Chapter 28
“Now, Nattie,” my mother was saying, “I know you have so much on your plate right now, with the farm and the little ones, so please tell me if this is too much to ask—but Abigail was saying she’d love to come visit with the kids for the weekend, and I thought, what a lovely idea!”
“Oh,” I said. “What a surprise.”
I was holding my two-month-old son in my arms. Samuel.
I’d been breastfeeding in the darkness in a barely furnished room when my mother called.
It was technically Clementine’s room. It was her mattress in the corner of the room, her books arranged in a neat little pile on the opposite wall.
We kept forgetting to order the rest of the furniture.
The princess bed frame, the matching pink bookshelf.
They were floating in my laptop, waiting patiently in an online shopping cart.
I just kept forgetting to purchase them.
It was June. Our second summer on the farm.
On the other side of this great nation, Reena was living in New York City as a recent graduate.
I knew this because I checked on her Instagram account daily.
I saw every highly unattractive selfie she shared of herself, raccoon-eyed on the subway at three in the morning, surrounded by young men and women who always looked like they were mid-conversation and trying to ignore her.
I knew she hadn’t gotten a gig at McKinsey when she announced that she was working at some no-name mid-tier consulting firm that would require her to travel every other weekend.
She was flailing, obviously—and I, on the other hand, was thriving.
I just needed to remember to order that furniture.
“So what do you think?” my mother said. “Should we come this weekend? Now’s a good time for Abigail to travel.
” Only my mother would describe an hour’s drive as traveling.
Abigail was five months pregnant with her fifth child.
She’d lapped me several times over with her children. I hated her for it.
“What do I think,” I echoed softly. What did I think?
Samuel snuffled in my arms, smacking his lips loudly.
I stared at his little face in the darkness, smushed up against my breast. He was a sweet little boy, with none of the sharp edges of his older sister.
I loved him effortlessly and distantly. When I held him, it felt like I was waving at a relative from very far away. Hello, there! Or maybe: Goodbye!
I’d opted for the anesthetic this time. I’d been miles away from this child even as he was making his slow exit out of my body.
Here is what I thought first: If they come for the weekend, they will see the vegetables and the half-tilled fields and the workers, clutching their ribs and laughing breathlessly at Caleb’s mangled attempts at Spanish.
Here is what I thought next: If they come for the weekend, Mother can hold the baby.
I let out a long breath. I kept forgetting to breathe these days. I was so tired. My son was so beautiful. I was so happy. Really, I was. Happy.
Two days later, my family and I stood in the driveway as Abigail’s junkyard minivan rolled up the hill.
Little Samuel was in my arms in a brand-new blue gingham shirt.
Clementine was standing stiffly at my feet, wearing a too-small dress in the same fabric as the baby.
I’d gotten the outfits from a local children’s store in town months ago, certain that I could beat the pace of her growth spurt.
Caleb was standing next to me, wearing a wide-brimmed hat.
“Well, aren’t you the perfect ranch family,” my sister said when she got out of the car.
Her children poured out of the van like termites. Brady, Brandon, Benjamin, Becky, each of them about fifteen months apart. The children went careening toward the fields, screaming about a game of tag. Clementine hesitated, then dropped my hand and began to walk slowly after them.
My mother got out of the passenger seat. “Goodness,” she said, “would you look at those mountains.”
“Welcome, y’all!” Caleb brayed out suddenly.
All of us looked at him. He looked back at us with an expression of terrified confusion, like he’d just woken up and found himself here, mid-conversation.
I sighed. It had been a mistake to tell my husband to pretend.
He’d internalized it incorrectly and now managed the feat only in fitful spurts, which obviously defeated the whole purpose of performance.
I threw a holly, jolly smile onto my face. “Caleb’s becoming a regular cowboy these days!”
“How marvelous,” my mother said quickly, and rushed to hug my husband before he could humiliate himself further.
While Caleb talked my mother’s ear off about his wide-brimmed hat (Lord, give me strength), Abigail sidled up to me. “He’s beautiful,” she said softly, looking at Samuel. She touched his bald head with an index finger, and he let out a little squeak in reply.
I nodded at her kids, who were now teaching Clementine how to play tag. “The children seem well.”
“Oh, they’re the best. I don’t know what I would do without them.
