Republic of Dirt (21 page)

I
’m pleased to report that my head is clearing nicely, if not quickly. I slept for most of the past two days and that seems to have done me wonders. I’ll have to tell Dr. Bachmeier that the medication is finally working. Now that I’m on the mend, I absolutely have to get some traction on the Sara problem. I thought I was being so brilliant involving her parents in farm life, but now I feel like I’m juggling two incendiary devices. We have to make sure their paths don’t cross and that they don’t feel pressured or manipulated. Plus, I underestimated their mutual dislike.

I began by broaching the subject with Sally Spratt when she stopped by to say she hoped the manuscript was going to be finished soon. She said that to be “on the safe side,” she wanted to wait for the social worker’s report. She didn’t want to leave her husband “any openings.”

So I called the social work office and left a message asking when Pete would be available to interview us. I told him that we were having a family-friendly community Halloween event and that he
should drop by. I hoped that if Mr. or Mrs. Spratt showed up, they wouldn’t do so at the same time. And although I’m not religious, I also prayed that one of them might bring Sara by so we could see her.

In addition to the Halloween event, I’ve made an excellent plan for Christmas. We will have Lucky pull a wagonload of people around Cedar to various attractions. We’ll call it the Cedar Christmas Mule Tour. Can you imagine anything more delightful? People will buy a ticket and get a ride to a place selling bottled cider, then to one selling candy apples. We will drop wagon customers at the afternoon showing of the Yellow Point Christmas Music Revue, the local musical production, which I’m told is terrific entertainment. When the customers have visited all the holiday hot spots, we’ll drop them off and pick up another batch for evening shopping.

I think most people would be willing to pay top dollar to be driven around town in a cart pulled by a spotted mule. We’ll probably make him a festive outfit. I am so excited about the concept that I can barely contain myself. A shower is in order so I can feel even more refreshed.

Post-shower, I got dressed and went downstairs, just like in the old days. At the kitchen table, I made a long list of people to contact about the Cedar Christmas Mule Tour. The McHales, who have the beautiful corn maze, and the McGuires, who have an apple orchard. We could get Jimmy Samuels, who runs the fish hatchery for the band, involved. People on the mule ride would probably love to see the smolts or whatever they have down there at the hatchery.

I’d invite all the local artisans to take part: the potters and the painters and the woodworkers. Cedar is full of artistic talent. Then there are all the merchants in downtown Cedar. The possibilities are endless.

I called Eustace to share the great news. He’d been so busy since the other vet closed up shop and keeping on top of the strangles outbreak, I’d hardly seen him at all. He was talking about bringing in another vet to help him, but in the meantime, he was working nonstop. That meant that he was mostly too busy to come by. He still called a few times a day, but it was mostly to offer suggestions for what I should do, and so I was forced to tell him to mind his own business, in a nice way. Still, I missed him terribly. Sure that he’d be busy on a call, I was surprised when he answered his phone and immediately asked if he could come over.

Ten minutes later, his truck pulled up outside.

He stomped up the front stairs and, when I opened the front door, his wide-shouldered body filled the doorway.

“Sorry,” he said. “I promise I wasn’t driving up and down the road out front waiting for you to call. The Genovas’ goat had an accident.”

“Is it okay?”

“It’ll live, but the car it fell onto won’t. Or rather, the car it fell
into
.”

I waited for him to explain.

“You know that old Ford Ranger Mr. Genova drives? Well, their goat likes to stand on the roof. Their daughter came home from Vancouver, driving her new soft top convertible, and the goat decided to try it out. Took three of us to get him out of the front seat. The seats will never be the same and the roof is now ventilated. But the goat’s fine.”

I love Eustace’s stories about his work and not just because they
remind me that most people who have farm animals seem to operate from a base level of incompetence.

“You look good,” I told him. It was true. All six-plus feet of him seemed to radiate strength and good health.

