. Let’s lock up. We need to get some sleep and we’ll head back first thing in the morning. It is already almost too dark to see.”

“Dude, I know they were your family but no way am I sleeping in this house. I may not be the cleanest guy but even I draw a line at sleeping in a zoo pen.”

So they wound up setting up camp in the detached garage. Mark and Calvin took turns being on watch. Calvin was taking the last watch and Mark was finally sleeping … at least until he was jerked from sleep by a scream.

“Man, listen to this guy. He screams like a girl,” a cruel voice laughed. “Now I’m not going to ask again homo, where’s the stuff? We were told there’d be someone here to give it to us and now you are trying to act like you don’t know nothing.”

It was Calvin they were beating on. Mark didn’t know what the “stuff” was but he had a pretty good idea after seeing the chemistry experiment down in the basement room.

“Mr. Nash, I couldn’t let Cal get killed. Those guys were worse than the raiders that hit the farm,” Mark said, prepared for my father to denounce his actions.

“Son, if you are trying to tell me you rid the world of some scum then stop worrying about what I might say. I spent 20 years defending this country from scum like that and over half of those training other men to do the job too. You did what you had to as a defender. Take the burden of it to God son … isn’t anyone else that’ll bring you real peace if that’s what you are looking for.”

Mark was momentarily struck dumb at Daddy’s easy acceptance of what he’d been forced to do but he soon recovered and continued his tale. “I’ll say something for Cal, he could have given me away but he didn’t. They beat on him pretty hard too. But they were really just playing with him, I could tell. For a couple of months I was a bouncer at that saloon way out on Arundel Road. I learned to tell the difference between the guys that only thought they were bad and the ones that really were and I can say those guys were very bad dudes. I sighted in on the one that was about to use a knife on Cal and after that … after that things got kind of hairy. Picking off the four that had been beating on Cal wasn’t difficult but there were three more where they came from that I hadn’t seen.”

“Watch out!!” Cal managed to cry before three men could get a jump on Mark as they came running from the front of the house. Mark shot one of the three, Cal tripped up another and that left Mark to take on the third by hand after his rifle jammed. The gut shot man was carrying on and cursing, trying to pull a weapon. Cal finally got a weapon by taking a pistol off of one of the dead and permanently incapacitated both the wounded man and the man he’d tripped who had started to enter the fray with a wicked looking knife.

Mark finally wrestled with the third man until a loud pop caused him to stiffen up and then shudder and fall away. Calvin, trying to wipe the blood from his eyes rushed to Mark’s side, “What happened?”

“When we were rolling around he dropped his pistol. He finally picked it up again and we fought over it. He lost,” Mark said in a dead voice looking at his hands.

There really isn’t much more to the story after that. Mark confiscated one of the trucks that the bangers came in. He siphoned the gas from one in worst shape to fill up both tanks of the larger truck that wasn’t in much better shape but had a longer bed. Calvin and Mark rolled the truck into the garage and then spent the rest of that day loading everything from the storage room and a few things from the house into the truck bed and then because it was too late to start back they combed the rest of the neighborhood. They only took useful items and not anything else.

“Del, I brought back every jar I could find but all together it is only about fifty or so of them and most of them came from one house. There’s some other stuff in there useful like suran wrap, aluminum foil, Ziploc bags … ‘nother house had a bunch of those craft supplies like Dee …” Mark cleared his throat. “Like Dee used to like. Might have been more useful stuff but there was only so much room and I … I wasn’t thinking too straight. Mostly the houses were just nasty after either getting flooded in their basements … those were on the low end of the street … or they’d been cleaned out weeks ago by their owners or by scavengers.”

Mark settled his now sleeping son on his shoulder and leaned back in his chair, “We crashed for a few hours then about midnight we both decided to try and get as far as we could before daylight crept up on us. We were half way back to the farm before we both realized that we’d have to go the back way to get home since we’d pulled down the gully bridges. Lucky we remembered when we did as we only had to back track a little ways. But we ain’t the only ones that thought of that and we didn’t get near as far as we had intended before we had to drive into an old tobacco barn and hole up for the day.” Mark shook his head. “Turns out we weren’t the only ones that liked the look of the barn and a few hours after we stopped a small group of people slowly filed in. I can describe them but there isn’t any way to really get you to see how bad off they were. They reminded me of those lepers you’d hear about sometimes in Bible stories. They had sores all over them and this one lady …” Mark shuddered, “She was carry what we thought was just this nasty bundle of clothes or something. Then … then … this little hand falls out only … only you could tell … it had already started … decaying. The leader of the group saw me looking and then came over. I hated to even stand next to him he smelled so bad, like he was rotting from the inside out. He told us to just leave them in peace, especially the woman who was off her rocker, they were off to some federal camp or other trying to get some treatment for those of the group that could recover. The rest of them were just there to provide what protection they could for as long as they could. He said that it wasn’t safe to travel alone and for some of them it was the only thing they had left to give to their loved ones … to make sure they got to the next person who could take care of them.”

Mark would spend a long time getting the nightmare of that little hand to stop popping into his subconscious when he was stressed. “We left as soon as we could. I … I was afraid they were going to ask for a ride or something but they didn’t. I think they were just too beat down to even think to take the chance. Next night was even more frustrating if not as nauseating. But we were just too tired to stop again and waste another long day hole up in some hot barn or outbuilding so we kept going ‘til we made it to the farm.”

Micah said, “It doesn’t sound like you’ve slept much. I’ll … I’ll take morning chores. I’ve been doing them anyway.”

Mark opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “I appreciate it. But, it isn’t fair for you to have to do it all now that I’m back. If you milk the red fury I’ll get some wood chopped. I’ll need to work the kinks out tomorrow anyway.”

The “red fury” was our cow. We found out that Rudy hadn’t minded giving us a cow because that particular cow was on the cantankerous side and seemed to enjoy slapping her nasty tail right in the face of whoever was doing the milking. Daddy was the only one she ever minded but he was too weak to do the milking by that point.

Micah wasn’t sure what to make of Mark’s reaction and frankly, neither was I. I had long ago set the kitchen to rights and washed the dishes. I picked up Jessie and took him to put him in his crib … moved back besides Mark’s cot in the basement … and then walked back to see that Mark, Micah and Daddy had been having “men talk” with me out of the room. I caught the tail end of a handshake between Micah and Mark but Micah didn’t really look relieved. He didn’t look upset or angry any more but he didn’t look any happier either.

I came back into the room but no one deemed the “men talk” any of my business apparently since they didn’t say anything. I was just miffed enough that I said, “Mark, your turn.”

“Huh?”

“Strip.”

As his confused looked turned to outrage I asked him, “You didn’t really think you were going to get away with not letting me check your bruises did you?”

“I’m … I’m fine.”

“Daddy? Why don’t you explain to Mark just how persistent I can be when it comes to doctoring.”

My father tried really hard not to smile and then had to fight laughing in Mark’s face. Even Micah looked at him in sympathy. “Mark, better just let her. The longer you put it off the more she makes you pay. She’ll turn what could have been a little spray of Bactine into a full-blown mummification,” Micah said warningly.

“Oh for pity …,” he started but as he looked between the two other males he saw the truth of the inevitable.

He was banged up over less skin than Calvin but the licks the other guy got in were deeper and he had a couple of gashes that I had to clean out and dress. After that was taken care of everyone decided that emptying the truck was simply going to have to wait. We all trooped downstairs, crawled in bed and all but collapsed for the night.

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[Sammy55]

Thanks, again, for more postings. Now I've got to hit the hay. Way past my bedtime, but I'm going to bed with a smile.

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you, I can't ay that enough.

 

[wab54]

I cant read/follow more than 1 or 2 stories at a time and here I am trying to follow 3!!!!!!

WAB

 

[ejagno]

Great addition. Thank you

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11 - 1​

I felt awkward the next day though there was little enough time for it and apparently even less reason for it, or so it appeared early in the day. First thing after wake up were the regular getting-the-day-started chores … milking, filling the wood box, feeding the animals, checking to make sure no varmints (human or otherwise) had been into anything over night. Micah and Mark took care of that while I let Daddy wake up slow and take as long getting dressed and using the bathroom as he needed while I fixed everyone breakfast.

That morning it was banana nut oatmeal. Not having any fresh bananas, I started by rehydrating enough dried banana chips to mash into a cupful. Then I took three cups of the preceding day’s milk that had already had the cream skimmed off of it, three tablespoons of firmly packed brown sugar, three-quarter teaspoon of cinnamon, a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg, and a quarter teaspoon of salt and brought all of it to a gentle boil. Once it boiled, I added two cups of quick cook oats, stirred it down, let it come back to a boil and then turned it to medium and cooked it for another minute. After I took it off the heat I stirred in the mashed bananas and a couple of tablespoons of coarsely chopped toasted pecans from the supply that I had foraged earlier in the week. That was a typical serving for four but since we did so much work, I also made muffins and a little yogurt for Daddy since it seemed to do him so much good.

After breakfast Micah and I helped Mark unload the truck. It was overcast so we put everything up on the porch and covered it with a tarp while Mark took the truck down to the farm as he’d promised … though he siphoned out the gas from the spare tank before doing so. He also took down a box of odds and ends that Calvin had collected.

I was curious as a cat about what was in all of the boxes and bags that Mark had brought back. Of course, I could tell what some of it was … the screening was pretty obvious as was the lawn mower and a few other things … but by and large old boxes that were picked up from the grocery store just don’t say much about their contents when nothing is written on the side to give it away.

But my curiosity would have to wait to be satisfied. The day was a fair one, but I knew the “Indian Summer” couldn’t last forever and as much as I hated to admit it to myself I knew that I would soon have even less time to do the work that needed doing as I had to start staying closer to home and tending to Daddy. The weather would soon change as well. We’d had one light frost and then the daily highs went back up into the 70s. The leaves quickly changed and it didn’t take a meteorologist to see that autumn was here and the more difficult winter would soon follow. That particular day was a good one however so I left on my own for once – Mark had Jessie – and I went foraging … and thinking.

Foraging was a constant activity for me but even with all of the energy I put into it, it couldn’t provide all of the nutrition we needed and come the first hard frost and the first snow foraging would be at an end until spring brought. My concern was not just surviving the winter however but how to make it through the spring until I could plant a garden that would survive and produce.

The rocky soil of the ridge wasn’t real conducive to gardening like down on the farm. That was one of the main reasons the ridge had never been developed. As I picked up bushel baskets of nuts I considered a few ideas but I wasn’t sure how feasible they were; they would definitely require a lot of work to set up. The gist of the main ideas were that first I wanted a few raised garden beds near the house for the more fragile plants like tomatoes or root crops that require deep soil. But that wouldn’t be enough to truly sustain us. The next idea was to utilize a steep grade on the east side of the cabin area. It was so bad that only scrub and wildflowers grew on most of it preventing erosion. My imagination went into overtime as I remembered a book I had read in high school on terrace gardening.

That steep area would be perfect for a real-life experiment in terrace gardening. But if the work involved had been a consideration before the world went crazy, it was really a problem afterwards.

The pull of the bag of walnuts on my shoulder brought my thoughts back to the present. I almost wish it hadn’t. I usually didn’t let myself get off task but in no time I had started to get anxious and had to sit down. Daddy was looking worse every day. The situation with Micah was no worse but didn’t feel particularly better either and I wondered how to push the healing along faster. I also wanted a working relationship with the farm but I was concerned about over dependence and being able to hold our own. The only way I saw being able to do that was if Mark stayed, which I wanted but I also wondered if I wanted him to for the right reasons.

“Whooooweeeee, all I had to do to find you was follow the smoke.”

I nearly came out of my skin. I threw a handful of walnuts at his shins. “Mark Griffey!! You nearly scared me out of a year’s growth.”

He snickered, “That’s not saying much.”

Same old Mark. Then I realized a certain little boy wasn’t with his father. “Where’s Jessie?”

“Down for a nap so stop your fretting. One of Rudy’s girls came up with him and said she’d keep an ear out for Jessie while your Dad sent me to look for you.”

I sighed, “What’s wrong now?” I started to keep up but Mark shook his head.

“You don’t need to go running home. Nothing is wrong; he just doesn’t want you out here on your own.”

Trying not to sound churlish I told him, “I don’t need a babysitter. I swear, he gave me less grief when I was working nights at the convenience store.”

“You worked where?!” he asked startled. “You’ve got … no … no way would your dad be OK with that.”

“I needed the money Mark and jobs were getting scarce as hen’s teeth. It was either there or at one of those clubs that cater to dirty old men that wanted some talk time with a young thang.”

Mark shook his head and made a disgusted face. “I don’t think I even want to know. Let’s … uh … skip that part of memory lane.”

“Suits me just fine. But Mark … ,” I hesitated needing to let him see a part of me maybe he’d forgotten. “I’ve always done what I had to. I tried to … to … to not be an embarrassment to my family or break my personal moral code but not everyone would likely see it that way. I needed a job. I preferred the convenience store over the … er … gentleman’s candy store approach.”

He just looked at me, gave a surprised snort, and then shook his head and decided to ignore what was obviously making him uncomfortable. “Look, I’m not here to be your babysitter and … well I admit it appears that a lot of people might just be underestimating you. You might look like a pint-sized princess but,” he looked me up and down and then finished “but you’ve got some real Amazon in there apparently.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11 - 2

This time it was my turn to chuckle unwillingly and shake my head. “OK, if you aren’t here to babysit me then what?”

He sighed and eased his way down beside me to share the tree I was still leaning against. “You tired?”

“I’ve got too much work to do to be tired.”

His arm went around me, “Yeah, I’m tired too.”

All I could do was look at him. It was like we weren’t having the same conversation. I cocked my eyebrow at him to let him know I knew he’d just ignored what I’d said. He went on his own way anyway. “Del, you know you can talk to me right? Be honest with me?”

I began to wonder if I’d let too much of my former life out or if he was beginning to wonder if he’d spoken too soon. Instead of voicing my question I said, “I will so long as you extend the same courtesy to me.”

“Good. ‘Cause I want to talk to you.”

Uh, oh I thought, thinking he’d just confirmed my suspicions.

“I know I promised to behave myself but …”

See, told you so.

“…But the thing is, I always behave … I’m just not always well behaved.”

“Wha …?” I didn’t even get to finish the word before he was kissing me. After a long moment he broke away, acted like he’d put a spoon of too-hot soup in his mouth and said, “I missed you. Just thought you should know.”

I cleared my throat and tried to uncross my eyes. I wasn’t having much luck until I shook my head.

“Is that a head shake no, yes, or just what?” Mark asked warily.

After a false start I finally managed, “Just trying to catch my breath. You have a way with … words.”

He relaxed and got a distinct look of male satisfaction on his face before leaning back against the tree again. The goofiness of the male species kept me smiling for almost a whole minute before my cares came back to weigh me down.

Mark must have felt the tension return to my shoulders. “Hey, you OK?”

“I have to be.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said.

“It’s the only answer I can allow myself. I should get back to work,” I told him as I tried to stand up.

He pulled me back down. “I think you and I need to talk instead.”

“About the kiss?” I asked fairly certain he was going to make another move on me but I got a surprise.

“As much as I’d like to I’m going to steer clear of that for a while. I may misbehave on occasion, but I’ve learned not to let it get in the way of my commonsense,” he said with a wicked grin.

And his grin caused me to get one of my own because I knew exactly what he was talking about. “So ok, if we are steering clear of that particular subject what is it you want to talk about.”

The grin slid from his face leaving a very serious look behind. “I really hate to bring this up again but bare with me. I am going someplace with the questions. Del … do you … do you trust Rudy? Don’t just give me the first answer that comes to mind,” he said in a rush. “I mean do you really trust him?”

Trying to be as serious as he apparently was I said, “I know you and Rudy have had your run ins and I know that he gave you a bad time when he was in that brangle with your brother-in-law over those guns that got stolen from his farm and wound up in the pawn shop. Don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t agree with the way Rudy acted then but I think, right now, that he can be … be trusted.” I stopped for a second to straighten my thoughts and then admitted, “But … he does get on my nerves occasionally and sometimes I wonder where the cabin stands as far as his priorities. I want us to be able to stand on our own, but I know right now that isn’t feasible and … and it worries me because sometimes I worry that he might hold that over our heads. I want to be allies with the farm, we always have been, but I want to retain our autonomy too.” I shrugged. It was hard to explain. I trusted him but I was a little leery of his authority too.

“Fair enough. And for the record it wasn’t all Rudy’s fault. I gave him a hard time, but I was a kid and all I saw was that he made my sister cry and get upset. I really didn’t understand what was going on at the time. Ok, here’s the next one and it is going to be harder, and I’d like you to be really honest Del even if I am risking getting you mad at me.” I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the question and I was right … but he had a point. “Del, do you trust Micah?”

I didn’t want to answer him. I was angry that he asked me at all and wondered for a moment if he was trying to ask me to choose between him and my brother. “He’s my brother and I trust him.”

“I did make you mad. I don’t mean it like that Del. Just … give me the benefit of the doubt and think about Micah outside of him being your brother.”

He was earnest so I gave him the benefit of the doubt as he’d asked. It wasn’t easy to separate Micah from being my brother, in fact I never really was able to so I gave Mark the most honest answer I could. “I trust him, he’s my brother. I know he loves me. But … but he’s not going to be seventeen for a couple of weeks and he’s hurting and having a tough time growing up. I trust him as my brother but … but his decision-making skills … uh … they … might … probably need some work.”

Mark looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Look Mark, you wanted an honest answer and that’s what I’ve given you. I love him, I trust him, but he doesn’t have enough experience and he’s under a lot of emotional stress right now so I’d probably second guess any decisions he’d make.”