They’re like my little angels.” I watched her as she watched her children.
She’d aged. We hadn’t seen each other almost at all when I was living with Caleb’s parents.
When I moved back to Idaho, I had noticed something different about her, something strange in her gaze, but I hadn’t taken a moment to really consider it until now.
I’d seen my sister in all manner of moods, happy and sad and tired and overwhelmed, but this, what I was seeing on her face now, was something else entirely. Something altogether new.
Then she looked at me, and her expression shifted. “And how have you been?” she asked. “Better?”
“Oh, yes. I’m perfect.” Then I called to my mother, “Would you like to hold the baby?”
While Abigail’s kids chased each other through the rooms, I gave my mother and sister a tour of the house, pointing out everything that was going to get replaced in the renovation: the light fixtures, the granite countertops, the marble-tiled bathroom floors.
We’d been meeting with architects, I told them.
Only a week ago, we’d found the one we wanted to work with.
(Do you still want indoor toilets, ma’am, or would you prefer an outhouse?)
“We’re just waiting for him to fit us into our schedule,” I said, “and then all this is going to go bye-bye.”
“But it’s all brand-new,” my mother said. Samuel was fast asleep in her arms.
“It’s just not our taste,” I said. “I mean, really.” I gestured to the living room. “I mean, it looks like a Pottery Barn outlet got sick and threw up in here.”
My sister stared at a nearby wall sconce, as if trying to understand what a light fixture could’ve done to warrant such violent execution.
“Well, don’t throw out all these perfectly good appliances.
At least donate them.” Abigail paused delicately.
“I could probably take some stuff. If it would help you, I mean.”
It was obvious Christian-speak for I’d like your leftovers, please. I played along, feigning interest at the idea of donation. “It would be so helpful if you did that for us.”
Still, my mother looked fretful. “Do you really want to get rid of all these perfectly good appliances? It’ll cost you a fortune to replace!”
I gave her an apologetic wince. “Money is not a concern.”
Except it was. Oh, it was! A little secret I told no one, that I barely acknowledged even in the quiet of my own thoughts: the money was nearly gone.
We hadn’t pulled the trigger on the renovation because I wasn’t yet clear on how we would be able to afford it.
We were just about to hit the three-year anniversary of the farm.
We’d eradicated the black mold and restored the structural integrity of the barn and bought brand-new top-of-the-line tractors, we had tilled fields and daily workers and a cow and some chickens, we paid the financial equivalent of the GDP of a small nation in taxes each year, and also, we had yet to turn a profit as small as a penny.
Just a few days earlier, Caleb had joked happily that our zucchini and egg earnings from the most recent farmers market pop-up had almost covered a full tank of gas for the truck.
To which I replied in happy-wife-singsong, “You can’t put a price on learning! ”
What I wanted to say: Want to blow through five million dollars so quickly it makes your head spin? Buy a fucking farm.
After the house tour, I took my sister and my mother out to the fields.
We stood at the top of the hill and watched my husband, several hundred feet away, chasing the kids in a turbocharged game of tag while our latest batch of men from Home Depot worked the fields, two of them driving tractors that dragged great silver rakes across the dirt, three of them walking around and pulling big rocks out of the soil.
My mother stared out at the scene with a look of abject dismay, her poker face momentarily abandoned. “What are you growing?”
“Beets, I think,” I said. “And asparagus? I can’t remember. Something to complement the zucchinis. This is Caleb’s world. I try to keep out of it and let him run the show.”
“Ah!” My mother laughed feebly, ever a good sport. “Divide and conquer. Always a good approach.”
“I don’t remember you ever wanting to live on a farm,” Abigail said. She waved at a horsefly.
“It was my idea, actually, to move here,” I said. “I was the one who brought it up to Caleb on our first date, the idea of living on a farm.”
“Did you.”
“I did.”
“Why? You hate animals. And dirt.”
I looked at Abigail. There it was again: that strange expression on her face.
“Well,” my mother said smoothly, before I could reply. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier farm in my life.”
“Pretty as a picture,” Abigail said. Then, blasphemy: she pulled a pack of cigarettes from her bag. My mother and I both gasped.
“Abigail!” I said.
“Abigail,” my mother echoed fiercely. “The children.”