Harmony
“A blind horse doesn’t fall when he follows the bit.”
~ Loretta Reed
“Enough!” I announced loudly to Romeo, who was curled up in ‘his’ corner of the barn, sleeping peacefully. “I’ve had enough. He can’t just boss me around through vague text messages and expect me to know what the hell he’s talking about. He can talk to me. Face to face. Like an adult. This Tom and Jerry, hide-and-seek shit ends today.”
Other than a bored, semi-irritated sigh that puffed out his jowls, my four-legged companion had no reaction to my dramatic declaration. Which was surprising. Over the past couple of weeks since I’d sprung him from the pound, he’d grown to be very in tune to my emotions. When I was sore and aching from all of the manual labor I’d been doing, he’d lie beside me and press up against me like a heating pad. When I’d cried watching my favorite movie, Steel Magnolias, he’d crawled onto my lap and let me sob it out in the best dog-hug ever. When I accidentally watched part of a commercial to the newest psychological thriller blockbuster movie, he’d left his bowl—which had chicken in it—and bounded onto the couch to stand over me like the superhero protector that he was. But now…now he seemed totally oblivious to the fiery hot indignation and frustration that was exploding through my body like a volcano.
Whatever. I could handle this on my own with no emotional canine backup.
With the executive decision made to ignore Hud’s latest message instructing me to build a loft…a freaking loft…in the barn with the “supplies” laid out before me, I shoved my phone back in my pocket and started climbing out of the back of the barn. A grunt escaped my lungs as I navigated a safe but speedy path over the huge pile of two by fours, four by fours, plywood, and other wood stuff that I had no idea what to do with.
I was on a mission. And as with any good mission, I had clear objectives.
First, I was going to find out what in the name of Dolly Parton Hud and I were doing out here. Was this some kind of Habitat for Humanity project? Had he invested in this property and, after he renovated it, did he have plans to sell it? Was this a favor he owed someone? At this point, I didn’t even care what the answer was, I just wanted to know.
Second, I was going to demand that I have some support when it came to carrying out tasks that I had no idea how to complete. I had no problem doing the work that I was assigned, but I at least needed some kind of direction. Some training. Some education.
And third, I was going to call bullshit on the fact that Hud was “not avoiding me” as he claimed. He most certainly was.
Last week, I’d been fairly certain of his sketchy now-you-see me-now-you-don’t behavior, but this week it was as obvious as Pinocchio’s nose that was exactly what he was doing. Every time I would catch a glimpse of him he would disappear. Poof. We hadn’t exchanged one single word since last Thursday when he told me to be back Monday morning and added a gruff and somewhat condescending “Don’t be late.”
It’d been seven days of zero verbal communication, barbs exchanged, spoken pleasantries, or anything in between, and I was so done. This workweek had been even more frustrating than the last, and that was saying a lot.
Monday, I’d fumbled my way through sanding and staining two sets of bunk bed frames, which I’d also had the pleasure of constructing. Me. The girl who had never even assembled a board game. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d done it.
Tuesday, I’d been charged with scraping off wallpaper, which had to have been stuck to those walls for at least a hundred years, in the living and dining room of the main farmhouse. It was tedious, time consuming and frustrating, but at least I’d been able to do a serviceable job, especially after I’d Googled some handy dandy tips about speeding the process up. After soaking it with water and letting it sit, it scraped off so much easier.
But yesterday…yesterday had been the icing on the shit-cake Hud was serving me. Upon arriving, I’d been sent a text that I was back on landscaping duty. This time, however, instead of weed-pulling and flower-planting—which I was semi-qualified for—I’d been charged with installing an irrigation system. Let me repeat that. Installing. Irrigation. At least with that chore, I’d received some instructions. Of course, they were Hudson Reed’s instructions so, needless to say, they weren’t very descriptive.