The Driest Season Read online

  She and her father had often walked to Mill Creek looking for remains left behind and not yet discovered from the Boaz mastodon. “A wash-out rainfall uncovered the beast,” her father had said. “Farmer found it in 1897, part of the skeleton poking out from the mud.” And so they went down through a meadow to the creek on dry days and wet to look for bones: monster bones, bones as big as tree trunks, tusks like carved wooden horns. She imagined the elephantlike animal with shaggy hair roaming Boaz, and wondered if anything looked the same twelve thousand years before, if there had been humans and if they spoke a language close to hers, and how the mastodon became extinct. What made it disappear forever? Could anyone ever know for sure? History said maybe it was hunters or maybe it was the ice age ending, and the earth warming and becoming uninhabitable, a shift beyond their control. And maybe that was her father: an animal that couldn’t live in his body anymore.

  Her father was fascinated with all things old, lost, buried—and because of that, so was she. She loved the idea of discovery, reclamation, and a continuum. That April she and her father had crouched along the riverbank feeling for treasure. Their hands were wet and covered in mud and clay. Skunk cabbage bloomed new and shiny green, and small yellow flowers blanketed the ground like thousands of tiny yellow buttons. Cielle moved her hand back and forth over the ground, moving layer after layer of earth. When a rock came up, she inspected it and put it aside in a small pile like prayer stones. Then she felt a sharp point. At first she thought it was a piece of broken glass, but it was a gray spearpoint carved out of quartzite and as big as her forearm.

  “Look at that,” her father said. “Unbelievable.”

  “What is it?”

  “A weapon,” he said. “Maybe what killed the mastodon. You’ve made your first discovery.”

  Cielle ran her hands over its serrated edges. It was heavy and she held it in the crook of her arm like a baby.

  Her father scooted over to her to look and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. “You’re a natural.”

  She looked up at him. “If we didn’t come down here all the time, this might have stayed buried. No one would know it was here.”

  “The only way to find something is to look for something.” He patted her shoulders. “Hell of a find.”

  The dead were always among the living. Just because she couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there. She knew they were around her still; her father was around them still. The living pieced together meaning from what the dead left behind. That’s how it always had been and always would be.

  Mr. Mitchell told them to stay inside while he assessed the damage outside. Cielle busied herself. She folded her quilt and set it on the oak rocking chair in the corner of the room. She stripped her bed and put the sheets in the hallway. She did the same in Helen’s room and peeked in Helen’s closet to look at her dresses and blouses. She touched the peach silk dress Helen wore for her graduation in June, a gift from their well-off aunt Josie, her father’s sister, who had also gifted them money for college. The silk was cool to the touch, and moved in her hand like water. It was the prettiest dress. Cielle wanted to try it on, but didn’t want to rip or snag it by accident.

  Then she went into her parents’ room. She walked to her father’s side of the bed, on the left near the closet. She lay facedown and smelled him on the pillow. It smelled like soap and the spice of his aftershave. She wanted to smell him forever. She sat up so her tears wouldn’t wet the pillow.

  “If you can hear me,” she said, “I miss you.”

  Cielle knew her mother couldn’t bear the smell of her missing father, so she folded their comforter and set it aside. She took the sheets off their bed, slowly, as if she might find her father underneath them. She left the pillowcase on her father’s pillow and put it in her room on her bed, even though she knew washing the pillowcase wouldn’t make her father disappear.

  Cielle and Helen pinned the wet sheets on the clothesline to dry; the sheets smelled fresh and clean, and swayed gently. There was just enough light left in the day for them to dry before dark. The sisters walked into the house through the back door, and Helen held up her arm for Cielle to stop, and turned and put her finger over her lips to keep quiet. They stood in the long narrow hall that led to the kitchen and listened to their mother and Mr. Mitchell.

  “The way the numbers shake out, Olive, you could keep the farm for a year with a hired hand or two doing the work,” Mr. Mitchell said.

