Page 30 of All We Thought We Knew
She knickered and nudged my hand.
“I don’t have anything for you this time. I’m here to work.”
When I finished petting her, she returned to her feed bucket, hanging where she could easily reach it. I suspected Dad had begun to increase her feed, mixing in a mineral supplement to keep her and her unborn foal healthy.
Thinking about Moonlight’s baby brought a twinge of unexpected excitement. Even though I hadn’t been able to choose the sire myself, the anticipation of new life lifted some of the dark clouds that hovered because of Mama’s illness. Maybe it could do the same thing for her, I realized. Clay always said positive energy could heal anything. That’s what Mama needed. An optimistic vibe, not discouragement and hopelessness. Words of life, not death.
I found Dad in the barn, loading rectangular bales of golden hay onto a trailer hitched to his old tractor. Despite the cold, sweat poured down his face.
He seemed alarmed to find me there. “Is your mother all right?”
I nodded. “She’s resting.” An awkward silence thickened between us. I’d rather eat straw than spend time with my father, but I’d promised Mama. There was nothing to do but pushforward. “She thought I should come see if you needed any help, since Nash had to go into town.”
His brow rose as he stared at me.
Heavy silence stood between us.
This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. I was about to walk away when he indicated the tractor trailer.
“I could use a hand with the hay.”
Nothing more was said between us.
I went to the storeroom and found a pair of leather work gloves. With my hands protected, I hefted a bale by the wires holding it together onto the trailer. Each one weighed fifty pounds or more, and by the time I’d moved half a dozen, I was sweating as much as Dad. A year in California’s hippie communes had made me soft. While some members worked out in the world to support ourfamily, which is what Clay always called the group of forty or so people who followed him, the rest of us spent time meditating or listening to Clay teach about how the world needed love, not war. Household chores, tending the garden, and helping with the children in the family were shared by all, but nothing required the muscles I was using now.
By the time we’d loaded the trailer, I was breathing heavily.
“You best go inside and rest,” he said, eyeing me. “I’ll finish unloading it.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
He studied me a moment longer, then nodded. I climbed onto the hay and sat on a bale while he drove out of the barn into the cold air. Tiny flakes of snow spit from thick clouds as we made our way to the north pasture where a group of horses trailed us, eager for an easy meal.
Dad stopped the tractor in front of a three-sided shelter. Without speaking, we got to work. Each pasture had similar shelters where the animals could get out of the wind and rain. Afterwe unloaded a half dozen bales, we left the horses happily filling their bellies and headed to the next field.
When we finished and returned to the yard, Nash was there, waiting.
Dad shut off the tractor engine.
“Looks like you two got some work done while I was gone,” Nash said.
Dad glanced at me. “Might be best if you checked on your mother now.”
I felt dismissed. As though my hard work had somehow been inferior, and he’d had to make do with me until Nash got back.
I climbed off the trailer and marched toward the house.
• • •
Mama sat in an overstuffed chair by the bedroom window. She smiled when she saw me in the doorway, but it quickly faded. “What’s wrong, Mattie?”
I hadn’t meant to let her see my irritation. After I’d returned to the house, I watched through the window as my father and Nash headed to the cottage, no doubt to work on the furnace. Just yesterday I’d watched them tinker on the tractor, their heads together beneath the raised hood. At one point, Dad laughed heartily at something Nash said and slapped him on the shoulder the way men tended to do. I’d turned away. The scene hurt to watch. They looked like father and son, working side by side, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company.
I plopped down on the end of Mama’s bed. “I helped Dad like you asked, but the minute Nash appeared, he didn’t need me anymore.”
Empathy filled Mama’s face. “I’m sure he appreciated your hard work, dear.” She grew thoughtful. “Nash has had a difficult time since he came home. He refuses to see his father. Wants nothing todo with him. I think his coming here has helped both your dad and Nash. They each carry heavy burdens. I believe God brought Nash to us because he needed your father and your father needed him.”
“Dad needed Mark, hisrealson.” I shook my head. “I don’t understand how you can still think God cares about us. About the details of our lives. If that were true, he wouldn’t have let Mark die and Nash live. It would have been the other way around.”
