Page 39 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
She had picked at the scabs of their mutual frustration and grief, and Trent was talking less than he already did. It was a wall between them, the babies. The four little Wasziak babies they’d lost early enough to not even know their genders. Early enough that many didn’t even know or realize, or worse, recognize.
She was on emotional pins and needles today. She’d needed to get out of the house. Or do something like unpack more. But Molly hadn’t had the gumption to haul the empty plastic bins to the basement for storage after she’d unpacked the last of her novels. The last thing she wanted to see was the basement walls with the carved memorials of dead people whose memories were vaporous at best. Home was unsettling, and that was not how a home should be. The warm, comforting haven Molly craved had begun to dissipate after her first miscarriage. It’d been dissolving ever since.
She finally pulled into the parking lot just as her phone pealed. Molly answered it, knowing from the caller ID that Trent would be on the other end.
“Hey,” he began. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if nothing had happened yesterday. Life was going to proceed as normal for him. Molly could hear farm machinery in the background. “Uncle Roger just called,” Trent continued. “January’s parents and sister are arriving from New Mexico. My cousin Tiffany and her husband, Brandon, want to see us right away.”
“Why?” It was the first word that popped into her mind. She felt defensive. Were they going to suspect Trent as well? Verbally attack him for somehow being to blame for their daughter’s—his cousin’s—death?
Silence.
“I mean,” she said and tried to cover up her curt response, “we barely ever see your uncle Roger, and I’ve never even met your cousin.”
“I don’t know.” Trent sounded impatient. “But I can’t get away from work until later tonight, you know that. There’s the milking and then one of the heifers cut her hindquarters on the jagged edge of an old metal fence post, so I need to treat it with meds again before I leave. Uncle Roger said he’s bringing Tiffany and Brandon to town. They’re getting a place to stay at the hotel, but I was thinking—”
She interrupted quickly before Trent had the audacity to suggest offering his extended family free housing. “Sure. You want me to have them for supper,” Molly concluded.
“They’re family,” Trent stated.
“I know.” She tapped her foot on the floor of her truck, attempting to gather her wits, stuff her emotions, at the very least be a relativelynicehuman to her husband. She didn’t want to be like those women in the Proverbs who were compared to “clanging gongs” or “rain on a tin roof” ... did they have tin roofs in biblical times? She was probably paraphrasing,but still, she didn’t want to go down in their marriage history as completely embittered. She was already verging on nuts. Yes. Nuts. She knew some people were offended by flippant terminology, but she called it what she felt it was. She had married a Wasziak after all, and they didn’t mince words.
“Molly? Are you there?” Trent’s voice interrupted her thoughts, which bounced off the walls of her mind like a ricocheting bullet.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. I can make hamburgers on the grill. I’m in town now, so I’ll pick up potato salad and some carrots and dip or something.”
More silence.
“Molls?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.” They were two very simple words, but tears sprang to her eyes. There’d been a time just hearing Trent Wasziak’s voice on the other end of her phone would have sent her emotions into a euphoric spiral. Their high school had been small, he’d been popular. Not a jock, but just the all-around nice country boy any Michigan girl from a rural area would drool over. And she’d claimed him. No. Molly reconsidered. Trent had claimed her. He’d been dogged in his persistent attention, and while she’d been elated, Molly had worried at some point he’d lose interest. But he hadn’t.
“You’re welcome,” she answered belatedly.
He didn’t hang up.
Neither did she.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” Trent finished.
“Okay.”
Molly fixed her resolve. She needed to prepare to make hamburgers on the grill. Because that was what she did. The daily task of surviving when she felt the overwhelming cloud of death surrounding her. That gut-aching despondency that left her staring aimlessly ahead with nothing to hope for.Except chickens. Chickens. Hamburgers on the grill. And welcoming another set of grieving parents.
January’s parents.
Death came in all shapes and sizes, but it always left the same catastrophic damage behind, along with the scars that would last an eternity.
Tiffany and Brandon Rabine were at least ten years her senior, but tonight they appeared to be well into their fifties. Grief-worn faces were drawn with lines that sagged with sorrow. With them was their elder daughter, Gemma, whose own demeanor seemed more stoic than emotional. It appeared it was Gemma who was keeping her parents together.
Molly glanced at the clock on the dining room wall. She’d hung it there earlier, after she’d quickly unpacked the nice dishes and hung a couple of paintings so at least the dining room was halfway inhabitable for guests.
She never had gotten her chickens. She’d left the farm supply store feeling the task of getting chickensandgrilling out for company was almost insurmountable.
Now a half-eaten supper lay on the table before them. Hamburgers were consumed, but there was a large amount of the store-bought potato salad and Jell-O salad Molly had picked up. A basket of chips was stationed in the middle of the table with a few on Brandon and Gemma’s plates. The vegetable tray was void of cucumber slices—apparently they were a hit with the otherwise not-eating-much family.
Uncle Roger sat at the end of the table. He resembled Trent’s father, and while Molly hadn’t met Roger more than a few times in the last five years, he made himself at home with Midwestern ease. Now he leaned forward on the table, his elbows propped on either side of his plate.