“I got most of the half-chewed car seat out of my hair,” he said, noticing me staring at his curls. “The goat kept hacking up bits of upholstery onto my head when I was doing my Jaws of Life routine.”

There is almost no way to talk about someone like Eustace without lapsing into romantic clichés. Tall, handsome, competent. Vet. It was too much. He was ridiculous. The way I felt about him was ridiculous, even if I did feel smothered from time to time.

We walked into the kitchen and I could sense him watching me as I made us tea.

“You too,” he said. “I mean, you look good too. A little bedridden, but good.”

Insert dead metaphor about a prickle of heat sliding up my body. All I wanted to do was lead him to the bedroom. My hips felt loose, my legs unsteady. Eustace always had that effect on me. Between his sexiness and his helpfulness, Eustace sometimes felt like a bearskin wrapping around my body and sometimes like a bear trap shutting around my torso. But that feeling, I reminded myself as I carried the tea to the table, was my problem. Not his.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good. Almost better.”

“You been to see a proper doctor yet?”

The only thing that keeps my beautiful boyfriend from being perfect is his tendency to be bossy, conservative, reactionary and unsustainable. Even so, I wanted him. Always.

“It’s really good to see you,” I said.

He didn’t smile back and I felt robbed. Eustace has gorgeous teeth.

Usually, when we sit together at the table he has trouble keeping his hands off me. He’s always reaching over to rub my forearm, which drives me crazy. Or he stretches a long leg over and nudges my foot or my leg. Which drives me equally crazy.

Our kitchen table visits always end up in the bedroom.

My thyroid condition has had a dampening effect on my libido, but Eustace was bringing it back to life.

Earl was in his cabin. Seth was out somewhere. The timing was perfect.

I was just about to go to him and sit in his lap, the way he liked, when he began to speak. His words sounded like they’d been practiced a few times.

“Prudence,” he said. “I’ve been thinking. In order for us to have a real chance to develop an equal partnership based on respect, I need to let you find your way, just like you keep asking me to do.”

I waited, not liking the direction of the conversation.

“You’ve told me a hundred times that you are in charge of this farm. That you can handle things here by yourself. That I need to stop interfering. Stop criticizing. Things are hard right now with everyone missing Sara, and with your illness. It’s hard for me to sit back and not help. But it’s disrespectful of me not to trust you to handle these problems.”

“Well,” I said. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

“I’ve been talking to a few people and it’s been pointed out to me that I’m too attached. A
lot
too attached. I need to get my needs met on my own.”

I leaned forward to stare into his beautiful, troubled face.

“What needs?”

“Emotional ones,” he said. “You aren’t responsible for me.”

My mouth was hanging open. I closed it and tried to think of something to say.

“You are right to set boundaries with me,” he said.

“I don’t want boundaries,” I said. “I mean, I do. But not big ones. How about porous boundaries? Can we try some of those? You’ve been working too much. Is that what this is about? I’m sorry I’ve told you to mind your own business. The Hashimoto’s has made me testy.”

He ignored my words. “Right now, for instance, I want you so bad I’m half-sick with it. I need to learn to interact with you as a friend and as an equal.”

Finally I croaked that we could have sex as equals.

“No,” he said. “Sex is just going to confuse things. We need to learn to talk. The more I do for you, the more we have sex, the more I want to do for you, the more I want to lose myself in sex with you.”

His grin finally appeared and I nearly fell over from the perfection of it.

“This is going to be hard. Because I really, really want to be with you. To help you. Build you a new barn and fix your truck and weed your raised beds. Top up your RRSPs. You get the picture.”

I swallowed. Oh, I got the picture, alright. It was a picture I missed already.

“I’m going to respect your boundaries,” he said. “And we’ll be stronger because of it. I’ll do my helping from a respectful distance.”

My face felt like old wax as I tried to smile.

He got to his feet and came around the table, leaned down and kissed me.

