Authors: GINGER STRAND
“What was her name again?”
There’s a pause, and he wonders if she’s forgotten. But when she speaks, it’s in a soft, dreamy voice, as if she’s only half paying attention to the conversation. “Jana Keplin,” she says. “They all call her Jana.”
“They call her by her first name?”
“Yeah. That’s the way they all are now.” It’s not clear if she means the teachers or the kids. She goes back to gazing out the window. “Lots of American flags,” she says.
“The Peddet farm sold,” Will says. He feels annoyed—awkward and then frustrated to know that he’s awkward. Here he is, making small talk with his daughter. And yet he doesn’t want to engage her, doesn’t want to get dragged into a conversation about Afghanistan or terrorism or the crimes of America, because he knows how that will go. She’ll start in with her liberal dogma, and he’ll stumble around trying to explain himself, and they’ll both end up mad and sullen. He doesn’t always disagree with her views; what he hates is the fierce conviction. He wants to talk to her, but about things that really matter—how she’s doing and why she came alone and what’s going on with David. He considers telling her about his Cathay Pacific plan, bringing her in on his secret. That might spur an exchange of confidences.
“The Peddet farm sold? To whom?” Interest sharpens her face, pulling her into focus. The Peddet farm, adjacent to theirs, is a beautiful piece of land. It’s classic Michigan: neat farmhouse and outbuildings, rolling fields, a pretty piece of woods once used for maple sugaring. When he was little, Will was sometimes taken to the sugar cabin in late winter, during the sugaring off. It was a tiny log cabin, and to a kid, it seemed deep in the woods. Inside, it was warm and
noisy, filled with men and the heat of the fire. A vat of maple syrup was always boiling on a brick hearth in the center of the cabin. He would step inside and think,
I never want to leave.
“The Lanskys bought it.”
“The Lanskys? That farming conglomerate?”
“Yeah.” He looks out over the wheel. “They’re buying up a lot of the farms around this part of the state.”
Margaret presses one hand to her face, considering. It slackens her cheek, making her look even more like a middle-aged woman. Will resists the urge to tell her so.
“That’s kind of sad,” she says after a moment. “Old Mrs. Peddet always looked forward to getting her sign.”
“Yeah.” He slows down to pass a combine that’s crawling down the shoulder of the road. “I don’t know if the state is even giving those out anymore.” In the past, when your farm was in the family for a hundred years, the state historical commission gave you a sign for your property: MICHIGAN CENTENNIAL FARM. Will hasn’t seen a new one in a long time. They may have given up doing it, since so many people are selling their family farms.
The great trajectory,
he thinks. One of the first signs of decadence is a lost connection with the food supply.
“You can’t make a living on eighty acres anymore,” he says. “The Peddet boys all went into construction, and the girl went to cosmetology school, I think. She lives in Kalamazoo now.” He can’t keep a trace of bitterness out of his voice. Margaret is part of the problem, after all. She couldn’t have been in more of a hurry to abandon the country for city life.
You don’t like the Lanskys?
a small voice inside him says.
You’re helping make sure they succeed.
“What’s Mrs. Peddet going to do?” Mrs. Peddet was a widow, at least eighty years old. Will used to take her a chicken sometimes, or some nice pork chops when they had them. Old Peddet had been a friend of his father.
“I think she’s going into a home—one of those assisted-living places in Kalamazoo,” he says. “She sort of lost it after September eleventh. She was stockpiling stuff. Food. But not stuff that would
keep. She had this old dead freezer full of rotting eggs, carrots, hamburger. One of her kids finally went in there and found it. I guess the place was a real mess.”
Margaret is silent, and right away he regrets his bitterness, regrets that he’s even allowed himself to think of his brilliant, successful daughter as part of any problem. She only did what he did—set off to find her own dreams. The difference is that he came back and she hasn’t. He wants to compensate for his bitterness by making the Peddet story less dark. “At least this way she’ll see her daughter more,” he says lamely.
Margaret nods and looks out the window again, leaning her head against the taut shoulder strap of her seat belt, and Will senses a kind of exhaustion coming off her. He wants to tell her she shouldn’t worry about making dinner. She should go to her room and rest and let someone else handle things. Carol and Leanne can cover the party preparations for now, and he and Kit could put a frozen pizza or something in the oven.
