But with the terrible weather, and the power outages, and the trouble, they were suffering. The hot and dry summer stunted their corn, and all they grew was corn. When the fierce rains began again, their fields were much damaged. Some rains, they can handle, but two or three inches an hour?
Joseph shook his head as he spoke. The Johansons had seen almost no yield this year. The herbicide-treated soil had no quackgrass, nothing to hold it, and the slight incline of much of that property meant that much corn and soil were washed away. I had seen it, the washes cutting across what had been good earth.
The Johansons also had several chicken coops, long flat structures with hens by the tens of thousands, all packed into crates. That had been a good cash yield, from one of the big companies that puts chicken into the stores in the cities. But then the power failed midsummer, not one of the storm outages, but when one power company wouldn’t provide to another. The fans failed, and the coops became ovens. Most of the hens died.
Mr. Johanson was beside himself, deep in debt to the bank, and the loans and loan guarantees and payments from the government that used to tide English farmers over no longer came through. Something about China, and austerity measures. Mike has told me about these things, too.
Joseph was worried, because his neighbor had taken to drinking more and more. Two nights before, there had been angry shouting in the distance. It was just drunkenness and rage, as he stumbled through the fields shouting with a bottle in his hand, cursing uselessly at his own fields, blasting the sun-blasted earth with his hate. The police came, called by another neighbor. Very sad thing, we both thought.
So we prayed together for his neighbor, for the family. And then we ate, and gave thanks. It was good, to be together. A blessing.
I WAS LOOKING OUT across our little farm, in the half-darkness of the night, and giving thanks for the blessing we had been given, when she was suddenly by my side without my knowing it. Like a wraith, she moves sometimes, my Sadie.
I asked her how she had enjoyed her time with Rachel, and she smiled and said it was good to see her.
She looked at the night sky, dimming at the cool of day. She said that the angels were coming soon. The sky will be filled with their wings. She was not upset, as she had been before. There was no seizure. She was very calm. But she was still saying it.
“We will be all right, when they come,” she said. “But it will not be easy, Dadi.”
And then she went inside. “It’s late, Dadi,” she called to me. “Come in.”
September 18
For the first time in a month, a gentle morning rain, soft and long and soaking. It will do the wheat good.
Mike came in his truck today, with the trailer. He was in a good mood. The buyer had transferred money, right on schedule, into Mike’s bank account. It is electronic, the payment, but Mike deals with that part of the business. What matters is that the payment was made. Mike had taken his broker’s fee, plus the costs for transporting the goods based on distance, fair as we had always agreed.
He brought cash with him, a large fat envelope, which he counted out once and again for me. I always tell him that I trust him, but he always laughs and says it is good to be sure.
When business was done, we talked. Or rather, he talked. I mostly listen. He talked about what was in the news, more about the cutbacks, about discontent in the military because of benefit reductions, and some large demonstration that got angry in Washington. But he seemed less worried, because, for this week, his portion of the furniture sale would help with his bills. It was good to see him so relaxed. It is so rare.
He always worries. His life is so difficult, so chaotic. He tells me of his struggles with his ex-wife, of custody issues and how unhappy his two children are, of his girlfriend who is pregnant, and how things are with the two of them.
Things with them are not good.
It isn’t easy, and never seems to get easier. For the years I have known him, it is always the same. Patterns of sadness and anger passing through his life like the seasons of harvest and planting.
Where we have the Sabbath, and the apples, and the oats, and the wheat, and the corn, he has the fights, and the anger from his radio, and the anger of his sons, and the bitterness of his broken life with Shauna. I think that is his ex-wife’s name, although usually there is a profanity before he says it. He says it that way so much that sometimes I wonder if that is her actual name.
And then the words came to me: The sorrows are planted, and they grow strong in the earth of his life, and they rise up, and there is harvest.
I think that, but I would not speak it to him. He does not need me to tell him something he knows already.
He does not need me to tell him anything, I think. He needs me to listen. So I do.
In so many ways, he is a good man, for all of his bluster and anger and cynicism. Yet contentment seems out of his reach.
But today, he was happy. If just for a moment.
IN THE HOUR AFTER dinner, as the night was gently cool, I sat with Hannah awhile. The table was cleared and the horses stabled, and evening prayers were said. Jacob was asleep, and Sadie was calm. We sat, and we did not talk much.
It was a good thing, to sit, calm and quiet.
Then she asked, “Jay?” And I said, yes? “Does Sadie seem better, Jay?” I said I did not know, but that she seemed happier. I said it because it was true.
“Will she be able to stay with us?” I said yes, because I knew we would be able to make do, although in my heart I knew that when age came upon us, she would have to stay with our son.
She was silent for a moment. “What of a husband? How can she marry? How . . .” And I hushed her, and said I was not sure, but that I worried about it, too. She is still only fourteen, I reminded. And she is better lately.
This sounded empty in my ears as I said it, but I said it anyway.
“Then why does she still talk as she does,” asked Hannah. “The women talk about it, and it troubles the deacons. Always the same these last months, always about the angels and the English. Terrible, strange things.” I said that I did not know, but yes, it was always the same.
“You know about the things she says,” whispered Hannah. Her eyes turned up, brown and anxious. My Hannah, she is never anxious. “Do you think it is true?” she asked. “It frightens me, sometimes.” There was a catch in her voice, and she pressed against my arm. I held her closer.
I did not know what to say, and so I said that such things were not mine to know.
We sat for a little while after that, and then she went up to prepare for bed.
I sat for a while, and wrote this, but I know tomorrow will be a long day.
September 19
I rose as I always do, just before the sun rises. But in the barn this morning was Sadie, already up, dressed . . . if a little messily . . . and milking. Just as she had before. Jacob was gathering eggs.