Chapter 25 – Juliette
TWENTY-FIVE
JULIETTE
We stood in the mud that had just yesterday been our carefully planted rows of sugar beets.
The irony of today was that it was fucking beautiful weather. Sun was shining, sky was blue.
But the land looked like it had all melted into the earth.
“This can’t be real,” he said, looking out at the devastation.
Growing up, we’d only lost a crop once but I remember how devastated Herb had been. How angry he’d been at his god that he’d believed in so desperately. Like he couldn’t understand why he’d been betrayed. As if the drought that summer had been some personal attack on him.
We’d eaten leanly that winter. I couldn’t say I’d gone hungry. But there had been zero extra. Herb had taken some work on a nearby farm and I spent my days thinking about the macaroni and cheese I would make us for supper.
“This is farming,” I said.
Creed looked over at me because he heard the tone in my voice.
A tone I hope communicated every ounce of uncertainty I was feeling in that moment.
You were never cut out for this.
This isn’t your future.
You need to leave now.
Don’t sell the farm out from under me.
Can I have Patch?
I won’t miss you when you’re gone.
How dare you for making me care about you?
I don’t need you. I never did.
Not going to lie, that was a lot to fit into one sentence.
We heard a horn honk and our heads simultaneously turned in the direction of the road.
Neither of our trucks had been spared. It wasn’t that the water had gotten that high, but with the ground so hard, it had moved through the valley like a river. It swept both trucks up and dumped them about ten feet away in a hole of wet mud.
Creed had tried with all his power, and my measly strength, to push them out, but the tires were sucked down deep in the mud.
We both figured eventually the mud would dry out and we could try again.
Mr. Talley and Jackson hopped out of their truck, both waving in our direction.
I waved back.
They approached us with somber expressions, as only folks from around these parts knew how to do. It was a mix of regret, sorrow, and sympathy. Mixed with a splash of righteousness. For these were the inherit risks of trying to make a living off the land and we all knew it.
“Creed, I don’t think you know Mr. Talley,” I said, by way of introduction.
“Jake,” Mr. Talley said, offering his hand to Creed, which he shook. “Jackson and I have been driving around to the neighbors checking in. Happy to see you’re both okay.”
Okay was a slight overstatement.
Creed nodded. “Appreciate it.”
“Need a hand with anything?” Jackson offered.
Don’t suppose you’re handing out new livelihoods?
“Both our trucks washed up into a muddy ditch. Would love to push them back out and check out the damage.”
Mr. Talley and Jackson didn’t say much after that. They just followed Creed out to where the trucks were covered in mud. And apparently, they were way stronger than me because it didn’t take them but a few tries of pushing and rocking to get both trucks out of the mud and back up on the gravel.
Neither started, but Creed would know what to do about that.
“Can I fix you both some lunch as a thank you?” I offered, as they were cleaning up by the hose attached to the house.
Power wasn’t on yet. When I called on the last few bars of battery on Creed’s phone, the electric company said they’d have power back by midafternoon.
But I could at least make them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I hadn’t found my phone. When I tried to call it from Creed’s there had been no ring tone.
Forget the water it had been dropped into, the moving sludge of mud and dirt could have swallowed it up by a couple of feet. I tried to take comfort in the fact that maybe two hundred years from now someone would find that phone as part of some archeological dig.
“No, we’re good, Juliette.” Mr. Talley said. “We lucked out and the herd was on high enough ground to keep them out of harm’s way, so we’re offering help to everyone else. Want to stop at a few more farms before we head home.”
The Lucketts and the Myersbergs would be the two closest.
“And the horses?” Creed asked, who was also now spraying the mud off his boots and hands.
“All good,” Mr. Talley told him.
There was a strange sense of relief that washed over Creed, who must care about horses in general more than I realized.
“I know you haven’t spent a lifetime farming, Creed,” Mr. Talley said, clapping Creed on the shoulder, even though he had to reach up to do it, “but you’ll see. This is just part of it sometimes. And it always comes back.”
Creed nodded and I thought I would pay all the saved money in my box of cash underneath the floorboards in my bedroom to know what he was thinking.
The Talleys left, and not an hour later, the power did come back on.
I heated us up some soup I’d made the other day and the silence between us lingered.