  “And then?” she asked.

  “We can help you find work,” he said. “Maybe find an apartment in town in Richland Center? Or maybe family could take you in?”

  Cielle wondered about how the farm would run, but hadn’t thought about leaving it. Richland Center was only eight miles away, a bigger town with some shops and restaurants, but it wasn’t home.

  “Is there enough so that Helen can still start college in Madison in the fall?” her mother asked.

  “There’s enough,” Mr. Mitchell said, “from Lee’s sister’s education trust for the girls. But there may not be enough to stay on the farm for long while paying hired help.”

  Her mother leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I heard Old Mr. Olsen’s been asking questions.”

  “If Olsen gets wind it was anything other than an accident, he could cancel the buyback agreement. What Lee did is a crime, and could mean forfeiture of your estate.”

  “We should never have agreed to sell in the first place. Jacobson land for eighty years, and now soon to be gone. Nothing for my daughters. Nothing for my grandchildren. Shameful.”

  Cielle’s father had talked history on their walks, and this was what she knew: Her great-grandfather, Andrew Hans Jacobson, came from Norway and settled their farm in 1863. He bought and tended the land, and passed it on to his son Gustave, who passed it on to her father, Lee. The year the American stock market crashed her father sold their land to Old Man Olsen, who’d had money, and bought up most of Richland County from people in need, and rented their land back to them. They could stay on their land, work their land, profit from their land, but it wasn’t their land. Not rightfully. They paid monthly rent to Old Mr. Olsen. Even though the country had failed them, her father felt he’d failed. Land agreements were signed. Her father had spoken of it matter-of-factly. We did what we had to do. You make a decision and try to live without regret. Maybe one day we can buy it back, he’d said. Then I can pass on to you what was yours. She was old enough to know regret, and recognize in others the wish for something to be other than what it was.

  There was a knock at the front door. It was Mrs. Mack from down the hill dropping off food. Mrs. Mack cried and shook her head. “I’m glad you’re safe. We saw the funnel and knew it was close to you. First Lee, now your barn. I’m so sorry,” she said, weeping. “I’d made this for you yesterday.”

  Helen walked into the kitchen and Cielle followed her.

  Her mother came back in and set the glass dish on the counter. “You’d think it was her husband who died,” she said. “Good God.” Her mother wiped a strand of hair off her forehead.

  “Laundry is done,” Helen said.

  Mr. Mitchell stood and smoothed down his pants and cleared his throat. “Everyone knew Lee, Olive. He meant a lot to a lot of people.”

  “Still, she doesn’t need to blubber on my doorstep.”

  “He was a good man. He’ll be missed.”

  “He is missed,” she said.

  “Cielle and Helen should know what’s happening,” Mr. Mitchell said.

  “Fair enough.” Her mother bunched up her lips and wiped her neck with a handkerchief. Then she picked up the glass dish and held it up in front of her. “It’s lasagna,” she said. “Mrs. Mack is a good cook.” She opened the icebox and put it inside.

  “Where’s your grandmother?” her mother asked.

  “Tending the garden,” Cielle said.

  Mr. Mitchell stood. “I need to get home. A lot of debris to clean up on the farm. Call if
you need us.” He walked to his truck and Cielle felt nervous with him leaving. This was the first time she was alone with her mother and Helen since her father’s death. The house was shadowed and quiet inside.

  “Girls, come sit down in the living room.” Her mother sat in the middle of the couch and patted the cushions for them to sit on either side.

  “Tomorrow is the burial service at the Five Points Cemetery.” Her mother’s jaw was firm and she did not look at either of them.

  Cielle watched the dust particles float in the stream of light that shone through the window. Her house, her skin, the light in the sky, and the leaves on the trees all seemed more alive than ever, and she was more aware of herself and everything, in vibration, breathing, part of something bigger.

