CHAPTER NINE #3
“I wish Dad would get back here,” Tom said. “He’s been gone a long time.”
“Pep will make sure he comes back.”
“This is a neat place,” Tom observed.
“It’s interesting. Pretty different from your house, right?”
“Do you think Dad would let me live here with him?” he asked her, and the desperation on his face was unlike anything Mad had witnessed with her younger brother, who seemed so impassive.
“I don’t know, Tom. I think that’s pretty complicated, and your mom would not have let us take you if she thought you weren’t coming back.”
“Just part time, then?” he asked. “Like a regular divorce?”
“Maybe,” Mad said, and instantly regretted it. She had the distinct feeling that none of them would ever see their father again after they left the ranch. But what good would it do to say this to Tom? After their father had left with Pep, Tom had called his mother on Rube’s cell phone, the reception barely allowing them to communicate, and told her that they’d found their father. Rube then talked to Trista for a few minutes, explaining the situation. Mad still couldn’t quite believe that this woman had allowed them to take her child into the wilderness to track down their delinquent father, but what did she know? She had not spoken to her own mother since Oklahoma. She should call her. But she couldn’t do it yet. She didn’t want anyone else to be a part of this moment, even her own mom.
Rube walked into the room, holding Rooster, who pointed to the marble run, and Rube walked over to the contraption. “He’s a good kid,” Rube informed them.
“Did you think he was a bad kid?” Tom asked.
“Yes,” Rube admitted.
“It’s never the kid’s fault,” Tom said.
“Of course not,” Rube replied, looking intently at Rooster as the little boy grasped a handful of marbles, offering them to his oldest brother.
“Can I film you?” Tom asked. “The light is nice.”
“Sure, why not?” Rube replied, smiling at Rooster before taking one of the marbles and sending it on its way. Rooster placed another marble, and just as the first had settled itself at the end, no longer moving, the new marble softly clinked against it. Rube put another marble, and Rooster placed one right after. It was hypnotic, the sound of the marble, compelled by gravity, so inevitable, following the same path, each time, clink-clink-clink , until every marble rested at the end.
PEP AND THEIR FATHER RETURNED, BOTH OF THEM SWEATING, THEIR FACES tinged with dust. Mad could instantly see that Pep had been crying, her eyes red, but it seemed to have passed. She was calm now, the slightest smile, as if to prove to Mad and Rube that she was okay.
“He had me do actual work,” Pep told them. “I hauled stuff.”
“It’s easier with someone else,” their father admitted, and Mad wished he’d think about that statement a little more, but he was already heading to the sink for a glass of water.
“You should have gone with him first,” Pep said to Mad. “You work outside. With your hands.”
“You’re in way better shape than me,” Mad offered, but Pep shook her head.
“I don’t like the outdoors, honestly. It’s too big.”
“Are you okay?” Mad whispered to her sister.
“Not really,” Pep admitted. “I don’t know what I expected. It’s just hard. There’s not enough time. It’s weird, but I didn’t want to make him too sad. And, honestly, he’s not the person I remember. I think it’s just been too long.”
“You’ll be okay,” Mad told her. She hugged her sister, didn’t think about it, and Pep actually accepted it.
“I know. I will. Thank you.”
THEIR FATHER RETURNED TO THEM, HOLDING A GLASS OF WATER FOR PEP , who accepted it. “If you’re staying for dinner, we need to get some food.”
“We’re staying for dinner,” Tom replied.
“I can go get some food. It’s a bit of a drive,” their father offered.
“We can just have sandwiches again,” Mad said.
“Most of the bread is gone now,” their father told them. “I don’t keep much food on hand. Rooster eats mush and I eat rice and beans mostly. I can run into town.”
“Go with him,” Rube said to Mad, who looked to her brother to make sure it was okay. He nodded. “I’ll stay here with Rooster,” he said.
“Can you handle it?” she asked her father. “Do you need some time to yourself?”
“No, let’s do it,” he said. She could hear what he meant, that he wanted to get it over with, but maybe that was her own anxiety.
“Okay, let’s go,” she told him, and they walked out of the cabin. He had a truck, and he held open the passenger door for her. It gave her a slight flash of her childhood, of climbing into the truck, sitting in the middle seat between her father and mother, on their way to the market.
When they were both in the truck, he started it up and said, “Feels like I’m running a gauntlet here.” Mad felt a slight tinge of anger wash over the warm feeling of that old memory.