But he knows that wouldn’t work. Margaret hates halfhearted measures like frozen pizzas. If there’s something to be done, she’ll be there doing it, because that’s how she is. Without realizing it, he sighs heavily and loudly. Margaret doesn’t seem to notice, and they’re silent for the rest of the run to Ryville.
In the grocery store, she is quietly efficient, piloting the cart up the aisles and making decisions quickly. She wears a determinedly patient expression, as if willing herself not to waste time complaining about the poorly stocked store. Will follows behind, amazed all over again at the adult his daughter has become. She’s been grown up for years now, but when she’s away, he still thinks of her as a child, so that when he sees her, he has to accustom himself all over again to her maturity. For her part, she acts like he’s the child, asking him occasional questions as if trying to include him, to make him feel useful.
“Mom wants some new sponges,” she says. “Which kind does she usually get?”
Will looks at the packages she’s holding up, one blue, one green, and has to shrug. He has no idea.
“Well, these are the better ones,” Margaret says, tossing the blue into the cart.
He gets involved only when asked until they reach the meat department and he sees her frowning at the chickens. They’re the usual grocery-store Tyson chickens, wrapped in partly opaque plastic. They have huge breasts and short stubby legs. Will doesn’t like the look of them, either. They look abnormal, their breasts so oversize it’s hard to believe they could walk when they were alive.
“Peterson has some chickens this year,” he tells her. “He brought one over not long ago. We could stop by his place and see if he’ll sell us one.”
Her eyes are bright as she looks up at him. “That’d be great, Dad!” she says. “A fresh free-range chicken would be perfect!”
They finish up at the store and drive out to Peterson’s place, a smallish gray house with a long, low barn in the back. Margaret hovers behind as Will knocks on the door. Ted Peterson himself answers.
“I got none in the fridge right now,” he tells them. “I took a whole lot over to the farmer’s market, down to Kalamazoo. People was paying two-forty a pound.” He chuckles, and Will joins in, shaking his head at the promiscuous spending of city folk. Even Margaret puts on a smile, but Will can sense her shifting her weight, wanting to move things along.
“I’d go kill one for you, if you didn’t mind waiting,” Ted says.
Will glances at Margaret, but her face is serene. “Sure,” she says.
Ted heads for the barn, leaving Will and Margaret standing in silence under the small roof of his back-door steps. Margaret crosses her arms and looks out over Peterson’s cornfield. One foot taps lightly. She’s not going to tell him anything here.
“Somewhere in that barn, a chicken is meeting its maker,” Will says, and Margaret laughs once, shortly.
“Do you know what a freshly killed free-range chicken would cost in Chicago?” she says. Her voice is too cheerful, as if she’s forcing herself to think about the chicken instead of something else. “It’s almost a shame to put it in gumbo.”
“Remember our chickens?” Will asks her.
She puts her hands down on the railing and leans back, looking up at the rusting metal of Ted Peterson’s porch roof. “Oh yes,” she says. “How could I forget?”
Will grins, remembering. The idea of getting a flock had hit him when the family returned from a trip to Mexico. Leanne and Margaret must have been about six and eight. “It will be good for them,” he remembers telling Carol. “They can learn how to take care of something. Did you notice how the chickens in Mexico were always taken care of by the little kids?” They had been living on the farm for years without any animals. He figured chickens were the perfect starter livestock—easy to take care of, not a huge investment, with a good rate of return. “We can have fresh eggs,” he told Carol. “Think how nice that will be!”
He looks at his grown daughter standing opposite him on the tiny porch. Sometimes he sees an expression out of the corner of his eye, or catches a gesture she’s making, and there she is, the little girl he knew before, hiding inside this grown woman’s body. But most of the time that girl is missing in action.
It was a Saturday when they went to get the chickens. Will made breakfast for the girls first. Carol was sleeping in.
“You’ve got to have a rooster,” he remembers telling them. “Even if you don’t want chicks, it’s better to have a rooster.”
“Why?” Margaret had reached that age: whenever she asked him a question, she waited for the answer as if her entire opinion of him hung on it. Leanne wasn’t even paying attention. She was just happy they were having toast and jam and instant hot chocolate for breakfast, something Carol would never allow.