After a sigh Mark said, “I guess I can’t fault you for that. Micah is a good kid, but I’ll have to be honest, I don’t know as I would turn my back on him personally, not the way he says he feels about me.”

“He’ll … he’ll get over it Mark. Give him some time.”

“I plan to, but not if it puts Jessie at risk. Del, look at me … please hear what I’m saying … if your brother …” he was upset enough to risk me really turning on him and that is actually what made me understand why he was saying what he was saying.

“Mark, he won’t. Besides … I …,” I felt a little ashamed admitting it. “I already told him I wouldn’t let any harm come to Jessie, however or whoever tries to cause it.” I hung my head.

“Del?” Mark sounded shell shocked.

I looked back up and him, square in the eyes. “Whatever you may think of me Mark I’d never let anyone … anyone … hurt a defenseless little kid. Certainly not one that someone … that someone trusted … trusted me enough to … to … to … trusted me enough that they’d say that they’d know I would raise like my own if need be.”

I could hear the click in Mark’s throat as he swallowed. “Ok. Ok then.” Then he cleared his voice. “Last one Del. What about me? Do you trust me?”

After a moment I said, “I guess I must. But please … please don’t make me choose between you and my family if this is where this is going. I think we can work things out. It might take a little time but … but I think we can work things out … for all of us.”

His arm across my shoulders became a hug. “I’d never asked that Del, not as long as I can help it. But I’m not going to stand by and watch you get hurt again. Not on my watch. Not even with your dad now wondering if maybe he was wrong to give me his permission to …”

I stopped him surprised, “Don’t think like that Mark. Daddy likes you just fine. Whatever problems you have with Micah is outside of that.”

“Sure he likes me well enough. He’s just not sure that I’m the man for his daughter after all.”

Surprised I asked, “Did … did he say as much?”

“No.”

Trying to figure out why he felt like he did I asked, “Did he say something … when the three of you had that talk at the breakfast table?”

“Not … not in so many words. He just wanted Micah and I to … to have an understanding. Micah wouldn’t lay another hand on you, and I wouldn’t beat the crap out of Micah for something that was your business and not mine.”

That was a heck of a way to put it and I could understand a little better, but I still needed to see if anything specific had occurred besides Daddy’s weird way of handling the situation. “Then why do you think …?”

“Rudy,” he answered before I could finish.

“Rudy said something?” I was confused again.

“No. Your dad asked Rudy to come up. I’m sure, at least in part, that he asked me to go find you to get me out of the house. Micah wasn’t asked to leave. Your dad basically asked me to keep you out of the house for a while until he could talk to Rudy.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of it and then a possibility did come to mind. “Why would Daddy need to … to … Oh … absolutely not …”

 

[sssarawolf]

A wonderful big thank you this morning with all you have going on.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11 - 3

“What?”

“There’s … there’s a clause in my grandfather’s will. Technically when I turned 21 I took over the trust that held the cabin for Micah and I but … it doesn’t take full effect until I’m 22 … sort of like a probation period … and if during that time Daddy thinks that I … that I might not be ready for full authority over the trust he can ask that another executor or guardian be assigned.” I shook my head in denial. “He wouldn’t do this to me. He … he wouldn’t.”

Mark could see how upset I was. “Del … I’m … I’m sorry I brought it up. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe I’m imaging things.”

“Don’t Mark. If he is doing something like this, I need to know.”

“So you can do what?” he asked quietly.

“I … I don’t know. But I need to know if … if he has so little faith in me that …”

“Not you Del … me. I don’t think he trusts me.”

“Trusts you to do what? Does he think you are going to somehow steal the cabin from Micah and I? That’s absurd.”

“Not … not so much you but … I’m not so sure he doesn’t trust me not to … to disenfranchise Micah or something like that. Maybe to somehow set my kid up above Micah.”

I wanted to say he was being ridiculous, but I could see in his face that he truly believed it. All I could do was shake my head. Then I got angry. “This is my home and I’ll invite to live with me anyone that I so choose. Not Daddy, nor Micah, is going to tell me what to do.”

Mark shook his head. “But I won’t create that situation Del. That’s … that’s what I’m trying to say and what I needed to talk to you about. If it comes down to that … if … look I want your word that if I say I need to leave for a while until things cool off, you’ll take care of Jessie until I think things are where I can come back.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “No … no … you … you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t just leave … you couldn’t … you …”

“Listen to me Del,” he said as he turned to me. “It would be a choice of last resort, but I have to know that Jessie is going to have a safe place. If I’m the one causing the problems …”

“No. The only problem right now is everyone is apparently losing their minds. We have more than enough to worry about trying to put food on the table and prepare for winter. We do not need to turn this into some outrageous hillbilly soap opera. There is not going to be that kind of drama in this house, absolutely not,” I said emphatically.

“And that’s what I told your dad.”

Mark and I both jumped worse than when Mark had snuck up on me. “Rudy,” I ground out while Mark put the rifle back on safety.

“Pretty quick with that firearm son,” Rudy said with a grimace.

“If you’d seen what I saw …” Mark let it hang since he’d already told us what he and Calvin had witnessed.

“Dellie, we need to talk. You too Mark.” Rudy sat down in front of us and then said, “I’m going to say this plain, and I know you aren’t going to like it Del, but you need to hear it and you need to prepare yourself.”

Rudy shook his head and messed with his hat a little bit, looked around and then sighed. “Don’t get mad at me Dellie, we don’t need that kind of crap right now. Your dad is sick Del. I know you know that but … I don’t think you realize just how sick he really is. You see him every day, so it looks like a slow decline. I don’t see him every day, so I see just how fast he is getting worse. I overheard you two talking … don’t get het up at me son, it wasn’t intentional to start with, I just didn’t want to walk in on you two in case … er, you was doing something you’d be better off having some privacy for.”

Mark and I both must have blushed which made Rudy laugh, “Hah, young people these days. You’re either randier than Old Jakob’s bull or you’re more uptight than Snow White’s corset. Look, what’s between you two is between you two so long as it don’t cause me any problems so don’t think I’m trying to tell you what to do or how to live your life.”

I was more than a little bent out of shape, “And what has that got to do with anything?”

“Well, for one, Mark here is right. Your dad was talking to me about acting as some kind of guardian for you and Micah. Now, Dellie, get that chip off your shoulder. I said he talked to me about it, I didn’t say I agreed to it. I’d like to see the man that can get away with trying to tell you what to do. I’m still not sure if Mark here is up for it.” Rudy chuckled again. “Oh calm your ruff boy. All I’m saying is that you two sure did come together quick and I still ain’t seen that you are anything too much more than friends. But who am I to tell you how to go about your business? It’s not like my marriage turned out to be fairy tale material.”

I’d about had enough. “Just cut to the chase Rudy. If you didn’t agree to this plan of Daddy’s what is going on and why does it worry you enough to hunt us up in the woods to talk to us about it.”

Rudy looked at Mark, “Smart girl.” Then he went back to including me in his gaze. He sighed, “Dellie, I think the cancer is beginning to eat your dad up. Hy and I have known each other since before he married your momma and … something is going wrong upstairs. You know Esther’s husband died of cancer. Towards the end … well, he wasn’t making real good decisions. Esther had to watch him like a hawk every once in a while. And he’d get … paranoid I’d guess you’d call it, like he was thinking people were out to get him.”

“Are you saying … are you …” I couldn’t finish the thought, Mark had to for me. “Rudy, you think his mind is going?”

“If he isn’t he’s on the brink of it. He was telling me stories I know couldn’t have been true. Micah was sitting there and I could see his eyes getting real big. I’ve talked to the boy Dellie, tried to explain things to him but I don’t know how much of it stuck. Hy was getting you and your momma mixed up and then sometimes he acted like you’re still a little kid instead of a woman full grown and Mark here was messing with you anyway.”

I didn’t want to believe it. “I’ve never seen that Rudy. He’s never acted like that with me.”

“He hasn’t yet. I think, from the look on Micah’s face when I was trying to talk to him Hy may have acted that way with your brother though. And that might be where Micah is getting ideas about Mark here. And you can get that look off your face, yeah I knew about that. It has been building up and Micah had done some talking to Sam and Sam had come to me about it because he was worried. I put it down to Micah’s age and being jealous of his sister’s new friend. I wisht I’d a said something now, might have saved you some pain Dellie. I think Micah understands now that what his daddy is saying needs to be double checked first from here on out. I got him to agree to come ask you first, or talk to Mark here about what gets said if it worries him. “

I was completely shaken. I hadn’t really thought of anything like this occurring. I thought it would be a physical decline; I hadn’t given a mental decline hardly any thought except that it might come at the very end as a blessing when the pain got too bad.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear Dellie, but you need to think on this. I’ve seen the signs before. In my own father and in Esther’s husband … and in some good friends I’ve known over the years. If there was a doctor to take him to I’d help you but … let’s be honest here, there isn’t anything some doctor can do. The bad part is coming Dellie. If you need anything … if you need me to come up here and sit with him so’s you can get some air and hold yourself together … you know to call. Right?”

Still in shock I just nodded.

“Mark … Hy might turn nasty towards you but I’m asking you not to hold that against him. When he was in his right mind he never had a bad word to say about you, even said he was surprised that Dellie here hadn’t taken more notice of you beforehand. I hope that tells you something. Hy wasn’t real keen on Del’s other boyfriends and was pretty happy when she gave it all up after that last ‘un. So for him to say … well, you think on that in case he starts acting like he don’t care for you too much.”

Mark didn’t know what to say either so like me could only nod. Rudy stood up and so did we with Rudy clapping Mark on the shoulder. “I need to get back to the farm. I mean it you two … call for help if you need it. And Dellie, why don’t you let Micah come down to the farm a bit each day. He can spend some time with Sam and the girls. Last time he was down he seemed to take a real interest in John’s contraptions. Sam and Calvin only help because they have to but Micah seemed to really want to hear what John was saying. Might be good for him to have something to occupy his mind as well as his time.”

I told him that I’d talk to Micah about it. Rudy went the long way around to get down the road and waited for his daughter while we walked straight back to the cabin. Jessie was just getting fussy so I sent the girl to her daddy and went inside to find that Micah had put the stew on while Mark took his son to check on the animals.

“Thanks,” I told Micah, trying to sound like nothing was going on.

Micah might have acted foolish on occasion but he was no fool so I wasn’t surprised when he said, “Rudy talked to you didn’t he?”

I nodded and asked, “Where’s Daddy?”

“Asleep. Del …”

“Yes, he told me that Daddy wasn’t … thinking too clearly when he was here.”

Micah slumped in a chair. “It was awful Del. After Rudy let Dad talk himself out Dad all of a sudden just acted like nothing had happened at all and was himself the way he always is; like Rudy had just gotten here and that he hadn’t just said …”

Micah’s face got pensive so I felt compelled to ask, “Was he talking about Mark?”

Micah wouldn’t look at me. “Sort of. I think he was getting him mixed up with the guy that … you know … the married one.”

I closed my eyes and said, “Oh Lord.”

“But then he changed. I mean it was weird Del … scary weird. I didn’t know … I mean Dad said … I think … I think maybe I’ve been … I thought Mark …”

“Take it easy Micah, Mark has already figured that out some, just he didn’t know the reason for it. He was planning on staying as long as he could but he said he wouldn’t if it really caused problems with Daddy and you and …”

“Oh … oh man … I’m sorry Del … I … I didn’t know.”

Deciding to lay it all out again I told him, “Micah, I don’t want Mark to leave. For a lot of reasons that have just as much to do with our needing some help as it does with Mark and I … having anything else. And now Rudy shows up and tells me … Micah, I want a straight answer, has he been like this for long? Have you … been hiding it from me?”

Micah shook his head emphatically. “No. No I thought Dad was just being Dad. I mean he was forgetting things but I thought it was just because he wasn’t feeling good or was tired or something. I mean every once in a while he’d say something about Mark that didn’t seem the same as the other things he would say but it was … was you too.”

I turned from the stove and said, “It was me too what?”

“Dad was like … I don’t know … acting like you were holding something back from us or were thinking about … you know … other things. Dad would say that we had to keep an eye on you because you weren’t yourself.”

I was really flummoxed. I hadn’t seen it, it had been right there in my face and I hadn’t seen it. “Micah …”

“No Del … I mean … I know better now but I was … I’m not making excuses … I didn’t … it was confusing Del. I didn’t know what to think and then I thought I did but that turned out to be wrong too. Man … this is just … just too …”

I patted my brother on the shoulder and we both lapsed into silence. I stirred the stew and added the dumplings I’d just made up. Mark walked into the kitchen and then stopped short. I don’t know how long we would have stood like that if Jessie hadn’t reached out to me and said, “Hungrin Dewwie, hungrin. Kee-kee … kee-kee!”

“Well little buck, you aren’t getting a cookie this close to dinner, but you may have a cracker to tide you over while everyone else gets washed up.”

I put Jessie in his highchair while Micah and Mark stepped onto the porch to wash their hands. I heard Micah say something to Mark but not what he said and then Mark replied, “Consider it forgotten. Everything is just messed up. We’ll work on it, try and make it as easy on your dad as we can. Maybe he won’t worry so much that way.”

Micah mumbled something back and in the quiet of the kitchen I heard Mark’s hand pat Micah on the shoulder or back. “Let’s get something to eat before your sister decides we aren’t hungry enough and holds back dinner until the pie she is baking is finished.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

A wonderful big thank you this morning with all you have going on.

Yeah, I over promised about getting something up the other day. Work is just a dog right now ... and not the friendly goofy kind. More like a rabid junkyard dog. I'm going to see what I can get posted this morning and then I have to get right back at it before all my get up and go gets up and leaves.

 

[sssarawolf]

I guess I am getting to thank you between chapters Boy do I know about that getup and go not going. Also time for me to go open t he ducks, turkeys and chickens up as well, the mules are waiting for their morning oats.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11-4

The meal was a quiet one, but it was … companionable I guess you would say. We were back to having a common cause and some mutual understanding to go along with it. I hated it to be over what it was, but I was thankful nevertheless. Daddy only woke up for a little while and he was so drained that all he did was drink a draught of one of my herbal remedies and then go back to sleep. I worried about him missing two meals but half the time he couldn’t keep what little he ate down anyway. I was using the last of the liquid vitamins I had in the soothing drinks I would fix Daddy and that was about all I could do.

After seeing to Daddy’s needs and getting him bedded down in his main floor bedroom I was so shook up I tried to hide out in the woodshed … but Micah was there before me. And when I went to the barn, I saw Mark deep in thought. I gave up and went into the Butler’s pantry and tried to get the gardening ideas down on paper, but without much real success beyond a basic outline.

That evening there was a real chill in the air that hadn’t been there before. We decided to move our bedding back upstairs since I wasn’t going to wake Daddy up to make him move to the basement and because the stairs were getting too much for him anyway. It was almost chilly enough to light a fire, but I asked the guys to hold off and save the wood since it wasn’t really something we had to have.

We pulled the rockers in off of the porch and drank hot chocolate while we contemplated the mess of boxes that were now in the great room. Mark had been dragging the boxes and packages in throughout the day.

I said, “Those boxes aren’t going to unpack themselves Mark. You want help or privacy?”

After a sigh he said, “Nothing private about any of this.” So by the light of a couple of solar lamps we helped him to unpack.

A lot of the stuff had belonged to his parents, but he was detached from it. When I asked him about it he said, “I learned that getting attached to stuff wasn’t always smart. If Dee’s ex thought you were attached to something he used it as collateral to get what he wanted out of you, sometimes holding it hostage like this stuff here. I forget what Dee did to make him mad, but he took it all out of the attic and locked it away from her.” He shook his head at the unpleasant memory. “I’m glad I was able to find some of these things … the pictures mostly … but it wouldn’t have hurt me if they’d been lost forever. I had thought they were to be honest since I hadn’t seen it in years. The rest of this stuff came from the pawnshop or were gifts from people that owed the old bastard favors.”

I gave Mark a look that told him while I understood his contempt for his former brother-in-law, I would appreciate in the future that he use another descriptive word. Micah kept picking things up and putting them down. He asked, “Why would he have brand new fishing gear just sitting in storage? And look at this other stuff, a lot of it is still in the packaging. I don’t get it.”

“Probably came into the pawn shop. Might have been something he bought to look a certain way. Could have been part of a bribe or even stolen goods. Who knows? Half the stuff he did never made sense to me. For instance, why have all of these collectors’ knives … I know some of these probably could have fetched a pretty penny a couple of years ago … but just throw them all willy nilly in this plastic tub where they’re getting all scratched up? And you should have seen the paintings I didn’t bring. Who knows where they came from and why he stored them like he did without any kind of protection.”

Considering the disintegrating garbage bags I asked, “Mark, what do you want me to do with all of these clothes? Most of it … well, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings but …”

“I figured you could use them to make them quilts you were talking about for this winter. And speaking of … Micah, give me a hand please.”

He and Micah took packing material off and out popped a treadle sewing machine. “The belt is gone but I think I can fix that. You were complaining at one point that you missed your electric sewing machine … will this one work?”

I had a hard time not squealing like a kid on Christmas morning. “If the needles from my Singer will fit on this, I might actually be able to catch up on all of that sewing in that basket over there,” I said pointing to a large laundry basket full of under clothes, pants and shirts needing repair.

Eventually, after he got bored with the ordinariness of it all, Micah decided to go to bed. I told him, “I’ll sleep with Daddy …”

“No, s’ok. If we change things he’ll think something is wrong.” So he trudged down the hall but I could see his face get sadder when he didn’t think I could see him anymore.

