Flying Clean

Flying Clean Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was two days later that I saw Susan again. She was dressed this time, and for that I was grateful to be spared the embarrassment. I was bringing eggs into the house from the coup- a chore that normally belonged to Willy, but I had been informed that the boy was under the weather this morning. I hoped, for his sake, that this meant that he was simply ill and not busted up. Susan was hanging the laundry on lines behind the house- she must have awoken very early to do the washing, for the sun was only then rising free of the horizon. I remembered her wishes to be left alone, but I kept my pace abnormally slow as I walked from the coup to the house with my pail of eggs. She was a sadly pretty girl, though far too pale, even in full sunlight. I watched her from the corner of my eye as I walked; there was something odd about her that I could not quite place, though it was just on the edge of coming to me. It would occur to me, almost an entire day later, as I lay awake in the hay loft in the early hours of the next morning, that the peculiarity that had unsettled me was that a pretty fifteen-year-old girl hanging the wash on a fine early summer morning would not be singing or humming lowly, or simply staring dreamily as she imagined whatever it was that young girls fantasized about. She stared off, all right; she seemed every bit as distant as her brother, John, but it was a cold distance, a numbness of mind that hinted at deepest misery.

But at the moment, this had not yet occurred to my mind and Susan must have noticed my speculative glance, for she turned to me reluctantly. Her voice was only a whisper, but on the still morning air it came clearly to me.

"Papa isn't paying you," she said quickly. "He doesn't have any money."

I did not respond; I didn't know how. I can't say that I immediately distrusted her words- or that I believed them, for that matter- but it certainly gave me something to think about when I should have been sleeping that night. The thought which insisted in those dark hours was that perhaps I had misjudged Susan Desmond; perhaps she had a blackness on her soul, the same as most other Desmond children. She seemed to be an innocent girl- she was not prone to violence, at least not as far as I had witnessed, but perhaps there was a sadistic element to Susan, as well. The way that Louise was excited by the suffering of small animals, so might Susan be excited by telling awful lies for no reason at all. Although I did not want to believe that the quiet, pretty Susan Desmond might be another rotten seed, fancying dishonesty over inflicting physical torment, neither did I want to believe that Harry Desmond had no intention of compensating me for the hard work I performed on his farm.

Over the night, I had come up with a small test to discern Susan's credibility. I remembered Harry Desmond's offer to give me three dollars if I wished to spend an evening in town and I was certain that if Harry had no intention to pay me, he would surely back out of that obligation with one excuse or another. I went to him in the morning as he fiddled with his Ford in the secondary barn, which looked brand new with its repaired roof and fresh paint. This was the first time I had spared a second to admire my handiwork and I was brimming with pride. The entire farm seemed a newer and more cheery place, as if I had single-handedly breathed hope into a dying farmstead.

"It's running good," Harry said when he saw me approaching. "You've been maintaining it?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "I think I'd like to go into town this evening, if that's all right."

Harry hesitated a moment- just long enough for my heart to sink- before saying, "I think you'd rather rest up. I'm having you start the new well tomorrow. Be a long damn day."

"I understand, sir," I said. "I'll see to it that I come back early."

Harry leaned against his Ford and looked at me, hooking his thumbs in his hip pockets. "Well, I aint going into town today. If you're certain you want to go, you'll have to walk in."