  “I need you to help with the farm. We need to see what survived. I need you to check on and help care for the animals in the coming weeks,” her mother said.

  The animals needed food. Pens needed cleaning. Chicken eggs needed to be collected. Alice and Minnie, their Holsteins, hadn’t been milked in days. Bart and Tulip and their six piglets were probably starving.

  Her mother waved her hand for them to go. “We need to keep up around here. We have to take care of this farm. I know it’s been a long day, but we need to see what’s left. I can’t keep it up all on my own.”

  Cielle and Helen changed their clothes. They pulled on their rubber boots just outside the front door. The heat was oppressive again—thick, damp, and exhausting.

  “Guess we’re full-time farmers now,” Helen said.

  “We always have been,” Cielle said.

  The chicken coop and pigpens were behind the fallen barn, down toward the edge of the field. They walked into the coop first. If the eggs weren’t collected, the hens would brood and the eggs would hatch.

  “Do you want the gloves?” Cielle asked. “You’re better at holding Matilda while I take her eggs.”

  Helen put on the thick canvas gloves that went up to the middle of her forearm. She grabbed for Matilda, but Matilda bounced around and her feathers prickled up.

  “Oh, nuts,” Helen said. “Come on, bird. We can’t have any babies this week.”

  Helen lunged forward and missed her again. Matilda was too quick. She screamed and clucked, and the rest of the hens screamed and clucked. Cielle laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” Helen said.

  “Yes, it is,” Cielle said.

  “Well, get over here. Get closer. You can grab the eggs while I keep her on the other side of the coop.”

  Cielle moved closer to the nest. There were two eggs. Helen blocked Matilda and Cielle took the eggs quickly and put them into an egg crate.

  “Once I go to college, I’ll never farm again,” Helen said. “I won’t miss this.”

  Cielle moved over to the next nest. “Lift old Harriet up for me,” she said. “She’s sitting right on top of who knows how many eggs.”

  Helen reached for Harriet, and the hen was easy. She didn’t wiggle or hiss and it was as though she were sleeping.

  “I’m never going to live on a farm or in the country again,” Helen said.

  “Good for you.” Cielle gathered three eggs and set them in the crate.

  The coop didn’t need to be cleaned out. The straw was fresh and there were few droppings. Her father must have cleaned everything, fixed everything, made sure all was in place beforehand. They finished collecting the eggs and then Cielle filled buckets full of feed. Helen filled bins with fresh water for the birds. At the edge of the coop Cielle leaned down and emptied the bucket of feed for the chickens to come eat.

  Though she had done this chore since she was ten, it was her least favorite. For the longest time she had wanted to cut and bale the hay, but her father said she wasn’t tall enough or strong enough to man the tractor.

  “Shit,” Helen said from the other side of the coop. “Three dead chickens.”

  “Dead?”

  “Dead.” She held one up by its foot. “Probably overheated and not enough water.” Helen’s shirt was wet and smeared with dirt. “I’m going to live in a house or an apartment with small, tidy yard. No animals, no crops, no cow, chicken, or pig shit. Just a neat little house near town or the city.”

  “Stop telling me how much you hate this place,” Cielle said. “We’ll have to leave it soon enough.”

  “Mom would never leave this place,” Helen said.

  “You ready for the pigs?”

  “She won’t leave the farm.” Helen pulled her hair back tightly and tied it into a knot on the top of her head.

  “Weren’t you listening? She won’t have a choice,” Cielle said. “Without Dad to run things and with us needing more hired hands, it can’t last.”

  “It’s not Dad’s fault,” Helen said. “Don’t blame everything on Dad.”

  Cielle stopped and Helen kept walking. But it is his fault, she wanted to say. Helen’s boots were too big for her thin calves and she looked like she might take a step and come right out of them. Helen kept walking toward the pigpen and dismissively waved her hand in the air without turning around. Helen had always been good at pretending and not looking at what was. Cielle carried the chickens out of the coop and set them aside to bury later in the woods.