“You ok?” Mark’s question brought my attention back to him.

“Mostly. I just feel bad … he’s my kid brother. I’d do most anything to save him from this.” I shook off the melancholy that was threatening and asked, “How much more of this do you want to do tonight? I’ve got to do some baking tomorrow and I still haven’t dealt with any of the forage that came in today. And the cream needs to be churned too.”

Instead of answering me directly Mark said, “Come here.”

“Huh?”

“Come here.”

Suspecting ulterior motives I moved slowly, but when I was on the floor beside him Mark removed a packing blanket from a bulky object. It looked like an old apothecary chest; a smallish cabinet with lots of drawers. “What’s that?”

“Ali Baba’s cave.”

Knowing Mark wasn’t exactly prone to that kind of whimsy I just gave him a look. He smiled grimly and said, “Seriously. This,” he said pointing to the cabinet, “was always locked up at the pawn shop until he sold it and then it was moved to the basement storage room with all of this other stuff. This is where he kept the best of the best.”

“How do you know that?”

“It was an unwritten law that if Dee or I came anywhere near this our life was forfeit. Worse beating I ever got was when I was in his office and accidentally banged into the thing and made one of the draw knobs come off. The drawer didn’t even open, but he went off on me like I had been trying to break into it. I actually had to go to the hospital that time. They told the emergency room that I’d been riding a motorcycle without permission and had had an accident. I was …”

“Fourteen, right? I remember that. It was the only time we visited that you didn’t come around to bug the tar out of me. I wanted to go to town to visit you so I could tell you what a dope you had been for riding without a helmet. No one would … no one would take me,” I finished quietly. I was horrified. Was it possible my own family was turning a blind eye to that kind of abuse?

“Del that was a long time ago so let it go. Somebody … I don’t know who … paid a visit to the pastor where we went to church. Something got said anyway. He slapped me around a couple of times after that but never enough to mark me. It was also around then that I grew into my feet, and he only tried to get to me through Dee after that … and then they separated and then …” He paused. “With them both gone there just doesn’t seem to be any point to holding on to what bad feelings are left. I’d give a lot if I could have had a different childhood but I honestly regret the way Jessie came into the world more. You understand?”

“Sort of. I … I won’t bug you about it. I guess we all … deal with things different. I just keep finding these things out and it makes me feel so bad for the way I acted and … on top of everything else …”

“Hey … hey, hey, hey … I didn’t tell you to make you start leaking around the eyes,” he said while he scooted over next to me. “It just … it isn’t worth covering up or lying about it. I’d forget the lie I made up and something would slip and then you’d be hurt because I lied. Let’s just drop it. OK? All I want to concentrate on from here on out is making our lives better and not making the same mistakes that were made in the past.”

I sighed and nodded my head. “I’m sorry Mark. I guess it is just … just all of it … all of the things that have happened, all of the revelations, all of the changes. I had accepted that things were going to get tough, but I thought it would be one thing at a time. All of this stuff … happening at once …” I couldn’t even finish. I just leaned my head on his shoulder and after a moment’s hesitation he reached around and held me.

“Del …”

“Yeah, it’s OK, I’m not normally this weepy. I’m probably just tired or goofy or something. Forget about it. Let’s get the rest of your stuff taken care of.”

“Del …”

“Really. I’m OK,” I said as I tried to back out of the situation I had created. His hesitation … well, I don’t know precisely what I was thinking about it but I felt it and it sent up neon bright warning flares. The fact that Mark didn’t exactly delay in getting back to business pretty much told me that I’d made the right call for him … I just wasn’t sure whether I’d made the right call for me. Despite knowing I was strong I still had the occasional normal female fantasy about some Prince Charming being around to hold me when I felt weepy. I was beginning to wonder if such a guy existed that was able to handle me both being strong and being weak.

Wiping my eyes on my sleeve I asked, “So, what do you expect to find in the cabinet these days? It’s been a while since the sale of the pawn shop. And how do you plan on getting these drawers unlocked without tearing the whole thing apart?”

“I already know what’s in the cabinet. The keys were on a hook inside the storage room. A lot of it is jewelry, the kind he held back for special customers. He’s got rolls of collector coins in there too. There’s a whole draw of loose precious stones and another draw of nuggets that look like melted jewelry. A few stamps that probably used to be worth something or he wouldn’t have kept them. Here, I still owe you for the fuel for the truck and …”

I was tired but not that tired. I reached behind me and grabbed a sofa cushion and was just missed being quick enough to slam him with it. As he grabbed my wrist he said, “Del … I’m nobody’s kept man. I will pay my way.”

“Pay your way? Look you knuckle dragger, I already owe you more than I’ll ever be able to repay. I owe you so much I’m scared to death I’ve got feelings for you because I wouldn’t know how to repay you any other way. So don’t give me any crap … ack!”

I ended on a squawk as Mark yanked the pillow out of my hand and pulled me over to him again. “So … you’ve got feelings for me huh?”

“You … are … deranged,” I ground out.

“No … too late … you already let the cat out of the bag.”

“Mark, I swear you are gonna make me crazy. Yes, I have feelings for you. Maybe I always have. I’m not the one that set the stupid rules you are determined to live by. I like having somebody I can depend on, someone I can talk to. It’s not that I didn’t before but whatever is between us is different than anything I’ve experienced before. So stop confusing the heck out of me already. You make me think everything is OK and going along well and then out of the blue you do something insulting like offer me money.”

“Dippy Del.”

I gave him the evil eye. “Unless you want me to swing a chair instead of a pillow you will consign that god-awful knick name to the ashes of the past where it belongs.”

“Ooooooo,” he snickered. “Getting feisty huh?”

“Mark, you really are driving me insane. You were all solemn and stuff and now you are acting like a lunatic. What’s up with that?”

Mark leaned back and grinned like an idiot and sighed like he was completely content. “You wouldn’t take it.”

“Uh … say again.”

“The coins … and you didn’t ask to see the jewelry or the ingots or anything. Actually you got insulted and threatened to beat me with a pillow.”

“Yeah, and your point is?”

“Kelly … most females … even Dee and Cici would have gone for the sparklies right away even if it was just out of curiosity.”

“And I repeat, your point is?”

Mark just chuckled quietly, “You’re something else Del. That’s all. You’re just something else.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11 - 5

I felt the insulted feeling coming back as I asked, “So, this was some kind of test?”

He knew he’d stepped in it right away, I could tell by the arrested look on his face. “Er … no … no I just …”

“It was, wasn’t it?” I demanded.

Of course, he gets the puppy dog look on his face, “Not really … you just surprised me is all when I was expecting you to …”

“Don’t even boy. Next time you want to know whether I’m after you for something, just ask. Sure, I’d like to see what is in those drawers … I can be as curious as a cat, and you know it … but I hope I’ve got manners enough to wait until you show me. I’ve been wondering all day what has been in these boxes … like it was a mystery and stuff … but I didn’t sneak a peek even though I was tempted to. This is your stuff. Thanks for thinking that I’d …”

“Aw Del, now you make me feel bad,” he said trying to look contrite and failing miserably.

“I hope so. Just ask if you have a question next time. It’ll save both of us some grief.”

I got up and started folding up the mess we had made. I knew from experience the lamps would start getting dim soon anyway. Eventually Mark got up and started helping me. About halfway through the clean-up Mark said, “I didn’t really mean anything bad by it.”

“I know. You’re just a guy. You have your way of measuring things and I have my way of measuring things.”

“Just a guy huh?” he said with a grin, realizing I was willing to let it go.

“Yeah. The right amount of testosterone is required for the continuance of the human species. Just remember too much could wipe us all out just as easily. Got it?”

He smiled, “Got it.” After another break while we finished up Mark sighed, “We need a plan.”

And everyone thought I had a problem with non sequiturs. I shook my head and looked the question at him.

“A plan. You know … that answers the questions where do we go from here and how do we get there.”

“Oh … a plan,” I said in a deadpan. Now it was his turn to look like he wanted to throw a pillow.

“So, you’ve been thinking have you?” he asked suspecting that I’d been doing just that.

“Some. I mean you’re right of course, we need a plan. I kind of have general ideas but I’m stuck,” then I revealed how serious the problems I was having formulating a plan. “I can’t … I mean … I can but … it used to be so straight forward for me. There was Daddy and there was Micah and there was school. After school came the jobs I used to fill up the rest of my time, but both Daddy and Micah were a constant. I had friends but no one I couldn’t leave behind and the friends never got in the way of my commitments. Now everything feels like it is falling apart. No more jobs, only the cabin. No more school, probably ever at this point with the way things are going. Friends … well, even that is changing,” I said while I half-heartedly brushed his arm in passing. “And soon … no more Daddy.” I turned away so Mark couldn’t see my face when I said it; I wasn’t going to wonder about any more micro hesitations, I couldn’t handle that on top of everything else. “This mess with Micah though, maybe it is getting better. I can’t fool myself however that things might not get bad all over again.”

“Del …”

“And then let’s add into that the oh so wonderful news you bring back that we have what amounts to pathetic, barely ambulatory zombies wandering around and some raiders that are Mad Max wannabees. The town sounds like it is toast. People that I’ve known my whole life are going hungry with no prospects of things looking up any time soon. Shall I continue? I’m having a ball at spelling it all out.”

“Del …” Mark said quietly.

“What?” I responded surlier than I had intended.

“You can only do so much for only so many. Let’s start with what we can do here for the cabin. Once we get some of that nailed down, we can plug into whatever Rudy’s plans are for the farm. Beyond that, I know it sounds harsh, but people are going to have to learn to do for themselves. Think of this winter as a … a reprieve of sorts. I think it is going to … to take out a lot of the competition for resources so to speak. Unfortunately, the weak are going to die.”

I blanched at his brutal honesty, and I know I was going to have to accept that Daddy would likely be in that number.

“We also have to figure out how we are going to make it through this winter. You and your brother are going to be a mess. Don’t shake your head Del … it isn’t just Micah that is going to be strung out though I think you’ll try and hold it together as much as you can. Rudy was saying that there is no way he has enough feed to get all the animals through the winter even after the big cull we’ve already done. He wants to halve the hog numbers and cull around a dozen of the beef cows so that he can let the milk cows freshen in the spring.”

“What? That … good Lord Mark … that isn’t going to leave much stock for the new year. And what are we going to do with all of that meat?”

“Well for one I’m … well Micah and I … are going to build a smokehouse up here. Your dad mentioned there used to be one over beside where the woodshed is and I think I found the old foundation for it. Two, after Rudy found out that Big John and Miz Lou are still relatively hail and hardy he’s going to see about giving them a quarter steer and a whole pig to get through the winter with. Big John’s place would be a good location to start a barter store and Big John has the experience and the toughness to pull it off. If we could find a young couple to maybe apprentice to them and help them out so that Big John wasn’t the only one defending the place …”

“What about Big John’s sons?”

“One is in the military and he hasn’t heard from him in months. He was deployed overseas. Big John told me he expects to see his son again one day, but not on this earth so I expect that means he thinks he’s dead. The other one … I didn’t know him too well … last I heard he lived with his mother in Elizabethtown. Big John hasn’t heard from him in a while either. Maybe someone from town; Rudy said he was going to think about it.”

I thought about it for a moment and then said, “Alright, I think that covers the animals … and before you ask, no I’m not culling any of my layers although there is one old cantankerous biddy in there that I might if she doesn’t knock off trying to spur me. Has Rudy said how the farm is set up for food? Besides the meat he wants to cull I mean.”

“He keeps side stepping me every time it comes up. That can mean one of two things. He’s either leery of giving away too much information in case we come asking for something that he’s not too sure he can say yes about or he’s got a secret stash and is leery about giving away information on for the same reason. I’m honestly not sure which one.”

“What about everything else? Paper products, medicines, clothes, cleaning products … you know, the basic necessities. Oh, and have they managed to do something about the water?”

“John fixed the hand pump, apparently the piping was decaying. The water has a lot of iron in it but it is cold and clear and a heck of a lot better than it was before. He’s also going to build a pump house around it to secure it and to try and keep it from freezing up in the cold weather. That’s something we should consider doing too, reinforcing the protection for the well. And I haven’t got a clue what the cold does to those solar panels, do you?”

“Not much so long as you take care of them and keep the snow off. What you have to keep in mind is that the PV panels will collect less energy during the winter because of cloud cover and that sort of thing. The problem with that is that with the days being shorter the nights are longer which means our power needs go up, not down. We’re going to have to be careful.”

Mark sighed and I looked at him closely. “Mark, you’re exhausted. You still aren’t over going to town. We aren’t going to accomplish anything tonight. Why don’t you go on to bed. I’ll move Jessie back in with me that way you don’t have to get up and …”

“No.”

“Mark …”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been worse off than this and he has started sleeping better when we moved up here to the cabin. But I think I will go to bed. Let me help finish helping you …”

“Go to bed Mark.”

“What about you?”

I thought about pacifying him by telling him what he wanted to hear but that’s not the kind of relationship I wanted so I told him the truth. “Mark, when I said I didn’t sleep much I meant it. Three or four hours and I can make it the next day and I don’t think I’ve ever slept much more than five hours at a stroke unless I’ve been sick.”

“You’re going to make yourself sick doing that is what you’re going to do Del.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine … honest … ask Micah or Daddy.”

With a straight face he said, “That’s not exactly a ringing recommendation Del. Just … look … I can’t tell you what to do but I’m asking … get some rest Del. Get it while you can because you’ll be stressed out enough soon enough. OK?”

I shrugged which meant that I would think about it and he knew he’d have to be satisfied with that for now. He went off to bed and I went off to mine … but not to sleep, I really did have too much thinking to do.

 

[sssarawolf]

Great, thank you. The mules beat me to their bowls lol. Stella the leader was talking to me and I think complaining that I making her wait for her oats, she sure can go on.

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks for the update

 

[CGTech]

Thanks Kathy!

 

[Sammy55]

Caught up on another one. Thank you, Kathy! I love all your stories, and with as many of them I am reading and bouncing in the air at one time, I have to be careful that I'm not mixing them all up into one mess of a story! I surely don't know how you keep them all straight when you are working on more than one at a time.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 12​

Why is it just when you think have a good plan something will come along and prove to you that man can plan but it is God who directs what really happens?

Life settled into a routine with Daddy at least appearing to be doing significantly better in his mental capacity. The smokehouse was a project that Mark got Daddy involved in – as foreman while he and Micah played mules – since it was something that he’d always wanted to do. It seemed to chirk Daddy up to no end though he was always tired at the end of the day. He even had a few good things to say about Mark in contrast to how he had been acting. It was finished just in time for the fruits of the culling that we all helped to do.

The Indian Summer kept up so I kept foraging. On two of those outings I found dead bodies … or what remained of them after animal deprivation had occurred. Mark and Calvin backtracked and found that someone had built a makeshift bridge across one of the gullies to replace the railroad tracks that had been pulled down. This time Mark did the extra work and brought the frame and side rails down.

That night at dinner he was explaining to Daddy, “I didn’t want to go that far. We might need to rebuild it one of these days but if people are coming up here … saw some sign over at the old WPA camps … I don’t want to have to worry all the time about our back door. Rudy has more people than we do to run patrols and he still runs into trouble now and again.”

“Trouble? More of it?” I asked.

“Mostly just refugee people looking for a hand out. Rudy has John trying to figure out how to build a drawbridge of all things over the gully so that he’ll have a way out without having to worry about a big party of people or vehicles coming in. Of course if they come in from the other direction … which they sometimes do if they are to be believed … a drawbridge won’t help, but at least it will cut some of the traffic down.”

“Has he heard any more from the town council?” I asked.

This time it was Micah who answered. “Sam says his dad keeps expecting to, or at least some kind of delegation from town but so far nothing.”

We discussed the terracing idea that I’d had and while Daddy hemmed and hawed Mark said if I really had my heart set on trying he’d see if John had any thoughts on how it could be done. For the first time in a while Daddy started getting out of sorts and I saw what Rudy and Micah had meant about him acting strange.

Dinner ended on a sour note after that but after I finally convinced Daddy to take a pain pill and go to bed and get some rest I came out to find Micah looking upset.

“Is this the way he was before?” I asked him.

“Yeah, maybe not quite so open about it but … but yeah, like this,” he said with an awful frown on his face.

“He’s going to have his good days and his bad, Micah.”

“I know that I … look Mark,” he said as he turned to where Mark was bathing Jessie near the still warm stove. “I’m sorry man. I … I don’t know how I missed it before. Now that someone pointed out I can see it … I …”

“Hey,” Mark said with an understanding look on his face. “If it had been my dad somebody would have probably had to use a 2x4 on me. We see what we want to see, and you wanted to believe your dad was still … still himself. I don’t hold it against you. Just now that we all know … I’m not really sure what to do about it without making things worse.”

I told them both, “We’ll just have to take it as it comes. Hopefully he’ll sleep it off and things will be better tomorrow. He might have just become overtired by trying to participate so much with the smokehouse.”

We all had work to finish and first Micah and then Mark drifted off to their beds. I stayed up a few more hours work on the inventories and trying to work out what I had seeds for and what I didn’t but wanted. I fell into a mental math exercise trying to add up all of the produce from the farm, the cabin, and who much forage I would have to come up with to help us all stay fed in the coming year. I finally gave up as I was making myself sick and getting a headache too.

I put away my account books and wandered down the hall and tried to let things go for what little bit of time there was left of the night.

------------------------------

“Del!!”

Micah screamed from across the hall and I shot out of the bed I had just climbed into.

“Dell!! Mark!!”

I could hear the sob in my brother’s voice and literally ran into Mark as we both tried to get through Daddy’s door at the same time. The sight that met our eyes took time to sort out but we both waded in to try and deal with it.

