But above that, all those woods there, that’s my land.
Erik and Cat spent the night with me up here. Brassard invited them to dinner, said they could stay in the house or the help dorm, but Erik said he wanted to see my place and get a taste of my lifestyle. Will had already started preparing a huge pan of shepherd’s pie, but I asked Earnest if he wanted to join us up on the hill for some canned stew by firelight, and to my surprise he said yes. So after milking and equipment cleaning, the four of us headed up.
Orange-pink sunset on leaves just turning to warm hues: In that rare rake of light, the woods glowed like a jack-o’-lantern’s eyes when a candle’s lit inside. Cat learned her lesson during her first visit and wore hiking boots and down parka, Erik seemed used to hardy living and brought up a couple of army surplus mummy bags. At intervals, he stopped to look at the farm and up and down the valley, from different vantages, stroking his stubbled cheeks, nodding appraisingly and appreciatively. Earnest had stolen a few edibles from the house.
Marching up the hill, I told Cat, “I still plan to kill you. Just not tonight.”
Dead serious, she shot back, “I had to keep you in the dark. No way, no imaginable possible way, was I going to miss being there at that moment.”
Erik told us he’d driven across from Oregon in four days, sleeping at night on the ground or across the seats at highway rest stops. He would have called me but had no way of finding me—why didn’t I keep a Facebook page? So he called Cat, who still has a landline and an actual listed number. Cat said, “I was eating spaghetti when I got his call and I nearly choked to death. I had to give myself the Heimlich maneuver.” They’d caravanned up in two cars because Cat had to get back to her job and Erik wanted to spend more time with me, if that was all right.
It’s odd, when you bring a stranger to a place familiar to you, you see it differently, as if through their unbiased eyes. When I came into my camp it looked orderly and beautiful and, strangely, “sensible,” a not-entirely-unreasonable abode. The sun had dropped by the time we got there, leaving just the tops of the trees still radiant, casting now a pinker light through the darkening lower forest—illumination like a magical theater set. We got the lanterns going and I showed Erik where I keep the outhouse. Cat gathered twigs and oversaw the opening of four cans of stew, Earnest and I built and lit and encouraged the fire. Back among us, Erik showed quick reflexes and nervous energy, not just picking up my ladle but flipping it up spinning and deftly catching the handle, rattling a quick drumroll with a couple of my metal cups. He carries a harmonica in his back pocket and though he didn’t play it, he took it out and fiddled with it, balancing it on the tip of one finger. The woods had gone dark by the time the stew pot steamed. Earnest shined a flashlight into the grocery bag he’d brought and discovered a loaf of bread, a bunch of carrots, and a bag of corn chips.
We sat around the fire, eating stew off plastic plates, drinking peppermint tea out of metal cups with rims that burned our lips. Cold pressed against our backs while our faces singed. Three faces dear to me, bright-lit by the fire, framed by flickering columns of trees that shaded dimmer and dimmer and finally faded into the curtain of full dark: my heart truly overflowed.
Chapter 35
But it wasn’t long before discord joined us in the campfire circle. Erik’s mysteries were not so easily plumbed. He didn’t appear reserved—he wisecracked and shared anecdotes, gestured energetically, took off his billed cap and flipped it with vaudevillian flair back onto his head. But he deflected a lot, somehow turning questions about himself into another interesting but unrelated narrative. Between eating and joking, I saw Earnest shoot glances his way. Cat, only a little reprimand in her voice, asked Erik how long he was going to keep us in suspense before telling us what he’d been doing for seven fucking years.
When Erik stalled on that, Earnest reversed the question: “So what’s next? What’s the plan? Stick around for a while or …?”
“Actually, there’s a project I’ve been thinking about for quite a while. And I really needed to get away from the West Coast and I really wanted to see my sister, so here I am.” He gestured around the woods and down toward the farm. “It’s pretty serendipitous—I mean, that you’ve gone rural, turned farmer, Annie. Think there’s any chance Mr. Brassard could find room for me here?”
I shrugged. “The farm’s not in a great position to take anyone on. But you can ask Jim.”
“Any experience at farmwork?” Earnest asked.
Erik laughed hard enough that he slopped scalding tea onto his jeans. “Me? Extensive experience in agriculture. Or rather horticulture.”
“Like what?” Earnest said. He sat forward, put his elbows on his knees, rolling his metal teacup between his palms.
To me, his posture signaled heightened interest, but apparently Erik saw it as suspicious or aggressive. Erik’s body went very still. “Like it can wait for another time.” It was an in-your-face, up-yours comeback.
“Got me interested now,” Earnest said, absolutely without expression.
“And it’s your business because …?”
“Erik? Erik! This is Earnest, my friend! What … I don’t get …” I