“I love you,” he said. “And I think we’re going to be stronger for this.”

I watched him leave, all long legs in jeans and broad back in green canvas work coat, felt lining showing at the collar and where it had ripped at the shoulder seam.

I sat at the table for a long time.

I
was too shattered at the prospect of dealing with the drama teacher to respond intelligently when Prudence came into my room and asked if I’d been talking to Eustace about boundaries. She must have seen my boundaries worksheets and the books I got from the used store, which I planned to semi-plagiarize for my article for Half Measures.

I was sitting at my desk chair, which I’d rolled over so I could stare out the window at the field in a pensive way.

“Seth,” she said, when I shrugged in response to her question. “What’s going on with you? Are there bugs in here? Do we need to call a pest control company? It is going to be very difficult for me to make a case to get Sara back here in any sort of regular way if people think we’re infested.”

She was dressed, which was an unusual thing for her these days. Her sleek brown hair was styled neatly, and her skirt, worn over wool tights, and old pink sweater with an owl knit into the front managed to look practical, warm and cute as hell. But she had on so many
socks her runners wouldn’t tie up, and dissatisfaction came off her in waves. I could understand. If anyone is familiar with dissatisfaction, disappointment and most every other kind of dis, it’s me.

“Are you okay?” she repeated. “Because to get this farm straightened out, we need you to be okay.”

“Are
you
okay?” I said, sounding like a whiny preteen.

She sighed. “I’m getting there. We have had a difficult fall. Some serious reversals of fortune. Mistakes have been made but we need to keep our attitudes positive.”

Prudence sat in my Director of Rock chair and leaned forward. She used to have skin like fresh ivory paint. But now her face had a yellow-gray tint.

“Seriously, Prudence,” I said. “You should go see a regular doctor.”

“Dr. Bachmeier
is
a medical doctor. And a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. A certified naturopath and acupuncturist as well as an ordained monk, though I can’t remember from what order. That’s why I know that she’s going to get me sorted.”

“You sure you’re not just defying Eustace?” I asked. Prudence, like a lot of people, is not in love with being told what to do.

“Of course not. I’m doing what’s best for my health. Was it you who told him to boundary me?”

“No.”

“Then why is he doing this? Is AA telling him to boundary me?”

“
Boundary
is not a verb. And AA is not a coherent organization. It’s mostly just a bunch of suggestions that hardly anyone follows, except for the one about not getting loaded. None of the suggestions are about boundaries. The only reason people in AA talk about boundaries all the time is because hardly anybody has any. We’re all trying to work it out. Including Eustace.”

“Why don’t you have boundaries?”

“To be honest, I don’t even know. I’m supposed to be writing an article about boundaries and the concept is a complete mystery. That’s probably all Eustace is trying to do: develop an understanding of the concept. After all, you have told him to let you figure it out on your own about a thousand times.”

“He’s a good man,” she muttered. “A really good man.”

I stared at her.

“Several of my friends in New York had bedbugs in their apartments. They’re a pain, for sure, but they aren’t dangerous. We’ll find the money to treat the problem. But if you have them in your room, they might spread. That means they’ll be more expensive to treat. The key is to get on top of the problem before it escalates.”

Now this was the Prudence I knew. Direct. Practical.

But as soon as she stopped speaking, her eyes started to close.

“Halloween stand,” she said, drowsily.

“Pru? Are you on something? Seriously. You don’t seem right. It’s gotten worse since Sara left.”

“That girl took a big part of this farm’s soul with her,” she said. “I better get back to my room.” She held out an arm and I got up and helped her to her feet.

“Don’t worry about anything Eustace says. He’s as codependent as ever. Completely ass over teakettle in love with you. Even when you’re a mess, like you are now.”