When it was over my poor little brother was nearly as catatonic as my father was. It had taken all three of us to keep Daddy from hurting himself. The only thing I could figure after discussing it with them … and Rudy the next day … is that Daddy had some kind of flashback to his military days. I knew there were things he didn’t talk about, some because he wasn’t supposed to, but I had obviously underestimated what those things were. I was horrified by the pictures I put together from the words that seemed to pour from Daddy’s mouth as he mimicked action he once must have been forced to take.

We had done our best not to hurt Daddy but it hadn’t been easy, especially as he seemed just as intent to do us real harm, not recognizing us at all no matter how we called and cajoled him to him to come back to his right mind. For such a sick man he was incredibly strong but he finally just gave out.

I made Micah sleep in my room while I sat with our father. It was going on three days before he recognized any of us but he was never quite the same afterwards. He seemed to have a weakness on one side that hadn’t been there before and I worried, as the weakness continued to increase as the weeks went by, that he was having mini-strokes. I had to take care of all of my father’s needs and I don’t know who that hurt more, him or me.

Mark offered to help with that but I couldn’t let him do it on top of everything he was taking on. Micah helped but oddly enough Daddy hated that even more than my help. Rudy came and sat with him every other day or so when he could get away from the farm but as the days passed it became apparent that the physical weakness he was suffering wasn’t the only thing getting worse. Daddy’s cognitive skills were getting worse as well.

In a way that was a blessing. Sometimes I even prayed for it. When he was all there he was in so much pain it felt like I was the one that was going to die from it. He also knew, or at least suspected, that he was having episodes of dementia though we did our best to brush it off or pretend it hadn’t happened for his sake. He knew he was slipping mentally and it was a struggle for him to come to terms with. I tried very hard not to be hurt by the way he sometimes acted and by the things he sometimes said but if it hadn’t been for Mark – and to a lesser extent Micah and Rudy – I truly don’t know how I would have held it together enough to do what had to be done. Cheryl and Aunt Lilah also tried to help but Daddy wouldn’t cooperate for them at all and it became too difficult to try and work that kind of arrangement out.

There were also times he mistook me for my mother. Those times, even more than when he raged, nearly broke me. It was too intense … sometimes painfully embarrassing … and when he was like that Mark couldn’t come around at all as Daddy’s sense of reality was almost nonexistent and he said things a lesser man would have held against him if not outright used against him. Mark didn’t. What he did do for me on those really bad days was to keep Micah busy and occupied. I couldn’t have handled Daddy and Micah’s needs at the same time.

Daddy began to sleep a lot. He couldn’t eat much and what he did eat wouldn’t always stay down. His guts were pretty bad and it took all my herbal knowledge and that of Aunt Lilah as well to keep him comfortable. I spent hours on end dropping water into his sleeping mouth with an eye dropper. Too quickly and he would choke but most of the time his autonomic reflex to swallow took over and allowed me to keep him modestly hydrated.

Mark and Micah eventually took on all of the housework in addition to their regular chores to free me up to be a fully time nurse. Daddy fretted when I was too far away and the running back and forth was exhausting me to the point of my own illness. Micah helped nurse Daddy too but he was just too strung out to be as effective as I needed him to be. I didn’t hold it against him, or Mark, for the load I bore. How could I when I could see how hard they were both trying? Mark begged me to sleep but I couldn’t seem to get more than a few minutes at a time.

And as my father deteriorated so did the country. The bombs that were exploded seemed to be the last hurrah of whatever force – still unacknowledged – that had come against us. But they didn’t need to do more, they’d done enough.

The infrastructure was gone. Medical care for the masses was gone. Our fuel refining capacity was gone. That in addition to the change in seasons shut down the farms. And with the little death of winter came millions of death by disease, exposure, and starvation. Those people who remained were surviving but that was about it. They were holding on by their fingernails, praying spring would bring new life and renewed hope.

A Russian-Sino War had engaged most of the rest of the world. Even South America and Africa had been pulled into it as both large continents sought to make resource grabs to hold them over until rebuilding could take place. The only thing that kept the US and Canada from being pulled in was our nuclear capacity that still existed even though the larger infrastructure of our country was in tatters. We may have been limping along but no one dared to call us “Gimpy” to our face. There were attempts at incursions but conventional weapons held the invaders at bay and because of the training our troops had we had to use fewer weapons to get the same affect as many other countries whose military had less training and less technological know-how.

Eventually the war began to fracture and lose its cohesion as the countries fighting it began to run out of fuel and bombs to throw at each other. Russia in desperation formed a coalition with its allies. Bioterrorism and small nuclear devices were let loose all over China. China for its part got in a few last licks. A few bombs were even aimed at North America but only a few made landfall; two in California, one on Mexico City, and the worst one was Vancouver in British Columbia where the loss of life rivaled even the first bomb that had taken out Tehran so many months ago.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year came and went. I asked Mark to take Micah and Jessie to the farm for what celebrations there were but I couldn’t … wouldn’t … go. I knew they talked about me, trying to figure what to do. They whispered of Caregiver Burnout, that if I wasn’t careful I’d follow Daddy to the grave. Aunt Lilah was the only one that completely understood. She’d been where I was too often. I know they only talked because they loved me but I had a hard time caring. My father was dying.

The snow melted and buds appeared on the trees once again, making promises of rebirth but I barely acknowledged it. I was too tired. And I resented the hope that spring promised. Any hope that Daddy would get better had died long ago. The redbuds were beginning to open the night that Daddy slipped into a coma. Everyone in the family had said their goodbyes long ago while he was still mentally able to acknowledge the respect he was being paid. He lingered nearly a week before God finally released him to go be with Momma.

It happened in the darkest part of the night but I didn’t wake anyone. Instead I did the last thing I could do for my father. I washed him and dressed him in his dress military uniform, the one he’d asked to be buried in when he was still sound enough of mind to ask. I washed and trimmed his hair into the near crew cut he had preferred for as long as he had been in my life.

The hair was thin and pale and the body wasted beneath the uniform that I hastily basted into a better fit but I imagined he looked better than he had for a long, long time.

“Del?” Mark asked me quietly when he entered the room shortly before dawn to find me sewing a shroud. He stilled my hands with his own and then gently wrapped me in his arms. It was Mark that woke Micah and told him, I just couldn’t. Admitting it to Micah would have been the last step in admitting it to myself.

The remainder of that day and the next two were a blur. Rudy and John came and helped take my father’s body down to the farm. People tried to comfort Micah and I and while I appreciated it in a distant way I didn’t truly feel it. I was in a haze of grief and having a hard time dealing with my sense of guilt that I was also relieved that it was finally over.

I only made one demand. “I want Daddy buried where he asked to be; beside Momma.”

Rudy said, “Del … I’d do nearly anything …”

Mark broke in, “We’ll do it Del. Cal, Sam … you two come with me. The ground’s thawed and …”

“Now just a minute here,” Rudy interrupted.

“Rudy, I respect you and all you’ve been doing but Del needs this. Micah needs this. I’ll do what needs doing, just let Cal go at least to cover my back in case of trouble.”

A deep sigh seemed to come from the depth of Rudy’s soul. “Mark … son …,” he said like he wanted to object. Then he shook his head. “You don’t do it alone. Let me go to the Bait & Tackle. We’ll … we’ll get this done somehow.”

Both men were true to their word. They even managed to find a lay preacher to perform a grave side service. If I had been able to I would have noticed that a large number of people came to the funeral. It wasn’t just my family; Big John and his sister and any number of people that had known Daddy through the years and some who hadn’t came to pay their respects. Later Cheryl told me that it was like my Daddy’s funeral was a funeral for lots of people, some that had been buried and many that had simply disappeared in the troubles.

I tried, I believe I really did, but no matter the condolences and kindness I just couldn’t what they were offering or looking for in return. Micah could and I was glad of it because it meant people had someone to focus on besides me, not to mention I couldn’t muster up enough of whatever it was I needed to even help him.

Aunt Lilah watched me but never said a word. She came and patted my arm and then passed on but somehow that pat reached me more than all the words of all the other people.

Mark was as close as a shadow through everything and when the sky clouded and the wind turned chilly he wrapped a coat around me and asked Micah to sit with me and Jessie in the truck so he could do what needed doing. As we walked away the sound of clods of dirt falling on the simple pine box that held my father’s remains echoed in my mind and heart.

Mark drove us back to the farm. Rudy told Mark that Micah had asked to stay at the farm with Sam. I was momentarily hurt but it didn’t last long as the chill that had set in at the cemetery seemed to suck me back under. Truth was I understood. Micah had been working on the farm a few hours every day, mostly under John’s tutelage and Rudy’s supervision. It had been his time away from the cabin that helped him to be able to handle his time there.

I later found out Mark asked Rudy if he thought one of the girls should come to the cabin. Basically Rudy told him that I’d be better off with just him and Jessie and to heck with what anyone said about it.

I remember walking into the cabin and realizing that it wasn’t as over as I had thought; I still had to do something about Daddy’s room and all of his personal stuff so I headed that direction after changing out of the first “dress up” clothes I had worn in months.

“Del ...,” he called. I didn’t answer.

“Del …,” I hear him call again, now with a tone of concern in his voice. I knew I should answer him but all I could do was start at all of the empty spaces in my life my father used to fill.

I jumped when I felt his hands on my shoulders. Then he was turning me, guiding me to the living room. “There’ll be time enough for that later Sugar. Aunt Lilah sent some soup and cornbread and told me you needed to eat.

“I’m not hungry.” Even to me my voice sounded dead, like I’d buried part of myself with my father.

“Then we’ll just sit here. Jessie will be asleep fairly soon I expect then everything will be quiet for you,” he said soothingly.

“Let him make all the noise he wants for as long as he wants. It stops me from thinking.”

Mark turned his head then said, “Too late. He’s asleep in the playpen already. Stay put. I’m going to go put him in his bed.”

I hardly noticed when Mark came back; I was trying so hard not to think.

“Del?” It felt like I was operating in slow motion. I blinked then slowly turned my head to look at him. What I saw there was finally my undoing. I’m not sure exactly what it was but the walls holding back the dam finally cracked. At first my eyes only watered, then the tears ran down my face. It didn’t take long however for me to be a sobbing ball of misery he was holding in his lap. I don’t know how long I cried, I don’t even remember going to bed, I sure as heck don’t remember going to bed in Mark’s bed. The next thing I remember is Calvin saying, “Didn’t take you long to make your move Mark. Dang, not even I am that hard up.”

 

[CGTech]

Dang, Calvin got a death wish or what? Thanks Kathy!

 

[sssarawolf]

Thought the same thing Calvin is going to wake up dead lol.

 

[Sammy55]

I hope that Del gives Calvin a big piece of her mind!!!! How DARE he say something like that?!?!?! And HOW did he get into the house where he found them, probably sleeping exhausted after a night of intense sorrow and crying?

Sometimes, Kathy, you make your writing seem so real life that I just want to reach in and grab someone like Calvin and slap the sh*t out of him!

Thanks for the new chapters.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 13​

I rolled over to see Jessie’s empty crib. Startled, I jumped up and looked down to find that I was dressed in the same clothes as yesterday except for no shoes.

Mark growled quietly from the hallway. “Cal, your mouth is getting ahead of your head again. You want to watch that, it could prove dangerous.”

Calvin laughed a distinctly male laugh. “Yeah, right. You just wanted to get in your time before others took a shot at her. You saw as well as I did all the men eyeing her. Seems there aren’t too many young, single females out and about right now that are very useful and Del’s skills make her a hot commodity. Bonus points if you realize she cleans up pretty good and she was smokin’ yesterday in that black dress. You better move quick because if I get a chance to get up in her space she’ll forget all about you.”

That … was … it. I came out of the room disheveled and with some bad bed head. I must have looked like a Harpy on steroids. Mark had Calvin by the throat but there was no way that I was going to let Mark fight this battle for me. Both men turned and I could see Mark’s eyes bug out and his mouth go “Uh oh” but I wasn’t in the mood for any comic relief. “Dippy Del” was back in town and she was By God in the mood for a fight.

I looked at the little cockroach and snarled, “You even think about getting up in my space and I’ll turn you from a rooster to a hen so fast it’ll make your head spin and then I’ll keep cutting. You got that boy?! The only reason … and I mean the ONLY reason I don’t drop you right here and right now is because I happen to like your parents and your sister but I can gauran – dang – tee you that if you come anywhere near me … I’ll ….” I’d backed both men into the kitchen and then my hand brushed my cast iron griddle.

Mark hustled a rather white and shaken Calvin towards the door, “Out. Now. Don’t come back. Not for a long, long time … next winter might just give her time to cool off but I wouldn’t count on it.”

I looked at Mark and he at me. He’d taken away the target for my anger and I was debating whether he deserved any of it because I was ready to flame something or someone. Then I heard what sounded like a couple of braying mule out on the front porch. I thought Calvin was back and I wrenched it open ready to swing only to find Rudy, Sam, and Micah in tears practically rolling off the porch they were laughing so hard.

“Dellie girl … you don’t know … you just don’t know … how much … much I needed that. Oh … my … Lord. Hy is probably placing bets with the archangels to see how long Calvin has to live. Wait ‘til I tell John … he will bust a gut. That son of his has been begging for a good ol’ fashion backin’ up for way too long …” Hee haw, hee haw.

I slammed the door in their faces and marched back inside into my room … my proper room … and then slammed that door. Men. Every stinking one of them was poison to me at that moment. Tears started streaming down my face again and when Mark pecked at the door wanting to come in I warned against it by throwing a book at it hard enough to rattle the whole door frame.

I could hear Micah moving around in the house, frankly could hear lots of noises though they tried to be quiet, I just was sunk in a black tearful mood as I lay curled up in my dark bedroom. When lunch time came Micah, Mark, and even Rudy tried to get me to eat but I told them in loud and colorful terms exactly what I thought of that idea, them, and any idea they might have as to my well-being and then warned them to leave me alone or suffer the consequences. They were smart enough to leave me alone after that.

I was angry at every Chauvinist male pig on the planet; Calvin in particular and Mark by association. I felt betrayed by my own brother and Sam and Rudy just because they had been helping him along. I wouldn’t have spit on a man at that point had he been the last one on earth and on fire. … And my father … I was angry at my father too which even in my condition I knew was illogical which only made me feel meaner and more angry … for leaving me with this mess to deal with … for just leaving me period right when I could have used his guidance and encouragement … and his protection … his experience … his knowledge. I railed against how unfair it all was and then would kick myself for feeling so cruel … and then go right back to being angry all over again.

Eventually I fell asleep to get away from my anger and misery. I don’t know how long I’d been asleep but I swear I was so discombobulated that I somehow imagined that it was Momma trying to get me to wake up and eat. But then I heard the undulcet tones of Aunt Esther. “Girl, you either wake up or you aren’t going to like the consequences.” Apparently she’d been trying to get my attention for some time.

“Aunt Esther?” I mumbled.

“And who else would it be? You’ve got everyone else too cowed and intimidated. Not that I don’t admire your ability to do so.”

I looked at my aunt like she had something hanging loose upstairs and she surprised me by laughing. Then she sighed, “My word I miss your mother. She was so sweet it always made me want to go to the dentist but she always seemed to know what to say at times like this … I still miss her. You look so much like her.” She brushed a ratty lock of hair off my face and it took everything I had not to flinch in surprise. Then another smile that just about turned into a laugh. “But if you aren’t a duplicate of Hy I don’t know what would be. Now, get up and get dressed. You look like you’ve been sleeping with the dogs.”

Try as I might I could not hold back a growl. “Aunt Esther …”

“Use that tone with me again girl and you might just find out that just because I’m an old dog it doesn’t mean that I forgot my dentures. Now you listen to me and I want you to hear me good. You are indeed just like your father … and shame on all of us for letting him wallow in his grief after your mother passed away. I was too wrapped up in proving I hadn’t been hurt, your Granddaddy was looking for someone to blame, and Clement was just plain useless. Well … not this time. You’re not dead and I’m not letting you crawl off into your misery like your daddy did. Now, I want you up right now or I’ll have Mark come in here and help me.”

That got me moving. “Aunt Esther, I don’t know what Calvin said …”

“That Calvin thinks with what’s in his jeans more than what the Good Lord gave him upstairs.”

“Aunt Esther!”

“Don’t Aunt Esther me girl. I may be adding years to my age on a daily basis but I am not senile. Calvin is the last kind of boy you’d have anything to do with and I know good and well you’d probably rock Mark so hard he’d be a long time getting up for trying anything either. From what Rudy said they both barely escaped with their lives … especially that Calvin. In my opinion you may have been too kind to him. Boy has no more commonsense than a drunken June bug.

Well needless to say sometimes it is the surprises in life that move you along faster than the kindnesses. I got up with a sigh and looked around for my brushes and clothes then remembered with a grimace I would have to go to Daddy’s room to get them.

“Everything is there in that box,” she said pointing to a crate on the end of my bed. “You’ve got five minutes to make yourself presentable and then I want you to come out to the kitchen and have a bite to eat. We’ll talk more then.

I watched her go and was tempted to crawl back in my bed and pull the covers over my head. Problem was that I knew my aunt. Problem was, I secretly admitted to myself, it looked like I had a streak of Porter in me after all; it just wasn’t Momma’s flavor, it was Aunt Esther’s.

It took a minute longer than the five she’d given me to get my hair in order. Several times I considered chopping it all off but vanity saved the strands despite my lack of patience with them. I stumbled into the kitchen to find it empty of everyone but Aunt Esther.

“I was about to come get you.”

