2. Hayes
Chapter two
Hayes
Shadow yips at my niece’s teasing, pouncing at Meaghan’s feet and begging for the fresh raspberries she’s trying to hold out of his reach.
He doesn’t actually like to eat the berries, which I’m glad for as they're not good for dogs, he just thinks it’s a fun game.
Her braids and gingham dress are floating in the breeze with her movement and I’m worried Shadow will try to bite at them to herd her.
“Meaghan,” I yell to get the eight year old’s attention over the barking and laughter. “You need to eat them or put the berries in the box, kiddo.”
“Fine, Uncle Hayes.” She sighs, in the way only a child who thinks the slightest inconvenience is the worst thing ever can, and does as I asked.
“You’re no fun,” my sister Kristen tells me, appearing at my shoulder suddenly. She’s got her long, light brown hair twisted up in some braid-bun combo and is wearing a matching dress with her daughter.
If you had told me that she would become a calm and content mother when she was a party girl rodeo queen I could barely reign in, I would have been tempted to take that bet.
Our parents were gone and I had a wild eighteen year old on my hands who thought she was too grown up to listen.
Now she’s married into a rich family who owns Belham rice farms outside of town and she’s happily living the housewife and stay at home life.
“Was farming ever fun when we were kids?" I ask.
Kristen tilts her head as she eats some of the raspberries I need to sell. “Riding around the property to check on fences was fun.”
Of course she would say that. She was a horse girl and fence work meant a lazy riding day for her.
Horses were a lot of work, and I was glad when the animals were moved to her new home when she got married a decade ago.
I still have a few cows, goats, and pigs to butcher for food and resale, along with chickens for eggs and my miniature donkey who is basically a big guard dog, but no horses.
“That’s because Dad didn’t make you do the fence fixing.”
“I thought everything on the farm could be fixed with baling wire and duct tape,” she jokes with the line our father always used.
The truth is, growing up on the farm was fun.
We have a watering hole that was fun to swim in when we couldn’t beg our parents to go to the lake.
Working at the fruit stand meant meeting new people besides the few in my grade at school.
Being an adult means it all feels like work.
Especially when you’re doing it mostly alone.
“Thanks for coming out to help today,” I say, wanting to show I appreciate her.
“Any time, big brother. Meg says your farm is more exciting than ours.” As if reading my mind about being alone, she adds, “Farm work could be more fun and less lonely if you found someone to live here with you.”
Ignoring the second part, I lift the full crate of berries onto the back of the truck. “It’s less boring than your property already. You can’t eat rice from the field.”
Kristen laughs and closes my tailgate. “Meg tossed herself on the table last night and moaned about having rice for dinner again. Wayne gave her a lecture about being thankful for the crop that puts food on the table.”
Meg pops up between us to continue the story.
“And I said, ‘duh,’ because I know we grow rice, our name is on all the trucks, but do we have to eat it all the time? Now I’m grounded from screen time until I show respect for the family business,” she finishes in a deep tone of voice meant to imitate her father.
Spluttering on a laugh I try to hide with a cough, I eye my sister before crouching down to Meg’s height.
“The same food all the time does get boring. I remember when my dad and I went hunting and brought back two deer. It’s all we ate for a week and I was so tired of venison I didn’t want to go hunting for a year. ”
“See, Uncle Hayes gets it,” Meg insists, her eyes widening comically.
“But, I only liked backstrap and that was just one meal,” I added when I saw Kristen narrow her own eyes at me to get to my point. “I bet your mom makes the rice in different ways so it’s tasty?”
Meg seems to consider this. “Sometimes she makes it taste like lime and the green stuff with tacos.”
“Cilantro?” I ask and Meg nods, hiding her own smile. “Well I think I have some growing now. How about I send you home with some and you can tell your dad it was your idea to cook rice tonight?”
“Will that get me my screen time back?” Meg asks a little too eagerly.
“It’s a step in the right direction, pumpkin,” Kristen tells her with a hand on Meg’s little head. Her daughter really is the spitting image of Kristen as a girl.
The sound of my donkey, Opie, braying is my first warning that someone is on the property. “Let’s head over to the house.”
We load up in my vehicle to drive through the trees and stop between Kristen’s new lifted truck and Leon’s old beat up one.
“Leon,” Meg yells in excitement when she hops out.
“Meg-in-ator,” he greets her with a fist bump.
Leon helps out on their farm sometimes, too and he’s like another uncle to her, along with her dad’s brothers. He’s opening the bed of his truck to reveal a bunch of my crates and an ice chest when I notice the camo fishing vest he’s wearing.
“Coming from Big Butte Lake?” I ask. We all called it Big Butt lake as locals growing up, but now I’m thirty-five and in the presence of impressionable ears, so I stick to the original.
“Yep, caught a minnow, decided to use it as bait, and then I caught a fourteen inch bass,” Leon tells us with his hands wide. His favorite hobby is fishing and I even go with sometimes. “I was so excited I almost forgot to drop off your empty crates from the grocery store.”
“Can I see?” Meg asks while already hopping up, trying to get in the truck bed.
While they coo over Leon’s catch, I drive my truck up to the farmstand to pack up the food for the day and collect money from the box.
Most people are honest out here, and I have a security camera if they aren’t.
Sheriff West helped me out when the box got stolen once, and I got a more secure one after that.
Leon and Kristen help me unload into the house while Meg plays with Shadow and Opie follows along outside.
I see my sister and farmhand trading glances by the farmhouse sink and wonder what they’re up to.
Kristen was a senior in high school when Leon was a sophomore, so they go way back, but I didn’t think they were close enough to have secrets.
Then Leon speaks up and their goal becomes clear.
“I’m headed to grab a drink after all this sun today.”
“Oh, yeah? That sounds like fun!” Kristen emphasizes the word fun. “Where to?”
“Pints and Pool, thought I might play a round.”
“On your own?” My sister adds in an obvious way. I really hope this isn’t a set-up.
“Guess I could just have the beer all to myself,” Leon shrugs and I roll my eyes, leaning on the counter.
They’re trying hard to get me to go out, but I still have flashbacks to getting the call that my parents were killed by a drunk long-haul trucker on their way home from the casino. I don’t drink and drive or let my friends do it either.
“I have beer here,” I point out. “We could clean and cook the fish you caught and watch a baseball game. Two beds open to you, bud. You have to work with me tomorrow anyway.”
“Or,” Leon holds a finger up like he had a lightbulb moment, “I put the fish in your freezer for you to eat later, and we go to town to shoot some pool.”
“What a great idea,” Kristen nods and I resist the urge to roll my eyes again.
Rubbing at my beard, I consider their cockamamie plan. If I agree, it might get them off my back. “So I get a fish for being your designated driver?”
“You get a fish and time with your friend,” Leon winks and I can’t stop my second eyeroll.
“Fine,” I concede, turning to wash my hands in the sink and watch Meg with the animals outside. She’s so full of joy and curiosity. I feel like I need some of that in my life. “I’ll go.”