“Didn’t have to be,” Mad told him.
“I guess you’re right,” he said, and off they went.
IN THE SILENCE OF THE RIDE, BOTH OF THEM UNSURE OF HOW TO START, MAD talked about one of the few areas of interest that she knew they shared. Or that they had once shared. Her father might not care now, but she realized that she cared, and so she told him about corn. Mad had been cultivating a species of corn that was called Tennessee Red Cob.
“It’s got this rich red germ,” she told him. “Mostly I was doing it because an older guy I knew at a seed legacy project gave me some to try, and it was good for our specific region. There wasn’t much call for it in the county, but I always kept some to make cornmeal and it made good polenta, honestly. It tastes like the fanciest version of Cream of Wheat. And so I started talking to some restaurants and then I worked with a local mill with an actual waterwheel that powers the mill.”
“I’d like to see it,” her father offered. “It was harder to do heirloom stuff back then, or maybe farmers weren’t as keen on sharing or searching it out.”
“Well, it’s not really viable for most farms,” she told him.
“We never cared much about that,” her father said.
“Yeah, we still don’t,” Mad said, and she almost laughed, the way the we bent and shifted, but she let it go.
“Maybe we should have polenta tonight,” he offered.
“Tom can stir it,” Mad said.
“Okay, we’ll do polenta and I’ll get some chard. You grow chard?”
“Nope,” she said. “Is it in season?”
“In California it is,” he said. “And we’ll get some pork sausages. There’s a place that sells Cambridge sausages and they’re amazing.”
“I thought you mostly eat beans and rice,” she said.
“It’s a special occasion,” he replied.
“Okay, so we have the menu set,” she said. “How much farther into town?”
“Fifteen minutes at least,” he said, “in this thing.”
“Oh,” she said. She had hoped maybe the food talk would last the entire drive.
“Are you married?” he suddenly asked.
“No!” she almost shouted. “I mean—what?—no, I’m not married.”
“Are you dating someone?” he asked.
“No time,” she replied. She never had to explain herself back on the farm. And now, all these family members, all this time on the road, she had to keep explaining that there was no time because of the farm, but she had been away from the farm for a while now. It made her mad, to have her very nice and solid excuses start to wobble under repetition and self-scrutiny. This was what other people did to you, she decided. They made you question the things you’d always taken as fact.
“There’s time,” he said, like some wise old man, which, Mad allowed, maybe he was, but she still didn’t want to hear it.
“You left us,” she said, “and so to keep the farm going, I couldn’t leave.”
“You could have,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t. People can, yeah. I couldn’t.”
“Because of me?”
“Kind of?” she allowed. “Does that make you sad? I’m not trying to be mean, but, yeah, because of you. You left and I never saw you again. I had to help Mom run the farm. And then it became mine, mostly, the running of it. And it just seemed like a relationship wasn’t worth it, because if it didn’t work out, what would I have?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is. I know it’s not your fault that I’ve never been in a relationship, that I’m this weird, lonely farmer, but it is kind of your fault.”
“This is …” He paused. “I guess this is why I never tried to stay in touch with you kids.”
“Mom finally told me you sometimes called her. You never once asked to talk to me? That hurt me almost as much as you disappearing. If I’d just heard your voice once since you left, maybe this wouldn’t be so hard.”
“I regret that the most. I know I couldn’t have stayed, but I could have reached out. I won’t forgive myself. But I thought that if I just forgot about you, ignored the fact that you were growing up that entire time, I could imagine a life where you were happy and fine and didn’t miss me at all.”
“I am happy,” she said. “I’m fine. I mostly don’t miss you.”
“Okay, fair enough. I just mean that you seem lonely.”
“I AM LONELY!” she shouted, finally giving up on politeness, of protecting him from her anger and confusion. “You left and never came back and I thought maybe you were dead, like you’d jumped into a lake with your pockets filled with rocks. I thought an alien had abducted you. I thought you were mad at me. You messed me up.”
“Maybe I’d have messed you up if I’d stayed.”
“Probably! You probably would have because you have this thing inside of you that makes you live outside of your own life and never fully be present, I guess. And that probably would have made me messed up in some other way, but that would be normal.