After lunch we hauled out the downstairs rugs onto the front porch. Just the woven one from Creed’s bedroom and the wool one from the living room. Together, we draped them over the banister around the porch, but we both took a step back.
Nothing like the smell of old, wet wool.
“That’s going into the trash,” Creed said.
“Sure, but we can’t afford a new one,” I told him.
He nodded. “I’d rather make do with warm socks than smell that. We can afford those.”
The good news was, there wasn’t much damage inside the house beyond the rugs. While the floor had taken on water, it had drained pretty quickly and was drying out. Only the rugs and the feet of the furniture had gotten wet.
“I don’t know what to do now,” Creed said, pushing the bowl of soup away from him.
And it felt like it was a super big admission coming from him. This was a man, I thought, who wasn’t often without a plan of attack.
In my mind, I got up from where I was sitting across from him, pulled back his arm, and sat on his generous thigh. I hooked an arm around his beefy neck and told him we’d find a way to get through this together. Like any other married couple.
Except, we weren’t like any other married couple.
“You want to hear it?” I asked. “The truth. All of it?”
He nodded once.
I took a breath because I knew what saying all this out loud could mean. Back when we’d first gotten married and I’d been plotting about taking out the crops myself, this was exactly the scenario I’d dreamed up.
Which meant maybe I was the one to bring all of this down on our heads now.
“Crops are toast. Maybe we’ll salvage some plants, but for home use or local produce stands. We’re not going to have anything of real substance to sell to the sugar plants, though.”
One small chin nod.
“Means we’ll live off my thirteen hundred dollars and your savings for the winter. I’ll try and get work in town. Maybe you can pick up some labor jobs around here. Something to bring in money, but you have to understand this whole valley took a hit. Everyone’s going to be tight for cash.”
Another nod.
“By the time spring rolls around, we’ll basically have what’s left of your savings to invest in seed money.
We’ll re-plant, hope the top soil didn’t all get washed away, and we’ll have to hope we don’t see weather like this again.
At least for ten or so years, until we can build up your savings again. ”
His sharklike eyes stayed on me.
“We’ll probably want to get rid of our streaming services.
The only thing we can justify is wifi, so we have some contact to the outside, and the one phone.
We’ll need to sell off one of the trucks for cash, if we’re going to get the tractor up and running.
Again, we’re going to want to do that online ‘cause no one around here is going to have cash for a truck.”
“Go on,” he said.
“No perks. No frills. Let’s hope we can find some of the chickens.”
The only good news today, of the twelve we had, we only found two that had drowned.
“So what you’re saying is, no more spa days,” Creed quipped.
My lips twisted. “Pedicures, of course, but only once a week.”
“Am I ever going to get a steak again?”
“Not unless you poach one of Mr. Talley’s cows and butcher it yourself or you let me dress up ground beef into the shape of a steak.”
This time his lips twisted.
“Or,” I said, fidgeting with the string that dangled from the hood of his sweatshirt he’d given me last night and I had yet to take off.
“Or?”
“We could list the property. The house. Sell the whole damn thing.”
My heart was thumping in my chest, waiting to see what he said next. Because what I didn’t say was that we could just get divorced and split the money. What I didn’t say was that we could just…end this.
“That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it?” he asked me, quietly.
“Sure. Yes. That’s what I…wanted.”
Did he hear the way I said that? Past tense?
The logical next question was to ask me what I wanted now, which I had an excellent answer for.
I don’t know. What do you want?
What was that called? Avoidance? Self-preservation? I’d never been in one of these…shit, I guess I had to call it a relationship…before, and I found navigating it to be challenging. I wanted him to say the following, in no particular order.
Hell no, we’re not selling.
I just got here.
We just started this.
I like you too much to leave.
It wasn’t like I was looking for love. My momma didn’t love me. I knew that because she didn’t take me with her. My daddy didn’t love me because he sold me off at a horse auction.
Asking someone like Creed to love me…well, might as well ask the rain not to fall.
So I didn’t climb in his lap like I wanted to. I didn’t give him a hug and tell him everything was going to be all right. I didn’t say what I wanted and he didn’t say any of those things I’d hoped he would say.
Instead he said, “That’s a lot to think about. I think I’ll go see about cleaning out those truck engines.”
I nodded. “I’ll start scrubbing the floors. Make sure the house doesn’t smell all moldy.”