“My hair,” was my reply and apparently explanation enough.

“Let’s sit down and have some of this soup Aunt Lilah fixed. The cornbread has gone stale but the soup will fix that.”

I ate just to avoid a fight. I didn’t really taste anything but at least the warmth seemed to loosen my joints up a bit.

“Good, you’re getting some color back at least. Del, I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to bite my head off for it. Hy did a wonderful job of raising you and Micah in most things but there are a few that could have been improved upon and one of those things is how you cope with loss.”

I reared up ready for a fight.

Forestalling a major explosion Aunt Esther held up her hand to stop me. “Listen to me Del, I’m not saying anything against Hy but you need to acknowledge that he didn’t handle your mother’s loss well and he allowed it to leave such a hole in his life that a big part of him might as well have crawled in the grave with her. The only thing that kept him from following her as quick as he could was you two kids. We wondered for a time if even that would keep him earth bound.”

I sighed, “What’s your point Aunt Esther because I really … I don’t know if I’m up for dredging up the past right now.”

“We aren’t dredging up the past girl, we are trying to ensure that you have a future you’d be pleased enough to live.”

I was still trying to figure that one out when she kept going. “What good did Hy do your momma by wallowing in his grief and locking up his heart the way he did?”

“Excuse me! Daddy loved Micah and I a lot and told us all the time.”

“Sure he did, but you two are the only two people that got any of the love he was capable of. Now I’m not one to talk, felt like curling up and dying after your grandmother and your uncle died, and in the beginning it was only my responsibilities that kept me on my feet and moving … but after a while I learned to live without them, to do what had to be done without their help. I still miss them, but I’m not so ready to crawl under my own headstone as I once felt like I was. And, I did learn to … well, give more than I had before then. And I’m still learning girl so you can get that surprised look off your face. I never said I was perfect, but for my own troubles I hope I’ve learned enough to steer you clear of your own.”

I sighed. “Aunt Esther I appreciate what you are trying to do.”

“I hope so because I didn’t climb that hill to make a fool of myself.”

I snorted. “No ma’am. But we just buried Daddy yesterday. I don’t know if I can do what everyone wants me to do yet.”

“Child there is no time limitation on grief. Part of you will grieve for Hy for as long as you draw breath. Even Aunt Lilah grieves in a sense for her father even though he was a mean old @#$%@#$.”

“Aunt Esther!!”

“Don’t look so shocked Del, it isn’t attractive on you at all. We can love people in spite of their failings as well as we can because of them. And while we are on the subject of Aunt Lilah, unless you plan on being a martyr like the Aunts were I would suggest you pick another path to trod. We’ve got plenty of examples in this family that should warn you off wallowing in your emotions too much. Your father, my father, my mother, Aunt Sheba … we can add to the list ten times over. Love ‘em, learn from ‘em, but don’t make the same mistakes they did … that I have myself.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing much less who I was hearing it from.

“Del, Lord willing, you have a long life ahead of you. You certainly have the skills to make it through the coming days. And you’ve potentially got a helpmeet to see you through them as well. Mark is not the reckless young boy he was, the one that got into so much trouble all the time and didn’t have the sense not to poke at bears whether they were caged or not. That recklessness always did set my teeth on edge. But you will lose him if you do not pull yourself together; you’ll freeze him out. He doesn’t strike me as the kind that can withstand that for long. He’s proven himself strong, but he has that boy of his to think about and he’s looking for a future which is what he should be doing. And what you should be doing too. The past is what you learn from and occasionally lean on … not what you live in.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 14-1​

Aunt Esther left after that, giving me some privacy to think. Thinking at that point was almost outside of my ability to do. I’d gotten one hangover in college from the one stupid party that I had bothered finding the time to go to. It was not too long after my bad break up and I was bent on proving to the world and myself that I was still alive. Unfortunately the gossips beat me to the party and long story short, I was lucky that I had a friend that cared about me enough to take my car keys and give me a place to stay for the night.

My one and only hangover could have gone down in the annals of history as one of the worst possible. That afternoon I wasn’t hungover in the traditional sense but shared many of the same symptoms. Despite the soup I had a terrible taste in my mouth and it felt like a fast growing lawn was taking root on my tongue. My stomach rolled and my head felt like a military drum band was practicing in my skull. Even my teeth ached. I limped around the cabin like a woman who had enough candles on her birthday cake to start a large bonfire.

The first thing I did was hit the shower. Every drop of water felt like a beating … but it woke me up and washed away the nasties that coated me like rabid dust bunnies. Then I got dressed in something comfortable and did my hair for real this time, only without the braid; my head still hurt too bad for that. I put the mass in a hair net which I bobby pinned in place despite that not being much better than a braid.

I stepped outside for some fresh air and to try and find Micah or Mark. I knew I owed them both an apology and I was bracing myself for it. There was still a nip to the air – we weren’t done with the frosty spells yet despite the ground being thawed by an early spring – and spying one of Mark’s flannel shirts on the clothes line I took it off and slipped it on.

“Looks good on you.”

I spun around at his voice and the world spun with me.

He grabbed me before I lost my balance completely. “Hey! That’s it, you’re going back in the cabin. Esther said you are OK but you’re nearly as white as fresh milk.”

“Mark, I’m … Aunt Esther’s right … or on her way to being right. I am OK, or at least getting there. Look, I’m … I’m sorry for the way I acted. Must have reminded you of Dee at her worst.”

“At her worst? Girl, you have a long way to go before you get that bad. Besides you have good reason to be feeling like you are. I’m the one that should be sorry. I wish I knew what to do for you … to help … to …”

“Mark,” I interrupted. “Don’t apologize. You’ve been there for me since … well, since this all started and had hardly any reason to be. Would you think I was a floozy for saying I need … need you to hold me? Remind me I’m still alive?”

The speed at which he complied left me in no doubt that he was more than happy to do fill my need. From the comfort he offered I asked, “Where’s Micah? I need to apologize to him too.”

“It’s OK Sis,” came a voice from the side of the house. “Aunt Lilah and Aunt Esther both lit into anyone that even came close to criticizing how you were acting. You shoulda seen ‘em. Like a couple of scary … well, you just shoulda seen ‘em. And Rudy explained what I didn’t understand. You are a lot like Daddy, but I’m glad that Aunt Esther … well …”

“That Aunt Esther what?”

“She said that you could choose to be stronger than Daddy if you wanted to be … I’m not sure I understand that all the way but if it means that you don’t go off into a blue funk like Daddy would sometimes I’ll be happy about it.”

Micah hunched his shoulders like he was waiting for lightning to strike for being so sacrilegious and disrespectful.

“It’s OK Micah. We can still love Daddy for all … for all he was … and maybe forgive him for what he wasn’t.” I still wasn’t too steady on my pins and that was about all of that I could take as I was starting to get teary eyed again.

Mark walked me inside and Micah followed. I was going to go into my father’s room and start cleaning but both of them stopped me. “Really guys, it has to be done and … and better to do it sooner rather than later or it will only get harder.”

“Um … about that,” Micah started. Then he looked desperately to Mark who then looked at me.

“Del, we didn’t move anything out but we’ve already cleaned the room and boxed a few things up. We didn’t want you to have to do that on top of everything else too.”

“What?!” I strode past them and threw open the door to the room that had turned into my prison around Thanksgiving. The furniture was still where it had been but the bed had been stripped and the rugs taken up. I suddenly realized what else had been on the clothes line besides Mark’s shirt. The curtains had come down and someone had gone at the single window with such a vengeance they’d taken some of the paint off the sash. I opened the chiffarobe and the clothes were still there, but there was a box on the floor waiting for me to decide what would get packed away and what would get repurposed.

“Oh.” I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I’d been dreading the cleaning and suddenly there was none to do. I still had the important stuff but the worst of it, especially the mattress, was gone.

“We … we took the mattress down to the farm and burned it. Aunt Lilah said to bleach some muslin and she’d give you the pattern for making a hay tick … I think she meant a mattress … and she said to save goose feathers to make a topper with and by winter we’d have a replacement,” Micah told me.

Mark added, “Del, I know we didn’t ask but the mattress … even with all the pads and everything you had on it … it just …”

“I know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t sure how to face it. It was … well … thank you. I don’t … it was the one thing … I …” Mark came up and hugged me from behind like he needed it as badly as I did.

“It’s OK Del. So long as you understand why we did it. It was actually Micah’s idea and Rudy and Sam came up to help. They didn’t know Cal had come up first … uh …”

I got an evil glint in my eye and asked, “And how is Calvin might I ask?”

That started Micah snickering even though I saw Mark frantically trying to give him the eye. “He’s still trying to control his bowels. He keeps having to run to the outhouse.” Micah finally lost the battle and started belly laughing. “Ooh Del, Sam says he ain’t never seen Cal move so fast, not even when dinner is called.”

I could feel Mark’s arms get all stiff so I leaned back into him to let him know that he shouldn’t be worried. He looked down at me and said, “I’m sorry Del. I didn’t mean to cause problems. I just couldn’t figure any easier way to keep an eye on you and on Jessie at the same time.”

“Where is Jessie?” I asked suddenly frantic. I hadn’t had near as much time to play with him while Daddy’s health deteriorated but he’d still been a constant companion, always near, always willing to be hugged even if it was in desperation, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed he wasn’t in the house.

“Hey … you’re shaking like a leaf,” Mark noticed.

“He’s not in the house. I expected him to be with you and now …”

“Hey, it’s OK,” he said soothingly. “He’s with Rudy’s girls. They’re having fun spoiling him and Lilah, Esther, and Cheryl say they’ve missed him too. He’s growing like a weed and is a bundle of energy; it is taking all three of the girls to keep up with him. They’re playing in the yard and hopefully he’ll sleep as good tonight as he did last night.”

I happened to glance at my brother and realized that Jessie wasn’t the only one that had been growing. Seventeen looked a lot better on my brother than sixteen had, he was going to be built just like Daddy only a little slimmer around the middle. I suddenly knew what would happen to most of the clothes in the chiffarobe; boots too from the look of his feet since he was already wearing a pair of Daddy’s old combat boots.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Getting a little past dinner time. I need to go down and get Jessie … if you are gonna be OK up here. Micah …”

“Er … Sis …,” Micah started.

“Hmmm?” I asked not really paying attention as my mind had drifted a little as I noticed my dad’s jewelry box.

“Um … Del …”

Then I noticed the tone and how Mark’s arms had tightened a little bit. I knew that tone, he usually used it when he’d been into trouble and was trying to get up the nerve to confess. And the tension in Mark told me that he was upset for some reason as well.

“Del, could we like you know, go talk … in the living room … please?”

I looked at Mark and he said, “I’ll go get Jessie.”

Micah frantically said, “No! I … I mean … Mark, please like stay.” The pleading look in his eyes was met by a troubled look on Mark’s face.

“OK guys, whatever it is, let’s get this out. It can’t possibly be as bad as … well, it just can’t. Can it?” I looked at them both really starting to get the wooly boogers.

Mark wouldn’t say yea or nay and as we walked to the living room Micah looked green enough to puke. We sat down but Mark obviously wasn’t going to help Micah along so after swallowing several times Micah said, “I … I didn’t mean to bring it up so soon. It … well … circumstances and all that.”

When he stopped and didn’t continue I said, “Micah, if that was supposed to make any sense to me at all I’m sorry but it didn’t.”

He sighed, blowing the air out through pursed lips and then running his hand through his hair. He jumped up and started walking obvious full of the fidgets too much to sit down. “Del, these last couple of months … you know I’ve been … you know … working and stuff at the farm. Well … more than working really … it was like going to school and learning stuff only I liked it better than I ever liked learning stuff in school. And Mr. John … he’s taught me a lot … he’s got training in all of this cool … I mean Daddy did too but different … and …”

Micah looked desperately to Mark again but Mark’s face was as closed in as I’d ever seen it.

“So anyway, Cal … it’s no secret that Cal can’t stand that sort of stuff … he’s going to go work at the Bait& Tackle ‘cause he says there is more opportunity for him there and because Big John … hey did you know that Mr. John was named after Big John’s dad? … anyway it’s not that I’ve forgotten Daddy … I … you know … aw Del … I want to go live with Mr. John and learn about how to build the biofuel system bigger and maybe start a business where we sell it for shares and stuff and he knows all about other things too like putting in wells and rebuilding motors and constructing windmills and …,” his voice petered off.

I’d caught most of what he said but was stuck on … “You want to go live … at the farm.”

“Look … you and Mark need a place to yourself. You’ll be getting together pretty soon and … you know … I … look, I … aw geez … this is embarrassing … I mean thinking about you two … you know … in the next room … and … aw geez.”

He was as red as a beet and so was Mark who was really starting to pull away. I felt like Alice must have when she fell down the rabbit hole.

“You want to go live at the farm,” I repeated.

“Yeah, I said that. I just … you know … was going to like build up to it only Cal … he wants to move to the store now because Big John really needs the help to get everything set up for the barter store … he had decided to go before the funeral so it’s not like what you said … you know … moved him along any faster … I just …” He looked at me begging me to understand.

I was in shock and got up and walked into the kitchen trying not to cry, for what reason I wasn’t sure. I heard Mark whisper fiercely, “Micah, I asked you to hold off, to give her time to adjust. She doesn’t need this on top of everything else.”

My brother answered, “I know Mark … it just sort of came out. I can’t lie about it. She’d know I was holding something back and then be mad because she wasn’t let in on it from the beginning. I never could lie with a straight face to Del.”

I walked back into the living room and said, “You better not lie to anyone, straight face or not. It sets a bad precedent and nobody trusts a liar once found out.”

Micah looked at me like I’d hit him. “So tell me so’s I can understand, why can’t you live here at the farm and still work with John.”

Micah looked nervous but Mark still wouldn’t help him. My fleeting concern that Mark had been the one to egg him on about this evaporated in that second. I understood that Mark didn’t want him to move to the farm at all and I’d find out why after I dealt with Micah.

“It’s … it’s not that I couldn’t Del … it’s … it’s … I don’t want to. There, I said it. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings but that’s the way I feel.”

“Don’t want to. Don’t want to?! I’ve heard nothing from you for almost four years about moving back here and suddenly you don’t want to.”

“I wanted to move back to the farm Del. I like the cabin well enough but you know I was always down at the farm every chance I got. I like it there. Up here … up here was your’s and Daddy’s place … I always liked the farm best. Sure I wanted to come back and I would have lived at the cabin if that was the only way for me to stay at the farm, and I knew that one day the farm might belong to someone else but … I wanted to have the chance to be the one that it belonged to.”

“What?!”

“I tried and tried and tried to explain it but you and Daddy just didn’t ever hear what I was saying. I never wanted to play Daniel Boone or Davy Crocket … that was yours and Daddy’s thing … I like the open fields and driving the tractor … and building things it seems like. Yeah, I’m liking building things for the farm too. Please understand Del, I’m not being disrespectful of Daddy … I just want something different than what he always seemed to want for me.”

It was like I was seeing my little brother for the first time in a long time and certain things started falling in place. I wanted to say, “Thanks again Daddy for leaving me with such a mess to clean up.” But I didn’t. It wasn’t Daddy’s fault. It was just life and growing up. But if I’d learned nothing else it was to trust but verify. Micah knew that I was his guardian until he came of age and if I objected no one in the family would really support the move but I knew that one day soon he’d be eighteen and at least legally able to do what he wanted to do. I had to weigh that – and Micah’s right to have a say in his own destiny – if I wanted to continue to have a relationship with my brother … and apparently with the farm.

“Micah this is … this is a lot … all of a sudden. Let me think about it. Just … just let me think about it. OK?”

Micah and Mark’s mouths fell open and I almost smiled. It was good to know I could still surprise people. It also made me feel sad that my willingness to think about something this important was such a surprise to the people I cared about the most.

“Mark?”

Mark jump like something had stung him. “Micah probably needs to gather up a few things around here, you mind if I walk down to pick up Jessie with you? I need to show everyone that I’m not quite as off my rocker as I was acting.”

“Del?” Micah nearly whispered.

“I’m not mad at you Bubby, not really. Just … I need to blow the cobwebs out of my head. But don’t push me on this. You and I both know you are nearly old enough to do what you want … but you aren’t there yet which means I’m accountable for you and to you … so just … don’t … push. Deal?”

“Yeah … yeah sure Del,” he said relieved. He was trying hard not to smile in relief. It would not be easy to tell him if I decided he needed to wait. I turned to look at Mark. He was still closed off with his armor zipped up type. I saw Micah glance at him nervously. At least what Mark thought mattered to him, that was something.

Mark walked down the porch steps without saying a word but at least he walked slow enough for me to follow without having to run to keep up. I bumped him a couple of times trying to encourage him into putting his arm around me but he didn’t. Finally, after we were far enough from the cabin but no where near the farm I grabbed his arm and drew him to a stop.

“Mark …”

“Del, regardless of what you might think this wasn’t my idea. I swore to your dad I would never cut Micah out and …”

“Whoa … who said that is what I was thinking? I trust you.”

He looked at me and suddenly the wind went out of his sails. “You believe me.”

“Well duh, isn’t that what I just said?”

Then he took a step closer and really looked at my face, into my eyes. “You really trust me.”

“Like I said …” I didn’t get any further before his arms were wrapped around me. In all the months we’d lived under the same roof we hadn’t been as physically close as we had in the last two days.

“Mmmph hmm mphmmm.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 14-2

Mark let loose enough that I could unbury my face from the front of his coat. “I said you do take on so … especially for someone that has just about carried me through the last couple of months.”

“I haven’t carried you through. I just helped around the place.”

“Says you. You … you … saved my life.”

“Don’t.”