I could talk to other people and say, ‘My dad is a good guy, but he’s a little sad because his life didn’t work out, and sometimes that sadness makes my life difficult,’ and they would say, ‘Same here,’ and I’d just move on. But you disappeared, and how could I talk about that with people I’d just met? I had to erase you from my mind so as not to think that I’d failed you in some way. I kept the farm going. It’s better than anything you did with it! It’s famous! John T. Edge mentioned me in a book! I’ve never yelled this much in my life!”
“I’m so sorry, Mad,” he said. “I cannot do anything about it.”
“And the farm is still there. It’s not going anywhere because I kept it going. And if some miracle happens and I have kids, they’ll have the farm. I’m not letting the farm go, because it’s the place I know. It’s good, you know, to have roots.”
“Of course I know that,” he said. “And it’s why I’m so deficient. I don’t have that. I’m glad you have the farm. I was just hoping you had someone to talk to.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“I understand. I wanted to live that life, honestly. I wanted to be self-contained. I was so obsessed with what was in my head, what I wanted to accomplish. But it was so complicated in my brain. Every time I started over, I’d get to work on the life I was making and then I needed someone to talk to, to share things, and I’d meet someone and it would begin again. I needed people after all, I guess.”
“Well, I don’t.” She was so tired suddenly. It was quiet for a few minutes.
“You have siblings now,” he offered.
“Dad, please. I might never see them again after this. I might not want to.”
“I was so terrified of all of you, how much I’d hurt you. But this is good. I’m glad you found me.”
“Even though you thought we might kill you.”
“In my dreams, yes.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” she said.
“We’re here, by the way,” he said, turning into the parking lot of a little market. Mad rested her head against the dash of the truck.
“Oh, god. I cannot believe we are going to walk into this grocery store and buy food and, like, drive home and cook it and then sit at a table and have a family dinner.”
“It is not how I thought my day would go,” her father replied. Neither one of them would get out of the truck.
“Well, I have had days and days and days to prepare for seeing you and I still didn’t think this is how it would go, either.”
“What’s the alternative?” her father said. “You found me. We can try to be a family of some sort.”
“I guess there’s not many options,” she admitted.
“It’s either this or all of you kill me,” their father said, and it made her laugh. It made him laugh. She looked at her father, who was so old. He was too old to be her father. Maybe the key was to truly believe that her father had been abducted by aliens and, by some strange miracle, here he was again. Maybe the only way to keep living was to willingly forget large parts of the narrative of your life and then just live with what was left. She hated that idea. But it was so quiet in the truck, the silence turning even more awkward.
“Let’s go buy some chard,” she finally said, and he nodded.
RUBE AND ROOSTER WERE PLAYING OUTSIDE AS THE TRUCK PULLED UP TO the cabin, and the little boy waddled over to his father. Rube looked sheepish, his shirt untucked and his hair sweaty, dirt on the knees of his khakis. There was a red kickball at his feet.
“We got food,” their father said to Rooster, who grabbed his father’s hand and then gestured to Rube.
“He loves that ball,” the father said.
“It’s a very Little House on the Prairie kind of existence,” Rube replied.
“Where are Tom and Pep?” Mad asked him, and when he replied that they were at the weird structure in the woods, Mad volunteered to get them, handing the bag of groceries to Rube. Rooster waddled back to Rube and picked up the ball, gesturing for Rube to play, so their father took the groceries and went into the cabin.
“Okay,” Rube said to the boy. “I guess … you want to keep rolling this ball back and forth?” Mad started to run a little bit to make sure she didn’t get pulled into the game.
“YOU’RE BACK,” PEP SAID, REGARDING HER WITH SUSPICION AS MAD ENTERED the inside of the strange fortress. The sensation of coming out of the tunnel, the expansiveness of the open air juxtaposed with the wooden walls, made her feel like she was either coming out of or falling into a dream. Mad could only nod. Tom was pacing around, holding his hands to frame a camera shot in the way that Mad had seen movie directors do in old cartoons.
“How did it go?” Pep asked.
“I don’t know, honestly,” Mad said. “I don’t know what I expected. We just kind of talked.”
“Don’t tell me what you talked about,” Pep suddenly said. “I don’t want to know, because if he said the same thing to you that he said to me, it will make me feel bad, like he was refining his speech to us.”
“He was mostly feeling out whether or not we were going to kill him,” Mad said.
“Yeah, he definitely was wondering about that,” Pep replied. “But don’t tell me how he apologized or if he apologized or if, when you said his apology was bad, what he then said to try and explain why the apology was bad. I don’t want to know.”
