Beneath the Night Tree (31 page)

All that was left to do was convince everyone in my life—Michael, Grandma, Daniel, and Simon—that my decision was the right one. Parker’s reaction to our imminent departure never even factored into my thinking.

“The boys are outside?” Parker parroted, oblivious to the inner dialogue that made it hard for me to concentrate.

“It’s supposed to be in the low seventies today.” I was only repeating what the meteorologist had predicted on the radio a half hour before, but Parker grinned at me like I had personally orchestrated the gorgeous weather with a casual flip of my fingers. It was hard not to smile back. “They weren’t going to miss a moment of sunshine.”

“Me, either,” he enthused. “I didn’t see them when I drove up, so let’s go find them and take off. We can get our fishing in before lunch, and if the sunshine holds, we could head down to the state park and walk a few trails when we’re done.”

“You’re feeling ambitious today,” Grandma commented, a sparkle in her eye.

“Maybe I could start a fire,” Parker continued. “Show the boys how to roast the fish we catch.”

I couldn’t stop the snort that escaped my lips. “You do that? Seriously, Parker. Who does that?”

“I do.” He rapped his chest with his fist proudly. “You don’t even have to fillet them. Just gut ’em, jab ’em on a stick, and roast ’em over the fire.”

“That’s gross.”

“You’re going to love it,” he taunted. “I can even teach you how. Just a little slit from the tail to the—”

“Stop it!” I screeched before he could go into specifics. “I don’t want to hear about your penchant for mutilating fish.”

Parker laughed and reached across the table for the cuff of my corduroy jacket. “Let’s go. We’re going to have to stop at the gas station and pick up a bundle of wood. And maybe some Gatorade or water bottles for the cooler. Snacks? For those of us who have an aversion to food the way God intended it to be eaten . . .”

He jerked on my sleeve, waiting for me to come around the piece of furniture I had so intentionally placed between us, and follow him out the door like I usually did.

Usually.
The word stung a little because it was true. I had given Michael the impression that I sometimes went with Parker and the boys on their excursions. But the truth was, I usually went. The evidence was written all over Parker’s face. He was waiting for me to fall in step behind him. To pick out bottles of Gatorade and packages of Little Debbie snacks while he gassed up the car and filled his trunk with firewood.

“I’m not coming.” Even to my own ears my declaration was laced with disappointment.

“Why not?” Parker looked stricken.

“I have lots to do today.” My eyes shot to Grandma, but she turned away when I caught her gaze. No help there. “The boys are really looking forward to some time alone with you.”

“Oh.” Parker let go of my jacket and brought his hand to his face. “Is it the fish? Because I promise I won’t make you touch them.”

“No, it has nothing to do with the fish.”

Though I didn’t mean for my comment to be rude, Parker seemed taken aback. He rubbed his chin, scratching the stubble that he had neglected to shave off this morning and then running his fingers through his sandy hair. His disappointment was almost palpable.

I was shocked. Since when had I become a part of the equation? Maybe Michael was right—spending time with Parker wasn’t such a good idea.

But that didn’t negate the fact that a part of me still longed to go. “It’ll be good for them,” I said to solidify my stance. “Some time away from their boring mom is just what the doctor ordered. You know, guy time. Man-to-man.”

“Sounds great,” Parker agreed, but his voice told me it sounded anything but. He was a good sport, though, so he conjured up a smile and gave Grandma’s shoulder a parting squeeze. “I guess I’m off, then. But you’d better help me track them down, Julia. I have no idea where they could be hiding on this farm.”

He had a point; our rambling farm could be a labyrinth if you weren’t familiar with the landmarks, so I waved good-bye to Grandma and went into the mudroom to lace up my tennis shoes. Maybe when they left, I would take a nice, long walk around our parcel. The air would undoubtedly clear my head.

Though the forecaster had predicted a warm day, the spring morning was still brisk when Parker and I stepped outside. I was grateful for my stylish little jacket and turned up the collar against the light breeze. Parker was in a T-shirt, and I nearly said something about his being too cold, but when I glanced at his arm, I could almost see the warmth of his skin. His forearm was thick and corded, muscular in an easy, natural sort of way. This was a man who didn’t need a membership at a gym—his everyday life was workout enough. Suddenly the sight of his bare arm—the light smattering of freckles from the sun and the way his wrist bones stood at the arch to his strong hand—made me shy. I veered away from him slightly.