I was surprised at how quick his defenses went back up.

“What?” I asked more than a little hurt.

“Don’t. I don’t want your gratitude.”

“Well you’ve got it whether you want it or not,” I said as I tried to step close to him.

He pushed me away. It was gently but it was still a push. On top of everything else that was just about more than I could handle. I was just furious again all of a sudden. It took two steps back because I found that I felt too much like lashing out at him … physically lashing out. Instead I said, “Thank you. At least now I know where I stand. Or maybe I don’t. Either way you’ve let me know how you feel. So, will you at least tell me why you have problems with Micah moving to the farm?”

“Why I have problems?! Because we’d be alone up at the farm.”

It felt like he’d stabbed me in the heart with a serrated blade. It hurt so bad I stumbled. “My God, you really know how to lay it all out don’t you? I don’t need your pity but you could have let me down a little easier than this!” I nearly giggled in hysteria. I must have turned a full circle looking for an escape route and not really seeing anything but blurs of color.

“Del? Del. What do you mean … I’m … Del!”

I felt like I was losing what oxygen remained in my lungs and I just sort of plunked down on the ground.

“Put your head between your knees,” he told me.

“And kiss my behind goodbye?” I giggled stupidly.

I felt him jerking his jacket off and wrapping it around me. I tried to fight it off and told him, “I don’t need this. I don’t need you to take care of me and I sure as @#$% don’t need your pity.”

“Your … your just … let me take you back to the cabin. I’ll go get Esther or …”

“Why go back to the cabin? Apparently you don’t want to be there any more than Micah does.” Another giggle escaped me despite my best effort to keep it behind my teeth.

“It’s the only place I want to be.” He tried to pick me up but I refused to cooperate and this time we both wound up on the ground.

“Don’t lie to me Marcellus Griffey. I heard what you just said. You just said so. You don’t want to be at the cabin because we’d be alone.”

He tried to pick me up again and I made sure to kick him in the shin. “Dat burn it Del, do that again and regardless of whatever is going on I will turn you over my knee and …” He stopped and got a funny look on his face.

“Why are you so mad?” he asked in a suddenly reasonable tone that for some reason made me feel even less reasonable.

“Why am I so mad? Are you witless?! The guy that I finally trusted enough to lay my heart at his feet just told me he doesn’t want to be with me.” I snarled at him trying to get loose from his arms that suddenly felt like a straight jacket.

“And that guy would be me?” he asked again just as reasonably.

“No. I suddenly had a burning desire to be Calvin Carlisle’s bride you idiot and go live over the Bait & Tackle. We’ll have a baker’s dozen and give each of them their own calculators as a first Christmas present.” I don’t know if I’d ever said anything more sarcastically.

“Not with Cal you won’t. I’ll tie him to a log and send him down the Cumberland before I let that happen,” he said with sudden humor that completely blindsided me and made me fight him even more.

The only thing that came out of my mouth was something close to an unintelligible growl but Mark didn’t seem to care.

“Now look at me and listen up. Apparently them classes I took are about to save both of us a lot of pain. See I learned that destructive anger is often a result of misunderstanding and if you find out what the misunderstanding is and clear it up you can avoid the anger. Have I got your attention Del? The reason I didn’t want to be at the farm with you … alone I might add … is because I promised to give you time. The reason I was mad at Micah was because he was pushing you to make a decision when you were at your weakest. The reason I promised to give you time, which Micah’s choice is trying to take away, is because I didn’t want to take advantage of you when you are vulnerable and lonely … I didn’t trust myself not to take advantage of the situation and do some pushing of my own.”

I’d stopped fighting him by the end of the second sentence. When he stopped I just sat there in the dirt with my mouth open. He made the mistake of loosening his arms and I launched myself at him so hard he went backwards and we both wound up rolling around in the dirt.

“Del! Del!! Someone sees us they are going to think we’re crazy,” he laughed.

“I don’t care. You scared me stupid Mark Griffey,” I told him hugging him just so tight he said he couldn’t breathe.

We finally got up off the ground and brushed each other off. “Mark, don’t ever do that again.”

“What? Try and keep my promise and protect your honor from the gossips?” he asked wryly.

“I trust you to keep your promises and you let me worry about the gossips. I’ve dealt with more than a few in my life and they’re fearsome but not undefeatable.”

He just shook his head and said, “I wouldn’t mind following this conversation to a more natural conclusion but I really do need to pick up Jessie.”

“By all means, let’s go get Jessie.” We walked another couple of acres and then I asked, “Is this why you didn’t want Micah to move to the farm?”

He slowed down again and got real serious. “Mostly, but I was also worried about how you’d take it.”

“But other than that, what do you think of the idea?”

I surprised him with the question. He was hesitant to answer then but then said, “Del, I’m not sure how you’ll take this but … but I don’t really think it is a problem. You haven’t had a chance to see how he’s been doing these last couple of months. I don’t want you to take that as a criticism, you had to focus all of your energy on your dad. But I noticed after a while that … well … it wasn’t just about getting away from the cabin for a few hours a day. And John says he’s picking up what he is being taught like he has a real talent for it and not just because he is being forced to learn it.”

I nodded. “So … you don’t think he’s being taken advantage of?”

“Well, maybe … but not for the wrong reasons.”

“Wanna explain that?” I asked suddenly concerned.

“Look, when I say that Cal isn’t mechanically inclined that is a complete and truthful statement. Cal … I’m not saying Cal is stupid because he’s not. In fact he’s really smart if you look at his GPA. But if you asked Cal to change a light bulb he’d probably ask whether he would need a flathead or a Philips.”

I snorted a laugh despite myself. “Surely he isn’t that bad.”

Mark rolled his eyes, “OK, not quite that bad but not too far from it. He drives John crazy asking the same questions … not just the same types of questions but the same exact questions … over and over. It’s like nothing mechanical sticks with him. Now give him some numbers to fool with and he turns into a walking calculator, just keep the tools out of his hands if you don’t want them broken or lost.”

“And this affects my brother how?”

“Micah is needed on the farm. Truthfully. Not even Sam and Rudy can compete with Micah now when it comes to fixing things. John is the one that brought up the idea to begin with. I’ll say this for Rudy, he’s refused to discuss it much less agree to it until he knows your feelings on it.”

“Where would Micah live?”

“In Cal’s old room in the trailer, or at least until a more permanent structure gets built. They had a hard time keeping that old cracker box warm this winter using wood alone and there’s been talk of dismantling John’s old pre-fab house and moving it here … again assuming you’re agreeable.”

“Why me? Aunt Lilah …,” I stopped as I couldn’t handle the idea of another death right then, even a hypothetical one.

“You OK?”

“Yeah. Like I asked, why me?”

“Rudy’s no fool that’s why. The cabin and the farm will probably always need each other to some extent. The cabin’s land is virgin for the most part and is the best for hunting and foraging. The farm doesn’t have land to compete with that, especially as that forty acres of yours backs up to the forestry land and that land owned by the railroad that’s never been built on except for the tracks running through it. The cabin … well, I’ve looked at that terracing idea of yours Del and while it can be done it is going to take years to ever develop the land so that you can pull as much in as the land down on the farm and you’ll never be able to compete with total capacity. I expect Rudy has some plan to … er … incorporate more of the land around the farm and put it to use – at least temporarily – but that still doesn’t change the way things already are.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 14-3

I had a lot to think about and we’d just walked into the open and been seen by Rudy’s girls. They called out, “Grandmother! It’s time for Jessie to go home!”

We walked up to the house and everyone made a bit of a fuss which was hard to take. My emotions were still raw and near the surface and all of their sympathy and concern felt like a brillo pad being rubbed against a fresh burn. Before I could lose control again I asked Mark, “Give me a sec to talk to Rudy?”

At his nod I headed over to the little room at the back of the barn that I’d heard Rudy had turned into his “office.” I knocked on the door and heard, “Few more minutes Cheryl; I’m almost done.”

“It’s me Rudy,” I called out.

A sudden scraping and the door jerked open. “Del? Anything wrong?”

“No. Look, you got a sec? I know you’re busy but … I don’t think this’ll take long.”

He pointed to a chair beside the desk he’d been setting at and I could see he was looking at a couple of maps and redrawing some lines. “First off Rudy, I’m sorry about …”

“Don’t apologize. Hy was the same way. I’m glad to see though that Esther was able to … er … hep ya a little bit.”

We both grinned conspiratorially as Aunt Esther’s help had always been of the rather rough and tough love variety.

“I’ll cut to the chase … Micah sprung this … this plan about him moving to the farm full time. I’d like your honest opinion of it.”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek before speaking. “Del, I’ll be honest, with Cal moving to the Bait & Tackle we need him. On the other hand I know that you and Mark aren’t likely to be able to get everything done up at the cabin without some help. On the third hand my brother seems to think Micah has a real talent in areas that … let’s just leave it at areas that Cal doesn’t.”

“So I gathered from Mark. Is there more to it than that?”

“You ain’t stupid, your daddy saw to that,” he said while I could see him trying to decide how much to tell him. “Del, we need to expand. I’ve worked the numbers six ways from Sunday but even adding into it anything that you can forage from up around the cabin we’re going to be lucky to barely get by in a good year. I wanna … nope, I’m gonna … take over part of the Montgomery farm next door. I heard they all died and as far as I know there ain’t no one left to inherit and frankly even if there was they ain’t here and we are and we are in need.”

“It can’t be that bad surely,” I said, concerned.

“Oh yes it can. We need fuel. To get it means we have to grow it to some extent or other so that John can refine it. But growing it means we have that much less space to grow feed and crops. I can maybe squeeze one year out of this land IF the year is a good one, but that doesn’t leave any room for crop failures and low yields for feed for our animals. We don’t have any fertilizers or pesticides which means crop yields are going to go down whether we can afford them to or not … maybe way down. I’ve been talking to some of the old timers down at the Bait & Tackle, trying to figure out which crops and varieties will yield the best but most of them only really remember the last few decades.”

Beginning to see the enormity of the problem I asked, “Still, how does this affect the issue with Micah?”

“I need man power to pull this off; not just hired hands but people that are going to be invested – completely invested – in making this venture a success. I also need ‘em to have some brains. John says Micah has surprised him more than a few times by being able to see things intuitively. And stop your blinking girl, I may talk like a hillbilly but I do have a brain that I’m partial to exercising more often than not. When I said intuitively it was because it was the best word for it. He can see a problem, understand what’s wrong, see what needs fixing, and have a general idea of how to fix it … he just doesn’t have all the skills yet to implement the fixing. And John’s the right man to teach him if he’s as willing to learn as he’s shown himself to be thus far.”

“And he can’t do that living at the cabin.” It was more a statement I was thinking than a question but he answered me anyway.

“To a certain extent yes; that’s been my primary reason for holding back … that and wanting to talk to you about it directly first. But the optimal situation would be for him to live here on the farm.”

“Especially since this is where he wants to be anyway,” I said, still having a hard to with that.

He didn’t deny it. “It’s nothing against Hy … or you for that matter. I never would have known it myself if I hadn’t overheard him talking to Sam about it.”

After a moment of thought I asked, “What about a trial period. I’m not ready to just jump into this with both feet. Micah has … well, I’ll say he has grown up a lot since we moved back and for more than one reason … but Micah has always been a bit of a flibberty-gibbet about things he gets interested in. It’s time he grew out of that but neither do I want to force him into some kind of apprenticeship either. It … it won’t be the same without him at the cabin but at the same time …,” I sighed before continuing. “I can’t keep him a little boy forever. He has to grow up. He needs to find his own way. I just don’t want to send him on his way without him knowing that he has a way home just in case it turns out he’s picked the wrong path.”

“I think that is more than reasonable. That still leaves the problem of you and Mark being shorthanded however.”

“Let me talk to Mark and see exactly how shorthanded it is going to leave us.”

Rudy tried to keep the smirk off his face but he couldn’t help himself. I told him, “Don’t you start. Mark and I haven’t done anything improper.”

“More’s the pity. You could have probably used some ‘improper’ to take your mind off your troubles.”

“Good gracious Rudy!” He just laughed but I decided I’d had about all I could handle and he was still laughing as I lit out for the farmhouse.

We made it back to the cabin in time for Micah to get to the farm before dark. “Del …”

“I said don’t push me Micah. I’m thinking about it.”

“I know … just … just thanks for at least thinking about it. I honestly don’t know if Daddy would have given me the chance.”

I sighed because I had a feeling he was right but I wasn’t ready to admit it. I did ask him to radio us when he got down to the farm which made him roll his eyes but I knew I wouldn’t have my little brother to mother for much longer and I decided to do it while I still could.

After Micah got to the farm and Jessie went down for the night Mark and I were left staring at each other.

“Del … this isn’t going to be easy. I do promise to try not to push … for God’s sake you just buried your dad yesterday and listen to me.” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

“I understand better than you think I should.” He only groaned in response like I was teasing him on purpose. “But you are right.” That brought him up short and made him look at me.

“I am?”

“Yeah. I’m not in any shape to be making the kind of decisions I’m wanting to make. Not right now Mark,” I said sadly. “I don’t want either one of us to look back and wonder if we took the wrong road even if it felt good doing it.”

He nodded, sighed, and asked, “So what do you suggest?”

“Work . We’ve got to do it anyway, may as well let it serve two purposes.”

He looked at me, finally grinned mildly and said, “I still say you have to be one of the strangest girls I’ve ever met.”

“Strange or not you know what I’m saying is true.” I realized all of a sudden I was actually hungry. “If I fix some hot chocolate would you pop some popcorn in the fireplace?”

His grin got enormous. “You bet, then we can sit and … work.”

When we were sitting once again I asked him, “What’s your take on this plan of Rudy’s?”

“Said something to you out in the barn I suppose.”

“Yeah. Have you looked at his numbers?

With a surprised look on his face, “Del, don’t give me too much credit. I’ve never farmed and Rudy’s been at it since before we were both born.”

“I know that but I also know Rudy. He’s always dreamed of owning one of those megafarms or whatever you call them. He’s also a shrewd businessperson. I’m not sure that those two things might not play into this plan of his.”

A log with some green still in it popped in the fireplace and I turned to make sure nothing had popped out onto the hearth rug. It took until I turned back for Mark to fit the words he wanted to say into a sentence. “Look, you know and I know that Rudy was always ambitious but I admit it was an honest ambition, certainly more so than Butch. Yes, Rudy wants to get ahead but I’m also thinking that he’s realist enough to know that getting ahead might mean something different than it used to. Yeah, I’ve seen his numbers and I’ll be honest Del, they ain’t pretty.”

“So he isn’t exaggerating.”

“Not as far as I can tell. He’s cautious yes, but not to the point of exaggeration.”

I sat thinking hard. Rudy saying it was one thing but Mark suggesting that Rudy was right was another.

“Del … you sure you’re up for this. Just this morning …”

I stopped him with a sigh. “I know what I was and what I was doing this morning. I was … angry … at everything and everyone. I hope that I’ve got the worst of it out of my system. But one thing is for sure, I don’t have time to sit around feeling sorry for myself.” I hugged myself feeling a little fear creep in. “It suddenly feels like I’m months behind where I should be Mark. I haven’t planned the gardens; don’t even know if I’ve got enough seed or the right kinds. The beds aren’t prepped. I need to get out and see if any early forage has come up. With this early spring we seem to be having … oh no.”

“What?” he asked seeing my tone suddenly change.

“I missed … I think I missed … tree tapping season.” I could have kicked myself.

He relaxed. “No you didn’t. Ms. Lilah said if the weather stays this sharp at night she wanted the boys to tap a couple of maples on the other side of the hog pens.”

At his words I started to relax as well. Maybe I could still get a few things right. “Mark, do you know anything about syruping?”

“Only what I remember from school. I used to help with the fund raiser every year.”

“Oh that’s right. Well, I’ve done it a number of times but it’s not the easiest thing to do. I marked trees when we moved back and was foraging so much but I haven’t even looked to make sure the equipment is in working order. Could we make that our project for tomorrow?”

He nodded his agreement.

“Got another question for you that Rudy made me think about.”

He looked at me with raised eyebrows indicating he was listening.

“If … and I mean if … I agree to this scheme of Micah’s, how shorthanded is that going to leave us?”

“It isn’t going to make my job any easier but if they can produce enough fuel that we can run a tractor up here that’ll more than make up for it.”

“Are you sure, have you really thought this through? I’m leaning towards it since you and Rudy both support it, at least on a trial basis, but I won’t if it is going to really handicap us. Micah does have some responsibilities up here since he is part owner.”

“You really are more mother to him than sister aren’t you?”

“It hasn’t been by choice Mark, that’s just been the way it has turned out.”

“Well, you can relax … like I said assuming they can get enough fuel to run a tractor up here. I even know where I can get an old Ford tractor with a three-point hitch that will work and we won’t have to bring it up that steep road from the farm.”

“Where?” I asked wondering if he was going to start “liberating” things like Rudy seemed to plan to.

“The barn at the forestry station over by the old WPA camp. I checked it out a couple of times over the winter. I’ll need some help getting it up and running but I know for a fact that it was used fairly regular. It was out that day that I was trimming those limbs so that you could get the streamline up the back road.”

We talked about some long distance plans … wants as well as needs … but it didn’t take much longer for me to be totally give out.

“Del …,” Mark whispered in my ear. I jumped. At some point I’d dozed. “Come on Sugar, time for bed.” I looked around. He’d banked the fire and locked everything down.

“Oh glory, I’m so sorry … how long have I been asleep?”

“Not long. I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did.”

We both walked down the hall and then I faced my cold, empty bedroom. I turned from the door and was left facing Daddy’s bedroom door.