“Agreed,” Mad said.
“You aren’t crying,” Pep observed.
“Well, we had a long drive back here,” Mad offered. “So maybe I had time to compose myself.”
“I guess so,” Pep said.
“And, Pep, honestly? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. He doesn’t even look like my dad. I think maybe for me and Rube, it might be a different sensation than it is for you and Tom.”
“Rube might be the most effed up about it. Maybe you’re just different.”
“Maybe I’m in the sweet spot,” Mad allowed. “Like, I’m not close enough to being left that I still feel like he could be my dad, but I’m not so far away from it that I feel like my whole life is explained by him.”
“Or you are repressing the emotions so hard, and it’ll come out some other time and you’ll have to check into a hospital.”
“I yelled at him!” Mad said, defending herself.
“Oh, yeah, me, too,” Pep offered.
“You yelled at him?” Tom said. They realized he was standing right next to them.
“Yeah,” Pep said.
“Not me,” Tom said. “I mean, unless it’s for the movie.”
“Of course not,” Mad offered. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to yell at him.”
“He did have another kid, though. I don’t like that,” Tom admitted, staring at the opening of the tunnel.
“Welcome to the club,” Pep said, and Tom actually laughed, as if the sharpness of Pep’s comment had jarred him loose from the uncertainty of the situation and reminded him that he was a part of their weird little family. He pulled on the hem of his shirt and then picked up his camera. Pep descended into the tunnel, Tom went next, and Mad, waiting a few seconds to ready herself, followed.
“TELL US WHAT YOU REMEMBER ABOUT US,” RUBE SAID TO THEIR FATHER AT dinner, their plates heaped with polenta and sliced sausages and electrically bright chard.
“What do you mean?” their father replied, looking slowly around the table, as if trying to simply remember their names.
“You always were obsessed with home movies. You filmed all of us. You kept some of them, right?”
“Home movies? You saw them?”
“I had them,” Tom told him. “You left them behind. I showed Rube and Mad and Pep. I thought they were short films.”
“I knew I’d forgotten them,” their father said, “but I couldn’t go back. Once I realized, it was too late. It’s not even that I watched them. But, yes, I did keep them.”
“Something in you wanted to hold on to your kids, even if you tried to forget later,” Rube continued. “So talk about a single memory you have of each one of us. Not important. You haven’t seen us in years, decades for some of us. So here we are. What do you remember?”
“Oh, goodness, okay.” Their father took a sip of water, considered the question, and then took a bite of sausage. “I feel like I’m auditioning for something.”
“Nope, you’re our dad,” Pep said. “You got it already.”
“Who do I start with?”
“Me,” Tom offered. “It should be easiest, since it wasn’t that long ago.”
Their father looked at Tom, nodding.
“Don’t try too hard,” Rube said. “Just the first thing that pops into your head.”
“Okay, okay, Rube. It’s a lot of pressure. So, for Tom, I remember we were at a parade, maybe the Fourth of July? We were set up along the street, and people were throwing fistfuls of candy into the crowd from the floats. Oh, it was Fourth of July, because there were these women dressed up like the Statue of Liberty and the music was ‘Born in the USA,’ but edited so it was just that refrain, over and over.”
“I don’t know if I remember that. I remember parades, though.”
“Well, you were pretty little. But they threw candy and there was this one piece, butterscotch hard candy, and it came skittering right at your little feet. And it wasn’t in a wrapper and it was just there on the hot asphalt. And before I could stop you, you picked it up and ate it, just crunching so hard with your baby teeth, so I wouldn’t try to get it back.”
“I do remember that!” Tom said.
“Yes, and then you saw that I was worried about it, and so you found a piece of candy from another float and unwrapped it and threw it on the ground, and I picked it up and ate it, and that made you happy.”
“So we’d both get sick,” Tom replied. “You said Mom wouldn’t be as mad.”
“Do me next,” Pep said, “but not about basketball. I remember all that probably better than you do. Something else.”
“I remember the Oklahoma/Arkansas State Fair? They still have it?”
“Of course they do. I won the junior division Rabbit Skill-AThon when I was ten. Thirty bucks.”
“You raced rabbits?” Tom asked her.
“No,” she replied. “You did these stations where you had to answer questions and determine the breed and the ear carriage and the faults. It’s Midwest stuff, don’t worry about it.”