“They’re not in the grove?” I asked, clearing my throat.

“I had a pretty good view of the trees as I came down the driveway, and I didn’t see them.”

“I told them to stick around,” I muttered. Then, cupping my mouth with my hands, I shouted, “Simon! Daniel!” Their names echoed over our property, reverberating off the slumping buildings and careening into the trees.

No answer.

“The garage door is closed,” I said, taking mental stock of the nearest possible hiding place. There was only one way into the shedlike garage, and that was through the heavy hung door. I wasn’t entirely sure that they could even lift it by themselves.

“They’re on a grand adventure.” Parker chuckled. “Maybe I should have stayed home today.”

“No, they’re excited to see you. They’re just also easily distracted.”

This time Parker raised his hands to his mouth and roared, “Daniel! Simon!”

We stood in the dewy grass and waited, but the only response we received was the chirping of a hundred birds in the trees.

I sighed. “Sorry about this.”

Parker shrugged to show me how little the boys’ disappearance bothered him. He cocked his head in the direction of the stable and raised his eyebrows in question. “Shall we start there?”

“Oh, the boys aren’t allowed to play in the outbuildings. They’re around here somewhere.”

“Aren’t allowed to play in the buildings?” Parker gave me a wide-eyed look. “Are you kidding me?”

“It’s not safe,” I defended.

“But it’s what boys do,” he protested. “They explore; they hunt and gather; they discover. . . . They’re in one of the buildings, Julia.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes, they are. I’m sure of it.”

“They listen to me.” Parker was starting to make me angry. I had banned the boys from the outbuildings and I believed that they obeyed my instructions.

“I’m sure they do,” he soothed. “But this is just too good to pass up. Come on, you can hardly blame them for investigating the great unknown.”

“You’re wrong,” I snarled through clenched teeth.

Parker smirked. “I’m right. In fact, I’m so sure I’m right that I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of a deal?”

“If you’re right and the boys are innocently strolling around the property, I’ll send you and Nellie for manicures while we’re fishing. Girls like that, don’t they?”

I laughed in spite of myself. “Sure, Parker, girls like that.” I studied my hands for a moment, taking stock of the dry knuckles, the dirt beneath my short nails. “I could use a little pampering. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

I stuck out my hand so Parker could shake it, but he batted it away. “You haven’t heard the second half of the bet.”

“That’s because I know you’re not going to win.”

“Humor me.”

Smiling, I put my hands on my hips and regarded Parker with a cool gaze. “Fine.”

“If I’m right and Simon and Daniel have been constructing some incredible fort out of old boards they found in one of these buildings, you have to come fishing with us today.”

I opened my mouth to object, but the truth was, it felt like a win-win situation for me. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“I don’t have to be your indentured servant or wear some T-shirt declaring your eternal superiority?”

“Nope.”

“And I don’t have to gut fish?”

“You don’t even have to touch them.”

Tapping my fingers against my lips, I pretended to think long and hard about Parker’s deal. “Okay, fine,” I groaned after a long pause. “I’ll take you up on your ridiculous bet.”

“You’re so gracious.” He rolled his eyes at me, but the next instant he pulled my hand into his own and held it. For a heartbeat we just stood there, hand in hand, and then he gave me an arm-jiggling shake to seal the deal.“I hope you prove handy with a knife. By the way, do you have any lemons? They take the smell of fish guts right off your skin. Well, kind of . . .”

“You promised!” I yanked my hand away and aimed a punch at his shoulder, but he took off at an easy lope toward the stable and I had no choice but to follow.

Like I had hoped, the musty horse building was utterly untouched. The metal-latch door still held the rusty wire that I had twisted through the handle to secure it. And once we pried back the stiff pieces and opened the creaky door, the inch of dust that covered the floor gave evidence enough that no one had stepped foot over the threshold in a very long time.