“Try and not think about it Del. You need some rest and you aren’t going to get it if you … Del … are you listening?”

I turned to look him full in the face. “Mark, I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not, I’m right here and I’m not going any place. Remember?”

“No … I mean tonight … I don’t want to be alone.”

He looked at me before saying gently, “Del, sweetheart, you said yourself that it isn’t a good idea to make those kinds of decisions in your current state of mind.”

“I don’t care.”

“You will.”

“Mark …”

He gave me a very chaste kiss on my forehead. “We’ll leave the bedroom doors open. I’ll be right here. When we get together … and we will … I want us both to have clear heads and no regrets.”

I suppose I have to be glad that he had the willpower he had because at that moment I was just about as weak as I’d ever been and I was prepared to offer anything just to feel emotionally safe for a while.

I crawled in my bed thinking, “Who am I and what did I do with the girl I used to be?”

 

[CGTech]

Great additions! Thanks Kathy

 

[Sammy55]

Thanks, Kathy. I feel bad for Del. So many things thrown at her all at once. It would paralyze most people, including me, I think.

 

[sssarawolf]

Wonderful read this morning, thank you.

 

[Lake Lili]

Love a good read! Thansk Kathy!
Lili

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 15 - 1​

Life goes on whether we are ready or even want it to. There was no denying I was alive but the days following Daddy’s death and burial was like a remedial course in actually living.

The first project we worked on was syrup making. It was work, and a bunch of it, but we only had a small window of opportunity and I was bound and determined to take advantage of it. For this project it was actually easier for the farm to come to us rather than us haul everything to the farm. The cabin homestead already had the set up and we also had access to a larger supply of wood to keep the fire the right temperature. And the trees; I can’t forget we had the trees in much greater abundance than the farm itself did.

For my part I was much more comfortable keeping the youngest kids … Jessie and Rudy’s two youngest girls … at the farm and away from the boilers. Aunt Esther and Aunt Lilah watched Jessie and the others helped haul the sap from the tapped trees; but having them near the fire made me a nervous wreck so I never let them hang around at the cabin very long. There is a story in our family that two children were lost one year when they got too near a boiling vat of tree sap. One of the children died immediately but the other lingered for days during a time when modern health care was nonexistent. That story has always stuck in my head and not even Rudy or Aunt Lilah could make me ease up on the restrictions I set. I’m simply not convinced I could have handled anyone getting hurt on my watch, it wouldn’t matter whether it was my fault or not.

I had already marked several trees that we had used in years past – maple, birch, box elder, and black walnut. You can technically get sap and therefore syrup from all trees but you’ll wind up with a nasty and potentially poisonous mess from some of them. I always stuck with the traditional tree varieties because of this. Besides, it was enough to keep four vats boiling at a time.

Purists would have a conniption if they saw the way we had always boiled sap. For one thing if it was a maple the sap went in the maple vat; it didn’t matter whether it was a sugar maple, a red maple, a silver maple, or whatever. A maple was a maple was a maple when it came time for us to make syrup though I will admit to a partiality for the sugar maples. One year the tree taping days were cut so short that Daddy simply dumped all of the syrup from all the different varieties of trees we tapped into the same batch. We were thankful for what little syrup we got that year but the syrup itself had an unusual taste to it that we were never able to replicate and I wasn’t necessarily disappointed by that.

That first day was chaos. We had the kids cleaning and sanitizing all of the equipment – buckets, lids, drill bits, spiles (what the taps are called), and hooks. The women pulled out all of the cheesecloth we had and was hand washing it and laying it out so that it would dry straight without the loose weave being pulled out of whack and making holes. I had more cheesecloth than they did down at the farm because I had been stockpiling it for years and keeping it in my cedar chest. I had a thing for cheese cloth for some weird reason and Daddy and Micah bought me some as a gag nearly every Christmas and birthday. The men, after they finished their morning chores, took the equipment and started setting up the taps. Often paths had to be cleared just to get to the trees we wanted which only added to the labor.

Most of the trees we tapped only had one or two taps. A tree has to be in excess of twelve inches in diameter before you can tap it at all unless you want to kill it or weaken it to the point it might as well be dead. At twenty-one inches you can have two taps and even the most conservative tree tapper said that if it is over twenty-seven inches you can have three taps. I’ve never put more than three taps on a tree; you want the sap but you don’t want to bleed the tree dry.

We didn’t collect any sap that day but we were experiencing good weather for what we planned to do. It was warming during the day but still fell below freezing at night. When the tree would freeze at night the capillary pressure would squeeze the sap out through the taps that had been drilled. Starting the next day we collected a goodly amount of sap, better than I remember the last time we did it in fact. The weather was pretty much perfect and the weather had been damp rather than dry as it had been the last several years.

The sap looked like water unless you let it dry on you, then it could feel tacky and sticky. Each type of syrup was collected from the bucket and then poured into larger holding buckets until we collected enough to boil. It takes forty gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. I had five gallon buckets stacked high and deep out in the shed where they stayed below thirty-eight degrees. You have to remember that sap is like milk, it doesn’t stay good long and it has to be kept below a certain temperature or it will spoil.

Maple and Box Elders make the most syrup as they only require a 40:1 ratio of sap to syrup to reach the right sugar percentage which floats around 66% plus or minus a very few tenths. Black walnut was next at 60:1. It was the Birch that provided the least amount of syrup for the most amount of work at 100:1 but the taste was so phenomenal that I couldn’t resist the temptation to do it anyway, especially after everyone else egged me on after remembering the batches that Daddy used to make.

We got enough of the maple sap first so that is the first batch we started. We built a trench fire in the old fire pits that were older than Aunt Lilah and that was saying something. Then we carefully lay the tub on the rocks that had been laid around the trenches in the days of Methuselah. We then poured the sap we’d been collecting into the two-foot by six-foot flat bottomed tub that was properly called an evaporation pan and then brought it up to a boil. That was the tricky part and we had long paddles we used to keep the syrup stirred so that it wouldn’t scorch; the fire had to be tended just right as well. Slowly a rhythm would set in. Given the size of our evaporator pans we managed to produce two gallons of maple syrup a day and once we brought the other evaporator pans into production to handle the other saps we were getting two gallons of maple per day, two gallons of box elder, a gallon and a half of black walnut syrup, and maybe a gallon of birch if we started it first and had a nice long day of dry weather.

We had an average year and sugaring time … when you turn sap into syrup … lasted three full weeks. I’d never participated in such a large and constant production. We finished up with about forty gallons of maple syrup, the same in box elder syrup, thirty gallons of black walnut syrup, and fifteen gallons of birch syrup. This was split evenly with the farm.

I suppose, given that most of the sap had come from the cabin land and that Mark and I supervised we could have asked and likely received more but when we discussed it together we decided that we’d phrase it to be so that we could get fuel for the tractor. Rudy was no fool and he took Mark and I aside and said that both the farm and cabin should have what he called a “grace period” this first year so that we could all get on our feet. We’d produce and share with the farm and the farm would produce and share with us and we wouldn’t worry about every jot and tittle so long as everyone was pulling their weight and was content to leave it the way it was.

That was fine by me, I wasn’t really eager to have to deal with a competition of that sort. It might come in the future but I was praying that things would work out peacefully in both the short term and long term.

I did learn a few things during that period and had a few others reinforced. One of my biggest mistakes was in thinking that I could just carry on with my other chores the way I always had during syrup making time. Wrong. For one the amount of sap we were working was greater than anything I had ever participated in in the past. Two, my chores were greater than they had ever been in the past. Three, a larger number of people participating in production did not necessarily lessen the work by an equal percentage.

I tried to keep doing things the same way and within two or three days I was so tired and exhausted I was on the frayed edge of tears all the time. People put it down to grief but I had to admit to Mark on that third day that the truth was I wasn’t working myself to exhaustion on purpose it was just turning out that way.

“Del, you’re gonna make yourself sick. Take a day off. I’ll tell John that we have to have Micah for a couple of more weeks, at least until sugaring is over with, to give you some time to recoup from everything.”

“Mark, it isn’t that. I can’t just pick and choose when I’m going to let Micah have his trial period and when I’m going to put it on hold; that’s not realistic and won’t solve a thing,” I told him.

After asking me to sit down before I fell down which I gladly did while he poured me some warm cambric tea … warm milk with just a bit of tea mixed in it … he asked, “Is it just the sugaring or is it the chores … or both?”

“I’ll admit my energy level is low but don’t tell Aunt Lilah or she’ll pester me until I drink that foul spring tonic she makes. Rushing into the sugaring hasn’t helped and neither has trying to pick up my regular chores that you took over so I could nurse,” I had to swallow past a catch in my throat. “So that I could nurse Daddy. If it was just one of those things I could likely get through it without looking like such a needy weenie.”

He chuffed a tired laugh and then said, “You aren’t a ‘needy weenie.’ The things you say girl.” He rotated his neck and shoulders to release some of his own fatigue. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly full of energy myself. Those paddles and lifting those buckets are as bad as splitting wood all day, which I might add is what Sam and Micah are doing plenty of too just to keep the fires going. Trying to keep up with four evaporators at once is like trying to dance with four girls at once … tricky and on the verge of being dangerous.”

That last made me give him a look but there was no way I was going to stroke his ego and ask him how he knew exactly. Instead I told him, “Micah will be up here tomorrow to help. He knows what has to be done and how to be careful with the boiling sap.”

“Speaking of … I thought you said you didn’t like kids around the evaporator pans. How did you and Micah learn? The way you make it sound you were younger than Rudy’s girls when you started.”

“We didn’t start on the pans but on the kettles … those big stainless steel ones I pulled out of the basement before deciding they were too small. They were set up over a propane burner outside. And … well, Daddy had the nerves to teach us. I just don’t have it in me right now to force myself to let the girls learn. Not to mention those two youngest ones are a little airheaded right now. I know it’s what the Aunts would call ‘a phase’ but I just don’t have the patience for it, not while I’m trying to work around that hot sap, syrup, whatever.”

“Then don’t force yourself. They can help gather the sap and Sam and the older girl can cart it up here. But what about you? How are we gonna fix your tired?” he asked sidling up beside me on the sofa so he could get his share of the popcorn.

“We’re gonna be eating a lot of beans.”

That brought another chuckle from him. “We do already.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But not every night. I’ve got two big Dutch ovens. I’ll use the coals form the fire and one Dutchie will have lunch in it and the other will have supper, I’ll just start them both in the morning at the same time. Stuff that takes shorter to cook will be for lunch, longer for supper and the only thing I can think of that won’t hurt from sitting in the Dutchie for that long is beans.”

The only answer I got was, “Leftovers.”

“Huh?”

“If it is a problem just cook an extra large pot of whatever you are cooking for lunch and we can eat leftovers for supper. Micah has been eating down at the farm for his first and last meals and Jessie isn’t picky; neither am I for that matter. It’s your fault we got spoiled.”

“Oh you,” I said, pleased by the inference he liked my cooking. “Well, maybe on some days I might do that but I hate to do it every day; makes me feel lazy.”

“The last thing you are Sugar is lazy. And this popcorn is all finished. I don’t know about you but I’m not up for a late night. I’m going to hit the hay.”

I know people probably thought there was a lot of temptation, if not outright hanky panky going on, with the two of us living together and the only chaperone being Jessie. We did leave the bedroom doors open which helped me to not feel so sick-alone at night, but in all honesty we were just too tired for any kind of teasing each other much less getting up to real shenanigans we had no business getting up to. Those three weeks was hard labor plain and simple.

One of the few good things that came out of that time was that I was too focused and tired to really let grieving for Daddy consume me like it had the first few days. Life did go on and I knew in my heart that that was what he would expect of me. It isn’t like we didn’t have any warning what was coming. To be honest though when it did happen it still took me by surprise. You learn to live in a … a bubble where the only thing that exists is what you are going through and you lose sight of the fact that one day it will come to an end. When the bubble pops it’s like relearning how to live. Those three weeks were my baby steps; sometimes I fell, sometimes I crawled, but by the end of that time I was walking fairly well though I still managed to stumble every so often.

The last tap had been collected, all the equipment washed and scalded and stored away for next time we would need them, and the worst of the mud dried up in the yard when I decided to see if I could find anything fresh for the supper table that night. The early spring gave me hope so I put Jessie in his backpack, grabbed a woven basket, left a note for Mark who had gone to the farm to see if John could come see what the tractor needed to get it started and headed off into the woods.

The first thing I noticed was that there was an odd little stream developing where none had been in memory … at least in my memory. I followed it until I reached the forestry boundary and stopped, not having any desire to spend all day on the mystery but I did make a note to tell Mark. It had been exceptionally wet last year but I hadn’t thought that the winter had been any snowier than usual and the runoff in that stream wasn’t really cold enough to be snow melt.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 15 - 2

I did manage to find enough baby greens to make a spring salad with and some brackens – the ones I found were cinnamon ferns – that I could fry up and then season like asparagus. We’d had our fill of beans for a while but I thought I could manage a wheat pilaf to go with it and then a couple of pieces of fat back if Mark insisted on some meat. I remembered that Daddy had always insisted on a little meat with each meal even if … and that was all it took, the waterworks hit again.

I slipped Jessie off my shoulders and sat on a damp stump and cuddled him while I tried to get myself back under control. Some little while later Mark scared me out of a year’s growth when he put his arm around me; I hadn’t even heard him come up or noticed Jessie tugging at me to be let go.

“Hey, you OK?” he asked as he handed me his handkerchief.

I sniffed and said, “Yeah, it just sort of hit me and …” That’s when I noticed Rudy and John off in the trees and I was ready to sink into the ground. The last thing I wanted either of them to think, especially Rudy, was that I was weak.

“Don’t worry about them. Understand or not sometimes you’ve got to let it out or it is going to eat you up.”

Thank God Mark understood. I dried my tears and wiped my face then asked, “What are you doing out here?”

“We came to look at that tractor but found a stream and decided to see where it went.”

Rudy and John chose that moment to come over, “Dellie, you ever remember a stream running through here? I can’t remember Hy … er … I can’t remember ever hearing of one.”

“There hasn’t been one in my memory. There used to be a stream if you look at the old family maps but it wasn’t this one and if I understood Granddaddy’s stories right it dried up before Momma was even born. I followed this one to the forestry land but no further. It’s not cold enough to be snow melt. I was gonna ask but it seems like y’all don’t know either.”

John was scratching his chin and you could see him thinking. Rudy saw it and asked, “John, what’s on your mind.”

“There’s several springs and streams on that land. Not all of them run year round. We also had a hundred year flood and then the levies going. Lots of disturbances to the local water system. And you know, the reservoir is right not too far on the other side of the forestry land. That reservoir isn’t too big, they never really built good overflows on it and the water isn’t getting used like it was … Rudy, I need to get over there. This stream might be a sign that the reservoir is overflowing or something along those lines. If the reservoir is in bad shape we could wind up with another flood on our hands and I’m not real sure which way it will pour.”

I wouldn’t let them take off straight away but made them come back to the cabin and get some canteens and some edibles to take with them. Mark also grabbed more ammo for his rifle and a machete in case they had to go through any thickets. When they left I radioed down to Sam and Micah and let them know what was going on.

It was night before they made it back and I was starting to get twitchy. I offered Rudy and John a bed but they said they’d just as soon walk the little bit that was left and sleep in their own beds but they thanked me for the offer.

Mark was chilled and muddy and frankly we didn’t bother too much with modesty as I helped him skim out of his filthy clothes, wrapped him in a quilt and plopped him in front of the fire with a mug of hot cider.

“Reservoir OK?” I asked anxious to know.

“Yeah. It’s as full as I’ve ever seen it but it looks like it’s spreading out rather than over flowing towards town. John wants to continue to keep a watch on it and he found some equipment at the maintenance shed he wants, but there’s no immediate danger.” Through chattering teeth due to damp, cold, and fatigue he complained, “I missed putting Jessie to bed.”

“Yeah, you owe him two stories tomorrow. He’ll probably eat you alive in the morning,” I tried to joke with him to deal with his mood.

“Humph,” was his response. He ate desultorily after I had brought him his supper on a TV tray but eventually he warmed up and put a little more effort into it.

“How did you get so wet and dirty or don’t I want to know?” I asked. He was much worse than John and Rudy had been.

“Trying to clear an apron from the ridge that had slid into one of the larger creeks in the forestry land … I don’t know if has a name or not but it is pretty good sized. I don’t think it is honestly worth the effort to clean it out. Now instead of a good sized creek you’ve got two medium sized streams going off in different directions. The lay of the land just happened to guide the water this direction,” he said, ending on a huge yawn.

An “apron” was a sheet of sand and gravel that lay like a blanket on the side of a mountain or ridge. They could slide, just like a mudslide or avalanche. Intrigued with what he described I asked, “Will the stream run year round you think?”

“John thinks so but it might depend on the weather and whether there’s another slide right there. There is lots of granite in that dip that the water is following through so it’s going to have a harder time just soaking into the ground and drying up. If it gets any wider I’ll build a footbridge over instead of that log you used, but get this … there is fish in the creek so we might get some fish in the stream if it keeps getting deeper. I’m not sure I would mind that at all.”

We both agreed that fresh fish would be a welcome change and addition to our current diet of cured meat.

“Saw some deer up there too and something has been in the kudzu.”

“The kudzu was probably those goats I saw last summer and fall. Did the nibbles look fresh?”

“Yeah, I thought the deer had gone all desperate at first until Rudy said he’d never known deer to eat kudzu at all, just hide in it.”

Worried I asked, “How bad is the kudzu? Has it gone past the reservoir yet?”

“No, not yet; but, with no one up there to maintain the barrier either by cutting, burning, or spraying it will be all over in no time.”

