more like lanes than roads, the narrowness of them making our roads seem quaint. We drive talking about our children. When we are alone we like to tell each other how wonderful our children are, but it is something we do not tell others. We tell each other with abandon, things we have lately seen in our children that prove how smart and wonderful and cute they are. We puff each other up with the glory of our children, we talk about how beautifully Sam is recovering, his speech not half as slurred, as if this were a sign of some sort of intelligence, but the minute we pull in to the farm, our conversation changes and we both know that it will be a while again before we are alone, without being interrupted, for a long period of time where we can brag so shamelessly to one another. It is a relief to do all the bragging, it’s cathartic, as if we need every once in a while to do this bragging, or so that we remind each other of how right it was for us to have married each other.
When we get to the barn the shire is already standing there, with the crossties snapped to her halter. Shires are gentle, big, glossy, black-coated draft horses with massive hooves covered in white feathering. The owner isn’t there, but the farmhand named Anna is. Anna is tall and blond and speaks quietly. She says she gave the shire a little bute, but not much. The shire’s eyes look a little cloudy. I listen to the shire’s lungs. They are clear, but she has a little temp.
RESULT: I give her gentamicin and penicillin and take some blood samples, just to see what virus she might really have. I have been to the barn before. I have treated other horses here. I ask Anna about the last horse I treated, and if she and the owner had decided to kill it because of its crippling hoof condition. Anna says, in her quiet voice, that she wishes I wouldn’t put it that way, that I hadn’t said “killed,” because it was a big decision for her and the owner to have the horse finally put down, but in looking back, Anna says, it was the right thing to do. Anna says that everyone called the owner names for putting his own horse down. They called him a murderer, Anna says. But he’s not. You can only let the animal go so far on a hoof like that. No extra time in the stall or soaking in Epsom salts or different shoes is going to change it. It all depends on how you look at it, and it’s not until something like that happens that you realize how many people look at things differently than you do. It’s as if they’ll only be happy if the owner comes out and admits he did something horrible, and then in the meantime they shake their heads. They say what a shame. The poor horse, they say, but what about the poor owner? That’s what I think Anna says, and then Anna leans over the shire and hugs the shire’s neck and the ponytail of Anna’s long summer blond hair lies flat against the black coat of the beautiful shire. Then Anna stands up straight. You shouldn’t care who shot your son, she says, surprising me, I didn’t know Anna knew. I can feel my wife getting angry beside me.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Of course we should care.
WHAT ANNA DOES: She shakes her head. It’s a waste of energy. Care about your son instead, she says.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: Everything’s melting now. Patches of grass can be seen among the snow and the patches look geographical, like the shapes of the continents played out on people’s lawns.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS WHILE WE’RE DRIVING: Do you think Anna knows who shot Sam? Do you think it was her boyfriend or something? Do you think she’s trying to throw us off? Cover something up? What’s her boyfriend’s name, anyway? Does he hunt? Do you have that list still with the names of the hunters on it? she says. I bet he’s on it, she says. Imagine telling us not to care, she says. Who is she? she says. Turn around, she says. I want to talk to that girl again. I want to ask her some questions. Goddammit, turn around, she says.
WHAT I DO: I keep driving home. I don’t turn around. I drive home up our driveway, and Mia comes running out to greet us. She runs to her mother and Jen picks her up and buries her nose in her neck and breathes deeply, and I know she will stop wanting to know now the name of Anna’s boyfriend. Mia has wiped the anger away so quickly it is amazing, and I take Mia from Jen, and I want to breathe Mia in, too.
WHAT THE WIFE COOKED FOR DINNER: Chicken burritos.
WHAT MIA SAID SHE WOULD EAT: A chicken burrito without the chicken.
WHAT SARAH NOTICES: That the burrito shells have shrunk in size, but we all agree it’s a good thing since there was too much burrito shell to our burritos before anyway, so even though we know we’re being cheated, we don’t feel so bad.