“Having a rooster around makes the hens happier,” Will said, and before Margaret could say “Why?” again, he continued. “It makes them feel like someone is looking out for them.”
“Is he?”
“Is he what?”
“Looking out for them.”
“Oh yes.” Will took the kettle off the stove and filled their cups
with hot water. “He sure is.” The brown powder dissolved into liquid, with tiny white specks on top.
“Why?”
“Because that’s what roosters do.” He grinned. “Now, hurry up and drink your hot chocolate. We want to get to the feed and grain before the farmers fill it up.”
“But we’re going to be farmers now,” Margaret told him. “We’re going to be farmers of chickens.” She got a satisfied tone whenever she could correct her parents.
“Even without the chickens,” Will corrected her back, “we’re farmers. We live on a farm. We grow corn and hay. That’s farming.”
“But Uncle George always drives the tractor.”
Will set down the kettle. It clanged down too loudly on the burner. The girls blinked with surprise. “Uncle George drives the tractor,” he said. “But it’s my farm.”
They went to the feed and grain, which was busy, as always on weekends. Still, old Dan Curran made everyone wait while he talked to Will about flying. Like most people in Ryville, Dan Curran had never been up in a plane, so he loved hearing about them. Will always went along with it, but he didn’t enjoy the attention. He wanted them to see him as a farmer, like everyone else. He’d rather talk about the weather or wheat prices. Unconsciously, he’d find himself reverting to rural pronunciations when he talked to someone like Dan. Carol always accused him of putting on an act. “Playing farmer,” she would say. She rolled her eyes when Will said “them cows” or “crik” instead of “creek.”
Dan Curran told them to go see Ted Peterson. Peterson must have been younger then, but Will remembers him looking just the same. He and Will crated up the chickens and loaded them into the back of the truck. The girls were wide-eyed on the drive home, riding backward in the cab to see that the chickens didn’t fall out.
“I don’t think they like this very much, Daddy,” Leanne said.
“Do chickens talk to each other?” Margaret asked.
“They cluck and squawk. They go, ‘Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!’” Will made a chicken face as he squawked, and Leanne giggled between
them. Leanne’s giggle was deep and luscious, water welling up from a spring.
“That’s talking,” Margaret said. “For chickens.” She pressed her lips together, disapproving of the others’ silliness.
“You girls will go and gather the eggs,” Will told them, becoming more serious.
“Do the chickens want us to take their eggs?”
“They really don’t know any better,” Will said. “They’re just chickens.” He felt her skeptical gaze. “Chickens are not very smart,” he told them. “Did you know that when it rains, you have to put them inside? Otherwise they look up and drown.”
Even Leanne looked skeptical at that. They watched him to see if he was joking. He felt the need to reassure them somehow.
“I think they’ll be real happy with us,” he told them.
“
Very
happy, Daddy,” Margaret said.
“Well, here you go then.” Ted Peterson ambles toward them from the barn, upright and unhurried, as if he doesn’t notice the rain. Under his left arm he carries a brown paper parcel. When he reaches the steps, he holds it out to Will, but Margaret steps forward and takes it, gently, as if not wanting to hurt what’s inside.
“I plucked and gutted it for you,” Ted says, “but I left it whole.”
“That’s great,” Margaret says. “Thank you so much.”
“’Preciate it,” Will says, handing Ted a five-spot. Ted crumples it into his pocket, and Will waits. He knows Margaret is eager to get going, but he doesn’t want to be rude.
Ted looks out over his cornfield. “Lotta rain for June,” he says. “Corn could use some sun now.”
“I guess the rain’s gonna quit by Saturday,” Will says. “My other daughter’s getting married then, and the wife won’t permit it.” He feels a tremor in Margaret, a slight move of impatience, when he says “the wife.”
Ted chuckles. “Aaaah,” he says. “Guess not, then.” He works his mouth, locating an old wad of tobacco or just moving to do so out
of habit. After a moment, he looks at their car. It’s the sign that they’re dismissed, that they’ve made enough small talk for their visit to count as friendly and not purely commercial.
“All right, then,” Will says. “Be seeing you, Ted.”
“That’s right,” Ted says. “Bye now.”
Margaret holds the chicken on her lap as they leave. “Thanks for that, Dad,” she says.