That put me back to thinking about the goats. “I wonder how many goats it would take to keep the kudzu cleared off.”

“Don’t laugh but John actually knew the answer to that question.” When I gave him a funny look he was the one that laughed. “He worked in Chattanooga when they started using goats to keep kudzu clear of the tunnels. According to him a heard of fifty goats can clear anywhere from three to five acres of kudzu in one to two weeks. Depends on the weather and the size of the goats.”

“Fifty goats?! That’s … that’s … that’s way beyond what I could manage and I don’t know if anyone could manage it right now.”

“Might be some people willing to try if there was something in it for them. Goats are a sight easier to raise than cows and you still get your meat and your milk.”

“And how would you know that?” I asked surprised.

“I did work on some Mennonite farms when I was trying to pay the hospital bills from Jessie and clean up the mess that Kelly left me holding. The kids are funny little things but don’t turn you back on the billies or they can turn mischievous on you if not downright mean.”

I laughed at the look on his face and then saw how really tired he was. “Go to bed Mark, you’re exhausted.”

“I will when you will.”

“No you won’t. You’ll sit here and fall asleep, start snoring and then it will be hard as Hades to get you up and in there with Jessie.”

He got a mulish expression on his face and then thought better of it and said, “Come here for a sec.”

“I am here,” I told him since I was just sitting on the other end of the sofa.

“Here, here … next to me. I wanna ask you something and I wanna be able to see your face real good when I do.”

I scooted over into the firelight and leaned up against the quilt but he didn’t put his arm around me. “Del, how long … how long do you want to wait? I know I promised and I’m not having any trouble sticking to it. I know you need time to pull your head together but … I just … I’d like an idea of some kind of … um … timeline.”

The look on my face must have made him feel like he’d said the wrong thing but it wasn’t that I was only thinking. “Del, if you aren’t up to thinking about it yet I understand. Just Rudy and John were asking me and were telling me that no one seems to think you either need or even should wait a full year for mourning your dad. It … I just started thinking.”

“It’s all right Mark.” Then I blushed and said, “When I don’t really think about all the things that have happened I feel like I could … well … be with you tonight, tomorrow and not have any worries at all about it. But if I think how fast things have gone, all the changes that have happened in such a short period of time, I start to … to panic and wonder if I‘m making the decision because I want to or because I’m scared of losing you too.” My chest felt heavy and congested at even the hypothetical suggestion of losing him.

“Hey, you aren’t going to lose me Sugar,” he said finally putting an arm around me.

“You wouldn’t do it on purpose but life is just so … so … Mark I don’t know if I … I could handle losing you too on top of what all has been happening.”

“I said you aren’t going to lose me and I meant it. I know … well look, I know he wasn’t my dad but Mr. Nash did mean a lot to me. He’d been there for me a few times when Butch … well, that’s water under the bridge. And he offered me a place to call home even before Dee and Cici … and that’s water under the bridge too. Most of all I knew … know … what he meant … means … to you so it hurts me to have lost him too for your sake if for none of the other stuff I mentioned. I wouldn’t intentionally put you through that again, especially not if you are saying you … you care for me that much.”

“I’m saying I love you Mark. I don’t know how it happened or exactly when. Maybe a bit of me always has and that’s why you could make me so mad, especially when I thought you were being reckless on purpose. You scared me sometimes and you didn’t even seem to notice.”

“I’m not like that now.”

“I know you’re not … but it feels like life has turned reckless. I’m still having trouble with the idea of Micah being gone out of my reach to look after him because he has that same streak of recklessness you had to the point of being thoughtless. If you haven’t noticed I’ve got a problem with trying to be controlling.”

I could feel him trying not to laugh. “It’s not funny Mark,” I complained.

“I know it isn’t Sugar. Just hearing you say it out loud tickles me for some reason. Look, you wandering around the woods makes me anxious too. I don’t know how I would handle it if you were like Ali or Cindy and insisted on going to the Bait & Tackle every chance you got. They’re not even shopping, mostly running their mouths and catching the latest gossip.” Mark shook his head in disgust.

This time I was the one to laugh. “Mark … they’re husband shopping … or at least trying to see what’s available on the market.”

“What?!” he nearly choked on the last sip of cider in his mug.

“I expect Sam and Micah are going to start looking around pretty soon too. Oh, get that look off of your face … not to get married silly, but to … to … see if there is anything out there interesting enough to cultivate.”

“Good Lord Del!”

“Well, tell me if that isn’t what you were doing at their age.”

After thinking it over and shrugging he said, “OK, I’ll give you that … but we’re getting off topic here. What they are going to do isn’t near as interesting to me as what you … we’re going to do.”

I hid my face in the quilt, embarrassed at what I was about to say. “I don’t want to wait a year Mark … I don’t think I could wait a year, not with us living right on top of one another. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to wait long at all. But … but not tomorrow or even the next day. Please understand I’m just still too … too …”

I looked up expecting to see disappointment and instead saw a huge toothy grin that surprised the heck out of me.

“Del Nash, you get surprised by the least thing. Of course I understand. Besides, I’ve gotten more than I expected to get tonight. You said you loved me and that you don’t want to wait a year. Gives me something to look forward to and remember if I get impatient. Besides, when we do this I want it done right. We’ll need a preacher and I’ve got to figure out how to get the papers done up for it.”

I hadn’t given any of that any thought at all and it must have shown on my face because he laughed again but I could tell he was on the tail end of keeping his eyes open and I was finally able to stand him up and get going.

“Del, don’t be up late.”

“I don’t plan on it,” I told him. Thing was his late and my late weren’t necessarily the same thing. Like always, I had a lot to think about and a lot of planning to do.

 

[sssarawolf]

Wonderful, thank you.

 

[Griz3752]

Chapter 13​

I rolled over to see Jessie’s empty crib. Startled, I jumped up and looked down to find that I was dressed in the same clothes as yesterday except for no shoes.

Mark growled quietly from the hallway. “Cal, your mouth is getting ahead of your head again. You want to watch that, it could prove dangerous.”

Calvin laughed a distinctly male laugh. “Yeah, right. You just wanted to get in your time before others took a shot at her. You saw as well as I did all the men eyeing her. Seems there aren’t too many young, single females out and about right now that are very useful and Del’s skills make her a hot commodity. Bonus points if you realize she cleans up pretty good and she was smokin’ yesterday in that black dress. You better move quick because if I get a chance to get up in her space she’ll forget all about you.”

That … was … it. I came out of the room disheveled and with some bad bed head. I must have looked like a Harpy on steroids. Mark had Calvin by the throat but there was no way that I was going to let Mark fight this battle for me. Both men turned and I could see Mark’s eyes bug out and his mouth go “Uh oh” but I wasn’t in the mood for any comic relief. “Dippy Del” was back in town and she was By God in the mood for a fight.

I looked at the little cockroach and snarled, “You even think about getting up in my space and I’ll turn you from a rooster to a hen so fast it’ll make your head spin and then I’ll keep cutting. You got that boy?! The only reason … and I mean the ONLY reason I don’t drop you right here and right now is because I happen to like your parents and your sister but I can gauran – dang – tee you that if you come anywhere near me … I’ll ….” I’d backed both men into the kitchen and then my hand brushed my cast iron griddle.

Mark hustled a rather white and shaken Calvin towards the door, “Out. Now. Don’t come back. Not for a long, long time … next winter might just give her time to cool off but I wouldn’t count on it.”

I looked at Mark and he at me. He’d taken away the target for my anger and I was debating whether he deserved any of it because I was ready to flame something or someone. Then I heard what sounded like a couple of braying mule out on the front porch. I thought Calvin was back and I wrenched it open ready to swing only to find Rudy, Sam, and Micah in tears practically rolling off the porch they were laughing so hard.

“Dellie girl … you don’t know … you just don’t know … how much … much I needed that. Oh … my … Lord. Hy is probably placing bets with the archangels to see how long Calvin has to live. Wait ‘til I tell John … he will bust a gut. That son of his has been begging for a good ol’ fashion backin’ up for way too long …” Hee haw, hee haw.

I slammed the door in their faces and marched back inside into my room … my proper room … and then slammed that door. Men. Every stinking one of them was poison to me at that moment. Tears started streaming down my face again and when Mark pecked at the door wanting to come in I warned against it by throwing a book at it hard enough to rattle the whole door frame.

I could hear Micah moving around in the house, frankly could hear lots of noises though they tried to be quiet, I just was sunk in a black tearful mood as I lay curled up in my dark bedroom. When lunch time came Micah, Mark, and even Rudy tried to get me to eat but I told them in loud and colorful terms exactly what I thought of that idea, them, and any idea they might have as to my well-being and then warned them to leave me alone or suffer the consequences. They were smart enough to leave me alone after that.

I was angry at every Chauvinist male pig on the planet; Calvin in particular and Mark by association. I felt betrayed by my own brother and Sam and Rudy just because they had been helping him along. I wouldn’t have spit on a man at that point had he been the last one on earth and on fire. … And my father … I was angry at my father too which even in my condition I knew was illogical which only made me feel meaner and more angry … for leaving me with this mess to deal with … for just leaving me period right when I could have used his guidance and encouragement … and his protection … his experience … his knowledge. I railed against how unfair it all was and then would kick myself for feeling so cruel … and then go right back to being angry all over again.

Eventually I fell asleep to get away from my anger and misery. I don’t know how long I’d been asleep but I swear I was so discombobulated that I somehow imagined that it was Momma trying to get me to wake up and eat. But then I heard the undulcet tones of Aunt Esther. “Girl, you either wake up or you aren’t going to like the consequences.” Apparently she’d been trying to get my attention for some time.

“Aunt Esther?” I mumbled.

“And who else would it be? You’ve got everyone else too cowed and intimidated. Not that I don’t admire your ability to do so.”

I looked at my aunt like she had something hanging loose upstairs and she surprised me by laughing. Then she sighed, “My word I miss your mother. She was so sweet it always made me want to go to the dentist but she always seemed to know what to say at times like this … I still miss her. You look so much like her.” She brushed a ratty lock of hair off my face and it took everything I had not to flinch in surprise. Then another smile that just about turned into a laugh. “But if you aren’t a duplicate of Hy I don’t know what would be. Now, get up and get dressed. You look like you’ve been sleeping with the dogs.”

Try as I might I could not hold back a growl. “Aunt Esther …”

“Use that tone with me again girl and you might just find out that just because I’m an old dog it doesn’t mean that I forgot my dentures. Now you listen to me and I want you to hear me good. You are indeed just like your father … and shame on all of us for letting him wallow in his grief after your mother passed away. I was too wrapped up in proving I hadn’t been hurt, your Granddaddy was looking for someone to blame, and Clement was just plain useless. Well … not this time. You’re not dead and I’m not letting you crawl off into your misery like your daddy did. Now, I want you up right now or I’ll have Mark come in here and help me.”

That got me moving. “Aunt Esther, I don’t know what Calvin said …”

“That Calvin thinks with what’s in his jeans more than what the Good Lord gave him upstairs.”

“Aunt Esther!”

“Don’t Aunt Esther me girl. I may be adding years to my age on a daily basis but I am not senile. Calvin is the last kind of boy you’d have anything to do with and I know good and well you’d probably rock Mark so hard he’d be a long time getting up for trying anything either. From what Rudy said they both barely escaped with their lives … especially that Calvin. In my opinion you may have been too kind to him. Boy has no more commonsense than a drunken June bug.

Well needless to say sometimes it is the surprises in life that move you along faster than the kindnesses. I got up with a sigh and looked around for my brushes and clothes then remembered with a grimace I would have to go to Daddy’s room to get them.

“Everything is there in that box,” she said pointing to a crate on the end of my bed. “You’ve got five minutes to make yourself presentable and then I want you to come out to the kitchen and have a bite to eat. We’ll talk more then.

I watched her go and was tempted to crawl back in my bed and pull the covers over my head. Problem was that I knew my aunt. Problem was, I secretly admitted to myself, it looked like I had a streak of Porter in me after all; it just wasn’t Momma’s flavor, it was Aunt Esther’s.

It took a minute longer than the five she’d given me to get my hair in order. Several times I considered chopping it all off but vanity saved the strands despite my lack of patience with them. I stumbled into the kitchen to find it empty of everyone but Aunt Esther.

“I was about to come get you.”

“My hair,” was my reply and apparently explanation enough.

“Let’s sit down and have some of this soup Aunt Lilah fixed. The cornbread has gone stale but the soup will fix that.”

I ate just to avoid a fight. I didn’t really taste anything but at least the warmth seemed to loosen my joints up a bit.

“Good, you’re getting some color back at least. Del, I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to bite my head off for it. Hy did a wonderful job of raising you and Micah in most things but there are a few that could have been improved upon and one of those things is how you cope with loss.”

I reared up ready for a fight.

Forestalling a major explosion Aunt Esther held up her hand to stop me. “Listen to me Del, I’m not saying anything against Hy but you need to acknowledge that he didn’t handle your mother’s loss well and he allowed it to leave such a hole in his life that a big part of him might as well have crawled in the grave with her. The only thing that kept him from following her as quick as he could was you two kids. We wondered for a time if even that would keep him earth bound.”

I sighed, “What’s your point Aunt Esther because I really … I don’t know if I’m up for dredging up the past right now.”

“We aren’t dredging up the past girl, we are trying to ensure that you have a future you’d be pleased enough to live.”

I was still trying to figure that one out when she kept going. “What good did Hy do your momma by wallowing in his grief and locking up his heart the way he did?”

“Excuse me! Daddy loved Micah and I a lot and told us all the time.”

“Sure he did, but you two are the only two people that got any of the love he was capable of. Now I’m not one to talk, felt like curling up and dying after your grandmother and your uncle died, and in the beginning it was only my responsibilities that kept me on my feet and moving … but after a while I learned to live without them, to do what had to be done without their help. I still miss them, but I’m not so ready to crawl under my own headstone as I once felt like I was. And, I did learn to … well, give more than I had before then. And I’m still learning girl so you can get that surprised look off your face. I never said I was perfect, but for my own troubles I hope I’ve learned enough to steer you clear of your own.”

I sighed. “Aunt Esther I appreciate what you are trying to do.”

“I hope so because I didn’t climb that hill to make a fool of myself.”

I snorted. “No ma’am. But we just buried Daddy yesterday. I don’t know if I can do what everyone wants me to do yet.”

“Child there is no time limitation on grief. Part of you will grieve for Hy for as long as you draw breath. Even Aunt Lilah grieves in a sense for her father even though he was a mean old @#$%@#$.”

“Aunt Esther!!”

“Don’t look so shocked Del, it isn’t attractive on you at all. We can love people in spite of their failings as well as we can because of them. And while we are on the subject of Aunt Lilah, unless you plan on being a martyr like the Aunts were I would suggest you pick another path to trod. We’ve got plenty of examples in this family that should warn you off wallowing in your emotions too much. Your father, my father, my mother, Aunt Sheba … we can add to the list ten times over. Love ‘em, learn from ‘em, but don’t make the same mistakes they did … that I have myself.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing much less who I was hearing it from.

“Del, Lord willing, you have a long life ahead of you. You certainly have the skills to make it through the coming days. And you’ve potentially got a helpmeet to see you through them as well. Mark is not the reckless young boy he was, the one that got into so much trouble all the time and didn’t have the sense not to poke at bears whether they were caged or not. That recklessness always did set my teeth on edge. But you will lose him if you do not pull yourself together; you’ll freeze him out. He doesn’t strike me as the kind that can withstand that for long. He’s proven himself strong, but he has that boy of his to think about and he’s looking for a future which is what he should be doing. And what you should be doing too. The past is what you learn from and occasionally lean on … not what you live in.”

You know Calvin's going to pop up again, just like cow flop smell on your good boots when it's a hot day; he should trip over a hornet's nest or a hungry sow bear . . . .

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[CGTech]

Thank you Kathy

 

[Sammy55]

Some more great chapters.

You, know...at one time I thought about tapping our trees for syrup. We did go to places that tap and make maple syrup and were intrigued by the process and loved the syrup. But we didn't do it on our land because we didn't have that many Maple trees. At that time, however, we didn't know about the birch and others, so we could have tapped quite a few trees for syrup. BUT, after reading your description, I know we didn't know what all was involved in making tree syrups, and I KNOW that we'd never do it now! It's a lot of work!! I will never complain about the cost of maple syrup again. LOL!

Just like I will never complain about the prices of quilts since I bought material and spent hours and hours to make my first quilt years ago. The general public doesn't realize the time, cost, and work involved in making quilts, and that if you price the quilts at that value, you probably wouldn't find someone willing to pay the price. Some things are like that - handcrafted items mostly, like maple syrup and quilts....

 

[Kathy in FL]

Some more great chapters.

You, know...at one time I thought about tapping our trees for syrup. We did go to places that tap and make maple syrup and were intrigued by the process and loved the syrup. But we didn't do it on our land because we didn't have that many Maple trees. At that time, however, we didn't know about the birch and others, so we could have tapped quite a few trees for syrup. BUT, after reading your description, I know we didn't know what all was involved in making tree syrups, and I KNOW that we'd never do it now! It's a lot of work!! I will never complain about the cost of maple syrup again. LOL!

Just like I will never complain about the prices of quilts since I bought material and spent hours and hours to make my first quilt years ago. The general public doesn't realize the time, cost, and work involved in making quilts, and that if you price the quilts at that value, you probably wouldn't find someone willing to pay the price. Some things are like that - handcrafted items mostly, like maple syrup and quilts....

My mom makes beautiful quilts.

 

[Jeepcats27]

Quilt pictures please!