The farms of Candlelight extend just beyond the town’s neighborhood boundaries. There are farms beyond them, but they were outside of Candlelight jurisdiction. The people living and running those farms tended to drift away from Candlelight toward the next town to the south. Once, they were part of Farm Town but through the decades, particularly after the renaming and boundary line change approvals for registering Candlelight, they became part of somewhere else.
The four farms of Candlelight are of equal acreage, rectangular, owned by four separate families: the Compiseno’s, the McTavishs’, the Mollerus’, and the Dells’. Similarly, the farms grew the same crops; corn, vegetables, winter wheat, and soybeans. They had a few chickens and their homes looked identical. They shared equipment and helped each other plant and harvest. They were family farms that were passed down from generation to generation. The main market was in Jefferson City and they combined their crops and split the profits four ways true to their collaborative efforts. All four families were financially, well, comfortable.
Richard Dell inherited his farm from his mother, Tabitha, when she died. He married Angela, who was from Republic, Missouri and they had one child, a daughter named Anna. Anna chose a different path. She loved to paint and participated in the Drama Club doing everything from painting backdrops, setting stage lights and she even acted in a few plays. Richard and Tabitha attended all of them, of course, but he did not encourage his daughter at all. He constantly prodded her to take interest in the farm. In his mind, the path he had chosen for her was a down to earth, more realistic one than the pie in the sky ideas Anna envisioned for herself. Angela got sick, diagnosed with cancer, and eventually succumbed to it. Roy was suddenly alone with the promise to his wife to take care of their daughter and to support and respect her life choices.
It was early the day after Thanksgiving Day morning, still a few hours from sunrise. Roy had already showered, dressed, and was seated at his kitchen table sipping a steaming cup of coffee. His laptop stood open before him, lid up and his Facebook account staring back at him. He was looking at his daughter, Anna’s smiling face, her blue eyes shining brightly, her long dark hair so much like her mother’s fell past her shoulders. He placed the coffee cup beside the screen, placed his hands on the keyboard and typed, “Honey come home. I am sorry. I miss you. I love you”. That was it. That was all there was to the message. The same message he typed every morning since the day she left their home. He looked at her one more time, kissed his fingertips and placed them on her nose, the very same gesture he did everyday of her life. “I hope I see you soon,” he said aloud to no one, everyone, and anyone.
He leaned back in his chair, placed his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. His mind searched his memory of that last day. It was her birthday, May 30, her 17th. A senior in high school, and she is becoming a bright, beautiful young lady. Roy smiled to himself. Her mother would have been so proud of her. Man, she looks so much like her. What bugs him from that day is that he started it – he started that last argument.
“Happy Saturday, honey,” he had said as he entered the kitchen after his morning chores around the farm. “Got any plans for your birthday?”
She had her robe on over her right pinkflannel pajamas and it was open. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was standing at the kitchen table as she spread butter on a slice of toast. She looked up at him as she took a bite from the corner of the bread.
“No,” she put a hand on her hip and continued. “You forgot, didn’t you?”
“Forgot what, Anna?” he had asked her as he pulled the coffeepot from its stand and poured himself a cup.
“Today is when I have to go to Columbia to take the ACT.” Now she had placed both of her hands on her hips.
“I thought we decided that you weren’t going to go to college right way because you needed to learn how to run the farm.”
“No, you said that. We did not decide that. You did.” She did not raise her voice in dissent just like her Mother had done when she argued. “Dad, I don’t want to run the farm. I do not want anything to do with the farm. I want to live my own life and the farm is not in it. Now, are you going to drive me up to Columbia?”
Roy just stared at her and she stared back. Anna walked out of the room and that was the last time he had seen her.
He leaned forward, placed his elbows on the table, lowered his head into his hands and stared straight ahead. He heard rumors of her possibly staying with his wife’s sister. His wife, his late wife. What would she have done? Lupus is no fun. She would be so disappointed in him. She always accused him of not understanding their only child, and he knew it. He just did not always get his daughter. He certainly didn’t understand her resistance to learning to how to work the farm. The farm was generations old, generations. It was only natural it would fall to her and she would be the one to pass it on to her children and in turn to their children. That was why he wanted to include her in plans to expand. He wanted to bond, and he wanted her to be the farm like he is and how his father was and his grandfather. The farm is the lifeblood of the family.
He took another sip of his coffee and decided to get the moving along, the day was not going to wait on him. He turned to the counter and the coffee pot. He grabbed and filled the thermos that stood next to the pot waiting to be used. He paused in the mudroom to put on his boots and pick up his work gloves. He pushed open the door and into the crisp morning air.
It was dark and the sky was clear of clouds. He paused to look up and his eyes caught thousands of tiny points of light. A puff of smoke drifted from his slightly opened mouth and evaporated. He turned in a slow circle, changing his perspective of his viewpoint, and the specks of light spiraled with him. He spun faster, the twinkles of light blending together until he suddenly stopped. He stumbled briefly, still looking upward as the stars slowed to meet his stop.
“Oh, God, where are you Anna? Please keep her safe.”
The chickens clucking returned his attention to the task at hand. He walked to the chain link fence that surrounded the coop where they were housed and pulled open the gate that allowed entry into their space. Roy smiled to himself as he walked through the yard separating of few hens that had wandered into it from their building. Anna always wanted her space. He stepped through the doorway, turned to the cabinet that stood just inside and opened it. On the few shelves stood a few buckets with the first one used for feed. He pulled it from the stack and leaned down to the sack of layer feed to scoop it into the bucket. The noise stirred the chickens as they began to gather at his feet. He placed the scoop back into the bag and closed the cabinet door. The birds gave way to him as he stepped back outside and walked to the center of the yard. He slowly reached down into the bucket and there was a split second of silence as the mostly small brown bodies waited for the first toss.
A small noise interrupted the toss and Roy paused in mid-air. He turned to look behind him toward the gate and his gaze settled on a young woman with curly, shoulder length hair in a bright yellow jacket, smiling at him.
To be continued…
My First Stories 