Red Barn People by Hunter Liguore “I tended the chickens.”
I hesitated, glancing up at the worn, wooden stairs. “Jennagirl, cornbread’s in the kitchen with fresh milk. Eat
up and then go get yourself cleaned up. You’ll be needing to
go to town for a shovel before work. The good one’s broke,
been broke for a week, and we’ll need a new one to dig a
hole up on the hill.”
She gave a short nod.
“Use the money Roland left for groceries. It’s in your
mother’s jar on the stovetop, next to the butter dish.” I
touched the back of my hair, as I always do before seeing
Roland. It’s my last chance to make sure my hair is in
place, and that I’m at my best before seeing him. This time
it filled me with a fraught spirit, as my hands smoothed
over snarled hairpins, rather than sweet curls.
I ascended the stairs. It was as if I floated to the top,
rounded the corner, and travelled the long hall to Roland’s
room, the same room he occupied since he first arrived. The
room was L shaped, and ended with a small fireplace, which
had been long boarded up to keep out the drafts. A single
bed, slumped like sad shoulders, rested beside a window
overlooking a magnificent willow. A tattered, woven rug,
filled the floor with a splash of brown and white colour,
where Roland sat hunched over in his white undershirt and
grey trousers.
Mephias’s stiff body was flopped on the floor in front of
Roland. The tongue, now grey, protruded from the side of his
jaw, through yellow jagged teeth. The once flitting tail,
now as still as a teacup handle. I took a sheet from the
unmade bed and walked around Roland, and placed it over
Mephias.
“No, Lillian, not yet.” He raised his hand over Mephias in
an effort to prevent the sheet from drifting over the dog’s
body. “Don’t cover him. I’m not done with him.”
“I’d say you’re done. Jennagirl says you been sitting since
sunup.”
Roland swatted the sheet away, exposing that one black eye,
creamed over with a white film, as thin as fly wings. “He
was my dog,” he said, agitated. “I’ll say when it’s time.”
I sat on the bed. A rolling wind sauntered in through the
window, the kind that usually leads one to a summertime nap.
The crinkle of the leaves and grass, mixed with the
cacophony of birds and crickets, grasshoppers too, and an
occasional distant automobile whizzing by, all lent to a
feeling of comfort for me. Life was going on outside the
window. For Roland, the hands on his Uncle’s standing clock
were still. Shut down since December.
Leaning over Roland’s shoulder, noticing his shaking hands,
I realized that it wasn’t only Mephias laying on that floor,
but his whole family. All of them. Lined up in a row. Mother
and Father were faceless to me, but I imagined them with
whimsical smiles and evangelic eyes that told the truth at
all times, whether they were up to it or not. I saw cold
stiff arms reaching out for Roland to take hold of, as if
they had fallen through ice, and were pleading to be pulled
free. Beside them, hands united in love, laid Uncle Martin
in his everyday wool sweater, smoking his pipe, and Aunt
Clara beside him, in her daffodil yellow dress, even though
it would’ve been too cold when she died for such a thing.
Aunt Clara clutched a wicker basket with all her faceless
babies, happy now to be reunited. The four bodies, like four
hanging garden tools, with their hallowed eyes and tender
smiles, were tied up like a bundle of schoolbooks, each one
connected by an effervescent string to the next. Looking
down on that floor, I knew Roland had never let go the first
time, and certainly not the second, and something told me he
never would.
A dripping pipe in the hall bathroom brought my thoughts
back to the present. I could tell by the pitch it made that
the metal pail was full, and the water dripped onto the
floor. I left Roland without notice and emptied the pail in
the sink. Outside the screeching of the car brakes on gravel
told me Jennagirl was back. I met her on the porch where she
gave me the new shovel. She hustled back to the car, always
with the top down, before I could stop her. As she pulled
out, I raised my hand and she pulled up alongside me.
“Will you be back after work?” I leaned on the doorframe.
“We’ll wait to bury him, if you’ll be back.”
She squinted to block the sun from her eyes. “Sure.” I knew
sure meant no to Jennagirl, and gave her a look that said
so. “I’ll try, but no promises.”
I messed up the front of her hair with my fingers. She swatted my hand away. “Awe, now why’d you go and do a
thing like that?” “Try, for you brother’s sake.” “It was only a dumb dog.” Her voice was insensitive, but
hammered out her own truth. The dog was nothing in
comparison to the family she’d lost. She pulled the car
away, kicking gravel and dust into the air. I waved when
Jennagirl honked, as she took the turn out of the long,
dusty drive. I set to work on my routine chores, and made light of the
fact Roland needed more time with Mephias. I washed and
waxed the kitchen floor, and prepared a soup with leftover
meat and corn. I baked two loaves of potato bread, and when
it was hot from the oven, I cut a hunk, poured a glass of
milk, and carried it upstairs to Roland.
Roland hadn’t moved. He was still hunched over, hands in his
lap, staring pathetically at the dead dog. He looked lost
and distant, even when I placed the warm bread beside him. I
took up my efforts again to cover Mephias and trapped two
small flies underneath the sheet. The bed creaked when I
sat. I reached out to touch Roland’s shoulder, but wavered
an inch away. The heat emanated from his body. I closed my
eyes and tucked my hand in the fold of my dress.
“Roland,” I said, clearing my voice. “Remember the time when
you was younger you took in a baby bird? Was a chickadee if
I recall? It had flown into the downstairs window, and even
though it’s beak was broken you tried to feed it. It lived a
few days and then it passed on. It died, Roland, and when it
did, we buried it up on the hill. You remember?” Roland was silent. “We’re gonna do the same, you and I. We’re gonna bury
Mephias next to that faded red barn, next to all your
cousins. You just have to tell me when you’re ready.”
He leaned his head back, resting it on my thigh. I hesitated
to touch his curls, and took a deep, balloon sized breath.
“Jennagirl said she’d try to come back before we lay him
down.”
He shook his head. “I heard her.” He glanced up at me. “A
damn dumb dog is all Mephias was to her. She doesn’t care
he’s dead.” I stifled my apprehension and stroked his thick hair,
brushing his curls with my fingertips, delicately, as if it
was the most natural thing—me brushing his handsome hair,
with his head nearly in my lap. We were alone plenty of
times, but never like this. “No sir,” I said. “She loved
Mephias. Not as much as you, but enough. She’ll be back.”
Roland started to cry. It was a silent cry, one with dry
tears. He turned his body right around, kneeling, and
wrapped his arms around my waist. His head pressed against
my belly. And I let him. I let him cry without reproof,
until he had run clean, until he was still.
As the morning waned into afternoon, I left Roland resting,
and returned home to check on Mother. Her room was the
shadiest and therefore the coolest and most comfortable in
the house. After I gave her a lukewarm bath, I brought her a
bowl of soup and bread. I fed her like she was a child. I
spoke to her as if she could understand me. I told her about
Mephias, about the day outside, the new shovel, the letter
from the tax collector saying we owed another five dollars
because they received our check late. Afterwards, I combed
her brittle hair and tied it up in a blue ribbon, her
favourite color. Back when my father was living, she often
wore blue on special occasions. She lost her father first,
her last thread to the old family. Then my daddy came home
in a box sixteen and a half days later. Mother was never the
same. First she stopped talking, then eating, then seeing.
Eventually, she ate again, but her sight never returned. She
wasn’t blind.
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