I deposited her on her bed. Her room was like her: neat and thoughtful. Rows of hardback books about growing things and building things. Clothes in clean colors put neatly away. Shoes lined up on a rag rug. Cool little details, like the row of small mismatched vintage vases with a single leaf or flower in each. But the flowers and leaves
were wilted and the inch of remaining water thick with sludge. The quilt that covered her bed was bunched up in the middle of the wrinkled sheets. I’d never seen Prudence’s bed unmade during the day.

She slid under the covers with all her clothes and her shoes on.

“Do you want to take those off?” I asked, and pointed to her feet.

She moved them out from under the covers and I pulled her shoes off.

“Can I borrow one of your boundary books?” she asked.

I went down the narrow stairs to the living room, where I paused to look around. It had changed so much since I moved in. Prudence had hung framed paintings and prints that she’d begun collecting from local artists, and a few pieces of art she’d brought with her from New York. Colorful blankets covered the armrests and backs of old couches and chairs. There were antique lamps and old area rugs. The room smelled like beeswax candles and wood soap. The windows were covered in simple curtains in some kind of soft green embroidered material.

When I first moved over here from my mom’s place across the street, the house, and the living room in particular, had the unmistakable air of a house in which an old man had slowly checked out of life. Its signature scent was stale pizza, cheap coffee and cheaper gin. All the sheets in the place smelled like they’d been moldering in a garbage bag for years. The pillows were few, flat, and greasy from age and use. Prudence had had us paint and clean and refinish, and she’d found lamps and rugs and furniture from second-hand stores and Craigslist. She’d splashed out on new sheets and towels, and now the whole house was comfortable and attractive but not fussy. The transformation was amazing. It was maybe not so surprising that Prudence had exhausted herself and her thyroid gland.

I picked up two boundary books from the stack on the coffee table in front of the couch. I chose the smallest ones because I figured the simpler, the better, given Prudence’s condition.

When I got back upstairs, she was sitting up with her feet hanging over the side of the bed. She was staring at her running shoes like they were a sudoku puzzle she wasn’t sure she wanted to tackle.

“I don’t want to go back to bed again,” she said. “I’m missing everything. I still haven’t figured out the Sara situation.”

“I’m not sure it’s figure-out-able right this minute,” I said. I put the books on her nightstand. “It’ll all work out. We’ll get Sara back. Eustace will stop having boundaries. You’ll grow a shitload of vegetables. Be the bionic farmer again.”

“You promise?”

I promised and she lay back down and closed her eyes.

I went to my room and got dressed in my work outfit of white jeans, leather jacket and fingerless gloves.

When I got down to the playhouse for the great Halloween Decorate-a-thon, Earl’s old truck was parked alongside the pink shack. Maybe Eustace had taken a moment after setting boundaries with Prudence to repair it.

In the bed of the truck lay our sad collection of construction tools and equipment: a hammer, a handsaw, some kind of electric saw that works one time out of five, a level, a package of sandpaper from the 1970s. Like that.

Earl stared at the playhouse, which had not been improved at all by the addition of two unevenly hung pots of infant kale.

Piled at Earl’s feet were several shapeless plastic bags from Pattie’s Party Palace.

The farmers in that American Gothic painting looked less
defeated than Earl in that moment. At least that old farm couple had pitchforks and appeared to know how to use them. Earl held a heavy-duty stapler in one hand and a hammer in the other.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

Earl grunted. “Don’t know where to start,” he said.

“May I suggest a gallon of gas and a match?”

Earl lifted the stapler at me. Must have weighed four pounds.

The craptastic pink playhouse with its ornate scalloping, pointless turrets and general sense of airborne pathogens and unwholesome elves sat at the edge of the property like it had fallen off the set of an unsuccessful Tim Burton movie.

“It’s pretty scary the way it is. Maybe we should just leave it,” I suggested.

Earl let the big stapler fall to his side.

“Goddamned death trap,” said Earl.