WHAT THE NIGHT SAID: The streams are fuller now, the snow having melted. You will not be able to hear the owl hooting from the tree now, with the rushing sounds being so loud. You will not hear the occasional coyote yip. The snoring of Sam in the next room will blend in with the rushing sound. The snoring sound of your wife right next to you, though, can’t be masked.
CALL: No call. I just drive to Dorothy’s house. Dorothy is the woman with the sheep whose name is Alice. Alice is the sheep who follows Dorothy around like a dog. Alice is the sheep Dorothy took to church one day. I stop on the way to Dorothy’s house. I need gas. With a fill-up I get a free peanut butter cup. Is this good or bad? There’s been a scare. Peanut butter from a plant somewhere has been linked to illness in a handful of children. I eat the peanut butter cup, my fingers tasting a little of the gas from the nozzle I just used at the pump.
ACTION: I asked Dorothy if she had seen anything unusual. I asked Dorothy if she had seen the spacecraft in the sky. Dorothy called Alice over to her. Alice put her head in Dorothy’s lap, in the hammock created by her floral cotton skirt and her knees. Yes, Dorothy said, Alice has seen the spacecraft, too, but I haven’t, Dorothy said.
RESULT: I thanked Dorothy and I left.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: I was still hungry. I wished I could fill up my gas again and partake in some more tainted peanut butter.
CALL: No call. I drove to the farm where the minis, Molly, Netty, Sunny, and Storm, lived. The owner was not home. I petted the minis. I asked them if they’d seen the spacecraft. The minis whinnied. I took that for a mini yes, a mini sharing of our common experience.
WHAT I PASS ON THE WAY HOME: The zebra. He is outside standing on the snow bathed in the yellow moonlight. I put the window down. Free the Zebra! I yell. I see the zebra turn and look at me. The brush at the bottom of his tail moves from side to side.
MORE THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: Maybe rockets could be propelled by small, portable CERN accelerators, and man could travel from planet to planet without having to use fuel, relying on the power of magnets instead.
WHAT I DO ON THE WAY HOME: I stop off in front of the school. The sign is out by the road, the sign that has the letters that the bad kids can move around and make any words they want to and that they did once turn into COME TO THE FALL BOOB FEST. I sit looking at the letters that are there. VENISON DINNER TONIGHT, the sign says. I think what I can do and then I do it. I get out and change the letters around and then remove a few. I make the sign say, VEIN DINNER TONIGHT. Then I think how I wish I had some
WHAT I READ ON THE WAY HOME: The sign the local taxidermist leaves outside his house. SPECIAL: SKULL CLEANING HALF PRICE. I think how the sign is the same kind of sign that the school has, where I could change the letters around, but how could I come up with something better than SPECIAL: SKULL CLEANING HALF PRICE? And then I think how maybe one day a sign somewhere like that along the road will read LOW LEVELS GUARANTEED and I’ll be sure to drop in.
WHAT I SAW WHEN I GOT HOME: The spacecraft again. Maybe my going back to the doctor worked. It was flying low over our house. I stopped and waved to it, and it seemed almost to wave back, I thought, because it seemed to flash back red and green lights, but then it zipped away. I went inside. I didn’t care any longer if it could tell me the name of the man who shot Sam. I was just glad to see it back in the sky. Later, in bed, I looked for it again. I couldn’t see it. It must be down in the town by now, floating over Phil’s store, floating over the school, floating over the local taxidermist’s house, the Zodiac Killer’s house.
WHAT THE WIFE SHOWS ME WEEKS LATER: The brochure for the swimming team that the children have been on. Now there’s a master’s swim team for adults.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: The doctor says Sam needs the exercise. He should be on the team again, and your levels want you to join, too. I look at the brochure. I like how the sunlight comes in through the glass walls and lights up the pool water, making it look like water somewhere else, like water in Ecuador maybe, like water in Maui or Palau.