“Cats!” Parker said in a mock whisper, pointing at a set of delicate footprints that led from a hole in one boarded-up window to the first stall.

“Fiends,” I growled. “I told them the outbuildings were dangerous too.”

After we shut the door and retied the fine wire, we zigzagged our way toward the chicken coop. It was in much better shape than the abandoned stable, and I wondered as we walked up the short stone steps if I should go through it with a fine-tooth comb this summer and then let the boys have this one space as their own. It wouldn’t take much. A few broken windows had scattered fragments of antique glass across the floor, and there was a handful of loose planks that sported crooked nails. I shivered at the thought of tetanus, but Parker was right: boys would be boys. Maybe I was expecting too much of them. Being too strict.

But as we unlatched the door, I remembered in a wave of sorrow that there would be no more summers on the farm. We were moving to Iowa City. To an apartment. As Parker and I stood for a second in the shadow of the old chicken coop, I was gripped by a sense of loss. Of regret. Why hadn’t I let my boys experience all our farm had to offer?

“They’re not here, either,” Parker told me, though I could see as much with my own two eyes.

“It would make a nice fort,” I mused.

Parker gave me a sidelong glance and nudged me gently with his elbow. “It would.”

That one moment of understanding, of tenderness, was so unexpected that it all but knocked me off-balance. I almost confided in him. I could feel the words like water on my tongue, liquid and heavy with all the emotion that sprang from the well of my doubt. But the inappropriateness of such an intimate confession was not lost on me. I swallowed all I longed to say and hopped down the steps without acknowledging his small act of kindness.

The barn was the only building left, and though the farm was filled with other nooks and crannies—the dense interior of the grove; the wooded graveyard, where Grandpa had piled rotten sections of old fencing; the unused horse field lush with prairie grass that rose chest-high—I was starting to believe that Parker was right. There was a certain allure to the ancient structures of our farm. They seemed to whisper with the near-forgotten echo of years gone by. If I closed my eyes, I could almost see my grandpa’s shadow as he disappeared around a corner, a length of rope slung over his arm and his Norwegian elkhound Lucy at his side.

“I hear something coming from the barn,” Parker said as we made our way up the hill.

“Sure you do,” I sighed, for our morning banter had lost its luster for me. I was feeling nostalgic and more than a little depressed—downright sick with the knowledge that my chance to bring up farm boys was rapidly coming to an end.

“No, Julia. I mean it.” There was something in Parker’s tone that made my head snap up.

We both paused for a moment, ears angled toward the barn, straining to hear whatever had given Parker reason to wipe the seemingly ever-present smile off his face.

“Somebody’s screaming,” he exclaimed.

And he was right. It was faint but unmistakable.

We started to run at the same moment, but Parker was faster than me. I watched helplessly as he rocketed toward the barn, his long legs eating up the distance as if he was used to taking off at a flat-out sprint up a fairly substantial incline. As we neared the barn, I could see that the bottom section of the red-painted door was closed, but the top half was open just a crack.

Daniel and Simon were in the barn. I was sure of it.

Parker entered the long shadows of the tall building several paces ahead of me and wrenched open the door. As he disappeared inside, I sent a prayer after him. A desperate, wordless plea for help, for strength, for whatever he would need to make everything okay within the darkness of a place that I hadn’t stepped foot in for almost a decade. It seemed unfamiliar to me, alien and filled with countless hazards. With danger.

Gasping, I finally gained the gaping door and threw myself into the half-light of the barn, blinded by the sudden gloom. But it didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust.

Parker was standing next to Simon with his strong arm wrapped tight around my brother’s slight shoulders. Had I once believed that Simon was on the path to young adulthood? He looked like a child beside Parker, a scared little boy. I was about to shout their names, to make them tell me what was going on, when I heard a whimper from somewhere above me. I followed Parker’s gaze and saw what they were staring at.

Daniel was suspended above us.

He was at the center of the same beam that I had crossed a hundred times. The only difference was, I had never fallen off. Daniel was clinging to the solid girder of thick timber for dear life, his slender legs dangling into an expanse of open space that seemed as deep and cavernous as the Grand Canyon.