by Keith Lord
Stiff-spined before the barn, Rex Turney regarded its pale amber halo, the iconic inverted trident of peace, with a measure of satisfaction. Just above the barn-door, it was an illusion of course – like the ideal it represented – rendered by the uneven weathering of the wood. Enough to put this old history teacher in mind of the heat-shadows at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The sign itself – it must have hung for years to leave such a stubborn impression – was gone. The barn’s previous owners, artisans of some sort, took it with them.
Given his druthers, Rex long ago would have painted over its legacy. Alas for the last three years, the barn had served as a den for Tim, his teenage son. Backed by his mother, Tim had held Rex’s brush at bay. But now he was at college. So much had Rex been looking forward to the coming act of obliteration, he’d even put it off a few weeks, made it all the sweeter, waiting for when his wife would be gone too, visiting her sick sister in Vancouver.
“When I became a man, I put away childish things,” Rex chuckled, rocking on his heels in the convocational manner acquired as a high school principal. I was a high school principal, he’d tell himself, granting it due priority. The incident with the Gosling boy, the early retirement – an unfortunate coda.
Nearly seven. Faith’s taxi would be here soon. Rex continued with his morning sortie, rounding the main house. Gaining the porch, he opened the front door.
Across the hallway moved an enervated, mottled little thing. It could have been a coyote in the last throes of rabies; a raccoon reeling from the hunter’s dart. In fact it was Roland, their decrepit tabby. Tim found it one morning, limping across the golf course. With dedication he’d never quite summoned for his school-work, he nursed the cat in the barn, reviving it with milk and fishy nibbles.
Now his sponsor was gone and Roland had taken a turn for the worse, losing weight and coughing up all sorts of goo. Faith spent a fortune at the vet’s, to no avail. Not that his wife would hear of the logical, the terminal procedure. The one that avoided all future bills. With Tim’s departure, Faith had become fiercely devoted to the little thing. Rex might as well suggest euthanizing her only son …
Roland turned its head, gave a hiss, and puked on the rug.
“You little – ”
Rex bore down on the skinny wretch with all the menace his broad frame allowed. A gelatinous midden was bonding to the hallway rug. Green as snot, cold as death, even its progenitor wheeled away in disgust.
Rex was applying one of the tissues he’d taken to carrying around when a voice issued from above.
“Poor dear.”
Looking up, Rex found Faith’s eyes were on Roland. He rose, taking her in: grandmotherly in her unnecessary coat, her bouffant do. Beyond a certain age, he sighed, women shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. Not boys, anyway. She’d been pushing forty when Tim was born. The little bastard had used her up. After Meredith, their daughter, Faith suffered three miscarriages. It seemed hopeless, but she longed for a boy, and Rex – assuming nothing would come of it – went along. Then ten years later – a tardy miracle – there he was.
“When’s the taxi coming?” Faith asked.
“Any second.”
“What time’s my flight?”
Rex brought out the paper wallet holding Faith’s travel documents.
“Eleven-forty. JFK.”
“Seems a long time to leave, dear.”
“Monday morning? You’ll thank me.”
“Isn’t it a Jewish holiday? Rosh-something?”
“That just means forty-five minutes at the Whitestone, instead of an hour,” Rex scoffed, handing her the travel documents as if conferring a certificate of merit on an undeserving student. “Touch-down in Seattle’s at three precisely. I emailed your information to Meredith. She’ll meet you at baggage claim.”
This as one might address a dotty great-aunt. At least he could rely on Meredith. She was a software executive, and a rock.
“Now don’t forget, Timmy’s home next weekend,” Faith said. “You’ll have your stuff out of the barn, won’t you?”
Rex wondered again how he’d acquiesced to such an alliterative train-wreck. Timmy Turney – he sounded like a magician, or a puppeteer.
“Yes, dear,” Rex replied, smirking as he considered his paint-job. “I’ll have everything ready for him.”