Even though the day was bright, I could see the giant TV flickering in my mom’s living room across the street. She’s a heavy consumer of daytime entertainment. She does her crafts and drinks Superstore pop until about three, at which point she switches to afternoon television and Old Style beer. She moves to rye and Coke after dinner.

“The idea is to get people to come here?” I asked. “To look at this thing?”

“Prudence says we want to build a brand, whatever the hell that is, for the farm and get people coming to us for their fresh vegetables. She even invited the social worker feller so he’ll put in a good word with Sara’s parents.”

Sara’s parents should know by now that we are a safe place for her to visit, at least. But neither seemed ready to budge without a report. They were both idiots, as far as I was concerned.

I thought about Prudence’s plan. She’s a maniac. But she’s such an enthusiastic maniac that it takes a person’s mind off his own difficulties. Which are numerous, at least in my case.

“Here’s an idea: instead of fixing it up, we’ll make it even more shitty. What does it remind you of?”

Earl cocked his head, looking even more turkey-esque than usual.

In my pocket, my phone chimed to let me know I had a text. I felt for the button, turned it off and immediately felt better.

“Come on,” I said.

“A waste of wood and paint?” said Earl.

“Besides that.”

“A fairy house,” he said.

“A fairy house! Exactly. But is it a nice fairy house?” I pressed, feeling like a teacher of non-gifted second-graders. “Earl?” I prompted. “Is it a nice fairy house?”

“Hell no,” he said.

“That’s right. It’s a bad fairy house. What we need to do is play up that aspect. In any kind of decor or design, you need to tell a story. This story is going to be scary fairy.”

“I never know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“We’ll use it to recreate fairy tales with a twist. Wolves will win. Princesses will stay single. Kids will never get out of their cages. Little pigs will be killed in tragic construction accidents. Prudence wants a Halloween party centered around this eyesore. So we’ll make it high-concept. Worth looking at.”

Earl had his head cocked even harder. Maybe everyone who lives on a farm, successful or not, eventually starts to look like poultry.

“It’s going to be cool,” I said. “People love fractured fairy tales.”

“I don’t know how to do all that,” said Earl.

“I’ll tell you who knows everything there is to know about making pointless stuff,” I said, jerking a thumb in the direction of my mom’s house. “People will be lined up to see the Scary Fairy House on Woefield. We’ll need major, major candy supplies to deal with the crowds.”

Earl looked about half convinced. And for the first time since we lost Sara, I felt useful and nearly happy.

“We need a special guest to give out the candy,” I said. “Someone who can fit inside that little shack.”

“The little Sprout?” said Earl.

“That’s right. Sara’s the person for the job.”

“She can’t. She’s got her poultry club party.”

I wondered how he knew that. Before I could ask, Eustace pulled up alongside the pink shack. He leaned out the driver’s side window of his massive vehicle.

“How’s it going?” he asked. “Need any help?”

“Weren’t you just here? Setting boundaries with Prudence?”

Eustace turned off the truck and silence returned to the countryside. Several crows cawed noisily from a barren tree at the edge of the property.

“I can’t hack it. I’ve tried. Just now I stayed away for—” he looked at his gleaming hubcap-sized watch—”nearly forty minutes. You people need my help. If I’m not out on a call, I’m here, helping. As much as she’ll let me.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Earl asked me.

I shrugged. It would be too hard to explain to someone of Earl’s emotional range.

“I feel pointless without Prudence,” said Eustace, baldly.

“Hmmm,” I said. Because really, what is there to say when a man
feels pointless without a woman? Eustace and Prudence would work it out like the ridiculously good-looking, overly hardworking people they were.

“We got to decorate this bastard,” said Earl, getting to the point.

“He doesn’t mean me,” I said. “He’s referring to the shack.”

I could see Eustace wanting to make a snide comment but holding his tongue. Maybe he’d learned more than he thought during his few hours of setting boundaries.

“Okay. I’m in,” he said. And the three of us headed up to the house to plan the Scary Fairy Halloween Farm Stand.