|
|
(back to page 1)
"Well...yeah. But, that's not what you're hiring for."
"I know what I'm hiring for. And if you're gonna live here, you're gonna do your share of the cooking!"
The woman went silent, and Chas sighed. She was the fourth to call, and he'd scared every one of them away. "Look, why don't you come down and we can talk in person. Then you can decide if you want the job."
She agreed, and he gave her directions. When he hung up, he looked at the mess again, seeing it in a different light, now that someone was actually coming. He'd need to do something about it before she arrived or she'd never agree to live here, but he didn't feel like getting started now. He pulled the rubber band from his hair, letting the greasy blond curls at the nape of his neck loose around his shoulders. Then he stripped off his clothes, leaving them where they fell as he made his way to the bathroom and started the shower.
Chas worked for three days, clearing decades of newspapers, magazines, ball bearings, twine, and grease-smeared auto parts that filled his house, moving his things to one of the two bedrooms on the second floor, and fixing the other for the nurse, deciding which room to give her based purely on which mattress smelled less moldy. In the room he'd been using on the main floor, he changed the sheets and swept the floor. His father would sleep here. He dragged piles of old furniture, books, and all manner of unwanted items, some as old as the house itself, into a large heap in front of his barn, where he set fire to everything. As the bonfire rose ominously, he went back for more. He found a box of women's clothing in the back of one of the upstairs closets; he guessed they once belonged to his mother. He hesitated a moment, looking at the dress poking out--small white flowers against a navy background--trying to remember her, then tossed the box into the fire whole. He stood and watched until the cardboard turned black and sparks took the darkening sky, then he went back to the house.
He poured himself a glass of whiskey and stood at the front window, watching the fire. His sheep came to the fence and watched, too.
It poured rain the day Mattie came, coating the landscape in a dismal gray, punctuated by simple black tree limbs against the dull-white sky. Chas stood at the window and stared out at the bleakness, waiting. She'd said to expect her at noon; it was one-thirty. Was she lost? Had she changed her mind? He looked at his flock, hunkered under a cedar tree and thought to let them into the barn, but it wasn't that cold, just wet. He almost poured himself a whiskey, but decided not to risk it. He needed a nurse. Without her he couldn't bring his father home from the institution where he languished. And he owed the old man this--to let him die in his own home. It was all he could do at this point.
When Chas glimpsed the blue sedan, lights on in the middle of the day, bouncing down his pocked drive, he thought his resolution would fail. He glanced around. The house wasn't cluttered now; it was sparse. He'd purged it of trash and memories alike, as if there were no distinction. But he hadn't scrubbed anything. And now, as she approached, he saw the dust, the grit, the coating of neglect on everything. There was no time to clean. She'd decline the job; there was no question in his mind. He looked forward to the whiskey when she was gone.
"Miss Holden?" he asked, stepping off the porch, which had also been scraped clean of rusted parts, sheep shit, and a three-legged, sagging chair.
"Yes, but you can call me Mattie" the woman said, extending her hand. They shook, and she paused to look up at the century-old homestead. She was expressionless. She turned to survey the other buildings, the large sway-backed barn and its vast meadow cropped low by sheep. She turned back to Chas, but her eyes went past him, up the hill behind the house to the rock ridges that scraped the bleak sky.
Chas said, "Would you like to come in out of the rain?"
Inside, she pulled off her coat. When he didn't offer her a place to put it, she draped it over her arm. Rain seeped into her dress sleeve. "Your father is home?" she asked, looking around for evidence.
"No," he said. "No, I can't bring him home until I have a nurse. He's in Lewiston."
"Parkinson's, right?"
"Uh-huh. Late stages. He doesn't talk. Doesn't walk. Barely eats."
She nodded.
"I'd just rather he didn't die in that place. If ya know what I mean." He ran his hand over his stubbly chin and wished he'd shaved.
"Yeah," she said. "I know what you mean."
"Well, this is it. Your room would be upstairs. My father will take that one." He pointed at the doorway off the living room. "Taking care of him and sharing in some of the household chores--that's all I really expect."
"May I look around?"
He nodded and showed her the kitchen--surveyed her face as she looked in the sink, assessed the mildewed bathroom, and tested the bed in the musty upstairs bedroom. She hated it, he could tell.
"I'll have Sunday afternoons free?" She sat on the bed as if trying to imagine herself sleeping there.
"Uh-huh."
"No farm chores," she clarified.
(continued on the next page)
If you’re enjoying this excerpt and you’d like to sample other books, join our Online Book Clubs.
|
|
|
