“Came here a little beat-up, though. We knew that, Diz and I. What was it—man trouble?”
“Everything trouble.”
He took that in and said, “Times like that for all of us, I guess.” He paused, and I could only assume that was how he saw the current era of his life. “But you’re doin better now, looks like. Hasn’t entirely disagreed with you. And you’ve been good for this place. For me, Earn, Will. God help me, even Diz would agree if she wasn’t dead and so stubborn.”
“I am much better now. It helps to know I’m being of some use. I mean, that I’m working, I’m earning my keep, I’ve got … people to care about.”
He nodded and attended to his eating. It was a spacious conversation.
“Question I have is, a woman your age, I’d think you’d want to marry. Good to have a companion. It’s a lonely road sometimes, you know that. This farm isn’t helpin you there.”
“When the time is right, I figure I’ll know. Or somebody will discover it and let me know.”
He chewed, pondered that for a while. “Well,” he said, “Will’s got out of his marriage. Guess he’s in the same boat now.”
I had to smile. Brassard went on eating contentedly, apparently guileless. A farmer, planting a seed and knowing well that patience was required thereafter. It seemed that everyone on the farm thought of Will and me more than I did.
“And a good thing,” he went on, hardening. “That gal he married—not right, never was, not for a farmer’s kid even if he did go to college. Diz couldn’t take the sight of her. Took her to task if she came out here, put her through the wringer. Poor gal. We didn’t see much of Will for some years.”
“Ouch.”
He sighed heavily as his thoughts moved along. “You didn’t know her too long,” he said. “Diz. More to her than you’d think. Than you saw.”
“Well. Sometimes I got a peek inside. And the things she said about me—she was right, Jim. She had me pegged right.”
He looked at me gratefully. “She wasn’t soft anywhere, I’m not sayin that. Just she had parts of her where she wasn’t so prickly. Very smart woman. You’d be surprised the things that interested her. Hard to believe, she wanted to raise orchids. Orchids! In Vermont! Just a few, to look at, to play at growin. Years, she was a member of the American Orchid Society, read every issue of that magazine. We’d’ve had to build some special little greenhouse and we just never got around to it. I guess I let her down that way.”
His reminiscence was drifting toward the melancholy, and his face began to sag. “Even got me interested. Orchids, for Chrissake! Most amazin damn things! Twenty-eight thousand species of em.”
“I doubt she saw it as you letting her down, Jim.”
Bob came over to put his head in his master’s lap. Brassard stroked him thoughtfully. “Always plenty else to do, I guess.”
Chapter 45
It took me a while to see that something was changing in Brassard. If I’d had more experience in this domain, I’m sure I would have spotted it sooner. His melancholies lasted longer and got deeper, and he seemed older than his years. When he came to the table, his hand would reach for the chair back, miss, and have to take another try. One morning, he dropped his truck keys in some puffy new snow and couldn’t find them, and he had to come out to the barn to ask me for help. I couldn’t find them, either, but then I thought to use the magnetic roller we used wherever we worried about nails getting into cows’ hooves, or metal into their feed. It’s T-shaped, like a push broom with little wheels, except that where the bristles would be there’s a powerful magnetic bar. I swiped it through the snow between house and truck until I heard the satisfying click of the keys latching on. Brassard was pleased with my ingenuity.
But I was getting worried for him. Around the first of January, he missed paying a bunch of bills and had to pay some late fees—not for want of liquid cash, just from forgetting to pay, or losing the envelopes. He left the dome light of his truck on one night, and it would have run the battery flat if I hadn’t come along to turn it off. Still, I didn’t become consciously aware of this overall drift until he came into the house and didn’t take off his boots, didn’t even stamp them clean, tracking slush through the kitchen and dining room.
Alzheimer’s? I wondered. Depression? Some other sickness?
It was the latter, I discovered. One comparatively warm day—a good old-fashioned January thaw, Brassard said—I opened the cowshed door to the near paddock so they could get some sun and fresh air; they’d drift out on their own. Then I went to the upstairs of the old barn and threw hay bales down through a trapdoor into a utility room that also opened onto the paddock, so I could give the animals something to chew on out there. When I figured I had tossed enough, I took the stairs down and around and was surprised to find Brassard standing precariously on a short stepladder in one of the workshop rooms. He looked over at me as if startled by my appearance.
“And here’s the girl, in person,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m letting them out for a few hours. Putting the hay out.”
He clambered awkwardly down and sat on a bale. “Suppose you’re wonderin what I’m doin up there. Gentleman of my years, and all.” He chuckled uneasily. I glanced at the ceiling and saw the branching copper gas pipes that radiated from the corner and across the ceiling.
I looked at him questioningly, clueless.
“I’ve been thinkin,”