  The still air was close and wet and heavy. The grass was stiff as it dried and died. It seemed a miracle that rain could bring it back to life and it seemed impossible there had been so little rain. So much was dying.

  Cielle followed Helen over the bumpy ground. The bucket swung back and forth and hit her hip with each step. Her brow beaded with sweat, her neck was damp, and her legs cooked in the rubber boots.

  The vegetable garden would be a struggle to keep alive. The plants wilted in the early evening sun, and she felt that tiredness in her own limbs. She tingled with heat. Her parents had started the garden before she was born, and taught her how to tend it, and Cielle vowed to water it every morning and night. She wouldn’t let it die. There were tomatoes, potatoes, beans, summer squashes, lettuces, peas, carrots, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, basil, mint, chives, rosemary, and sage. There was food to feed them. Sustenance. Growth. Life.

  Cielle caught up with Helen at the pigpen. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?” Helen scrunched up her face and pinched her nose. “Pig stink is the worst stink.”

  “Don’t make me the villain,” Cielle said.

  “You always twist things around, Cielle.”

  “How am I twisting things around?”

  “You always do.”

  “What are you talking about? Did you just overhear the same conversation?” Cielle filled a bucket with more feed. Their largest and oldest pig, Vernon, nudged her calf for food. “Hold on, Vernon.” She pushed back with her leg. He was almost as large as her but three times as heavy.

  “It was an accident. No one’s to blame. Don’t make this harder for the rest of us,” Helen said.

  “Are you just hearing only what you want to hear?”

  “I’m not hearing anything.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem.”

  “What’s your problem? You say things that upset people. Why are you trying to cause trouble?”

  Vernon nudged Cielle again, his round pink snout twitched, and his brown human-like eyes looked up at her. She poured the feed into the trough and Vernon trotted over and stood on her left boot. A sharp shock of pain hit her toes and shot up her leg. She felt warmth and a numbing tingle. Cielle hit him on the back with the bucket but he was too busy eating. “Off!” she yelled. “Move!”

  “Easy,” Helen said.

  Cielle kicked Vernon with her other foot. Kicked him three times in his side as hard as she could. “Move,” she yelled.

  Helen pulled on Vernon’s leg to get him to lift it.

  When Vernon lifted off her, she hopped backward on one leg and kept her foot dangling above the ground. She threw the bucket at Vernon.

  “He’s just a hungry pig,” Helen said.

 
“Pigs aren’t stupid.” Tears ran down Cielle’s cheeks. “And now I can’t walk.”

  “You can walk,” Helen said. “You’re fine.”

  “Four hundred pounds just stood on my toes for an hour.”

  “For two seconds.”

  Cielle leaned against a wood beam. Tears kept coming. She didn’t know she had that much water in her head. Her nose snotted and ran, and she wiped her nose on the back of her hand and her hand on her pants. She inched back and sat on a bale of hay.

  Helen moved around Vernon and knelt in front of Cielle. She grabbed her bootheel and gently pulled the boot off her foot. She rolled Cielle’s sock down her ankle, down from her heel, and slid it off. Cielle looked at her foot. Helen handed her the sock and Cielle wiped her nose with it. Her toes were red. The bruise would deepen and turn black and blue in no time.

  “It’s going to hurt,” Helen said, “but I don’t think anything broke. Feet are resilient.”

  “I hurt all over.”

  “Let’s go ice it.”

  Cielle held on to Helen’s arm and pulled herself up. Helen put her arm around Cielle’s waist and Cielle hopped back to the house on her good foot. She sat on the couch with her leg up. Her foot was tender and throbbing. Helen put a towel full of ice chips on the top of it and Cielle flinched.

  “Ignoring and avoiding might work for you, but it doesn’t work for me,” Cielle said. “If you’d rather pretend things are a certain way, rather than how they really are, then fine.”