“That’s the spirit,” smiled Faith. “I’m not stupid. I know you and Timmy haven’t been pals lately. But this is still his home, and – ”
She was skirting the great unmentioned. After Rip Gosling’s parents lodged a complaint, Rex endured professional limbo, asserting his innocence while the board made inquiries. For some reason Tim was questioned, though he hadn’t seen the incident (the so-called ‘beating’ – considering his impertinence, Gosling was lucky to be alive.) Soon after, the board offered early retirement and the best severance package they could muster, given the outrageous medical claims of the Gosling boy. Straitened circumstances compelled the Turneys upstate, into woody exile. Tim moaned about his new school, where he was teased by the hicks. Faith offered the barn as compensation.
A sound brought fresh cheer – the arrival of the taxi. Rex tapped his watch as if in vindication.
“Here we are.”
“You keep me organized, dear. I’m grateful for that.”
She was getting moist. Rex saw the threat of a scene, played out in view of the driver.
“Good trip,” he snapped. “Give my love to Eileen.”
He bent for a kiss, but Faith was reaching up, a palm across his cheek.
“Oh Rex, you sound like you mean that.”
It was true – he’d never cared for her sister.
“The old bat’ll rally, you’ll see,” Rex chuckled, reaching for the cases. The cat was curled up against them – it could have been a ruined stole. It wobbled away, settling on the other side of the hallway. The condition of the thing: it was beyond a joke, surely? An embarrassment. Cruel.
Perhaps it was the emotion of departure, but Faith too seemed alive to these unspoken sentiments. Surveying the wizened feline heap, she pursed her lips. With a snort of resignation, she met her husband with fresh, determined eyes.
“Take care of that cat, will you?”
Rex, a case in each hand, took careful inventory of his wife’s gaze.
“You sound like you mean that.”
A tricky thing, death. In the Second World War, he’d read, only one in six soldiers discharged their weapons. The others refrained not from cowardice or fear, just – they wouldn’t kill. They say death is the great leveler. To Rex, it was the great divider. Some could, most couldn’t. Most, like Faith, couldn’t even give the order, say the words. But she wanted it … didn’t she?
“Of course I do,” she confirmed, eyes shuttling between Rex and the cat whose fate she’d sealed. “I trust you.”
And, sentence passed, she disappeared into the cab.
*******
Rex took his mandate gravely. He’d no affection for Roland, but circumstances dictated things be done right. He’d taught chemistry as well as history in his day, so he eschewed the expense of the vet, researching his own potion, surfing the web for dosages and compounds. The powdery cocktail he sprinkled on a bit of fresh salmon. After, Rex went into the yard. Finding a suitably reflective nook, he dug a hole deep enough to keep out marauders.
It was raining when he emerged from the house, Roland’s carcass in a shirt-box. But he kept a ceremonial pace nonetheless. Only fitting, for its final journey.
*******
Faith returned Friday, Rex meeting her inquiry as to Roland’s whereabouts with a soulful stare, taking her by the wrists on that same doleful journey, past the repainted barn – she didn’t even notice! – across the lawn to the herbaceous border, where he pointed to the cross he’d fashioned from two twigs. It must have hit her then, delayed reaction – like the mobster who’s rubbed out on his best pal. She made a strange angry moan. Rex moved to comfort her, but it was like she didn’t want him. Like he was the enemy. Overcoming her puny resistance, he took her in his arms.
“There there, let it go.”
She threw him back. Her face was molten.
“Let it go? You, you murderer – ”
But she couldn’t go on, her face finding his chest again, her fists like rain drops on his back. A bit ungrateful, Rex thought, guessing inner tectonics were at work. More than Roland, she was grieving for herself; the loving mother, needed no more, giving voice to her loss.
Rex decoupled, leaving her keening by the little grave. Before the cleansed barn, a thought came to him; something his wife would find comforting he hoped, though he realized later it might have sounded malicious.
“Never mind,” he called. “Timmy’ll be here tomorrow.”
