Standing in the middle of the dust filled room, so still and silent, Ray could not shake the feeling of a graveyard. Filled with memory, held in reverence, untouched by human hands, it was a shrine to mother and wife, in the many ceramic fish figurines, the crocheted back detail on the great sofa, the handsewn cushions of straight back chairs, the delicate doilies on side tables. Her bag of knitting, needles in mid-project, remained by the rocking chair next to the dominating river stone façade of the fireplace. Even her perfume lingered, baked into the very air of the space.
But even though the room gave the impression of being frozen in time, there were signs of recent activity: disturbed dust on the rug under the rocking chair, a coffee mug on the wooden mantle, beside a large black frame that held Noah and Lotte's wedding picture. The frame itself showed fingerprints in the dust, as of someone picking it up. Another picture had a clean swipe on the glass showing a petite Lotte, standing in a white sundress beside the big red pickup, one hand on her head holding down a straw hat, a pink ribbon fluttering in the wind and a wide smile on her face.
After the dining room pictures, Ray had been excited to see more of her, but now that he was—laughing at the water, kneeling in the garden, playing with Bear—he realized he'd been looking at her all along. Because while Alan had his father's nose and jaw, everything else was his mother's. Their wide smile, crooked and mischievous; their eyes, bright and bold and twinkling; their face, full of freckles. And so his attention shifted from her to Alan, blue eyes seeking and finding each precious moment documented through the years, from the small figure standing on a stool to reach the kitchen sink, to standing in the field with crops twice his size, to being sat on by puppy Bear and laughing as the dog licked his face.
Looking into the past, a past very different than his own, a past filled with family, as opposed to filled with foster homes and strangers, Ray sighed in longing. Suddenly he wished he had known Alan when they were children, to play in the field as boys, to grow up together in this house, galivant in the trucks on a school night. And then, when they got a little older...
"I bet we would have had a lot of fun," Ray murmured to the pictures of the young boy.
"Ray?" Alan called, his footsteps coming closer. "Who are you talking..." He appeared in the living room doorway. "...to?" His brown eyes landed on the bucket of cleaning supplies on the coffee table and then on Ray, and to what he knew was coming, he said a very definitive: "No."
"Alan—" Ray said, taking a step towards him, still holding a picture of teenage Alan getting his jeep.
"No," Alan said, backing away and shaking his head. "Look, I let the kitchen and the dining room and the rest of the house go, but not in here."
"Okay, okay," Ray said soothingly, holding out a calming hand. "I'm not going to. I was just looking, since your Pa said—"
"Pa?" Alan said in an abnormal voice. Looking up at Ray with an unfriendly expression, he asked, with more accusation than question, "Pa said it was okay to clean in here?"
Coming down the hall to the staircase, Noah heard their voices and joined them in time to answer. "I did." Walking past his son, who stood under the arch, Noah stopped at the back of the sofa, casting his eye around the room. "It's time."
"Time for who?" Alan said, his voice shaky, but hard and biting, making his father turn back to look at him. "This is the room Ma spent her last days in." Hands curled into shaking fists at his side, his voice raised, cutting through the air. "It's only been a year, and already you're looking to get rid of her."
"Now hang on," Noah said, his own voice hardening warningly. "It's only a cleaning. I ain't looking to replace her."
"You sure about that?" Alan said, his eyes dark and unfriendly, voice lowering dangerously.
YOU ARE READING
The Farmer's Son
عاطفية[The Watty's 2023 Shortlist] When a young cowboy comes to corn country, all he's looking for is a paycheck and a man he used to know. After searching up and down the heartland, what he finds is a small town that has its own bad memories of cowboys...