“Yeah!” I insist. “There was always something to fix on the community compound. I helped my dad build sheds and stuff. We also had a few chickens, and we built a big enclosure for them.”
“Community compound, huh?”
Shit.
I bite my lip when Brandon repeats the word with a calmness that almost feels suspicious. My family isn't the ordinary type, so I usually try to avoid the topic. Especially after Linden reacted so horrified to the last bits I shared. I don't want the Woodrows to think poorly of my father. He's unique, yes, but not…I don’t know what they’re picturing, but he’s notthat.
“Uhm…yeah? My dad’s big on…” I trail off, looking for a word that fits. Notprepping, that sounds pretty negative. Notconspiracies, because that definitely sounds terrible, too.
I eventually decide on “homesteading” while falling into step beside Brandon, who's leading us to his beat-up truck parked in the courtyard. He’s limping slightly, I notice, but I don’t dare ask about it. Brandon stops by the barn to grab a wooden post and a coil of wire. Handing me the latter, he lets out a low whistle, and the next moment, Oak rounds the corner to jump into the truck bed.
“It shows,” Brandon says when we both get in and strap our seat belts on.
I blink in confusion, unsure of what he means until he clarifies.
“That you’ve been around animals before. I wasn’t sure at first because you were so hesitant. But they have some instinctive trust around you.”
As if to underline his point, the orange devil darts in front of the car, screeching. Brandon snorts but opens the door so Owen can jump inside, carelessly stepping over him to curl up in my lap. I wait until he’s settled, then start scratching behind his ears. It will take less than three minutes before I start sneezing again, but I can’t resist his nudging and meowing.
“We only ever had small animals like chickens or rabbits,” I explain. “Nothing big like cows.”
“Pet rabbits?” Brandon asks. There’s an odd undertone in his voice that gives me pause.
“Uhm…no. They were adorable—” I break off, cringing at my choice of words, but when I glance at Brandon, he doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with a grown-up man calling small animalsadorable. “But my dad and…the others, they always said animals should be…you know, useful. Not for cuddling. So…they were all raised for…slaughter.”
I hold my breath when it feels like I’ve given away too much. But if anyone would agree with my father, it would probably be a farmer. Then again, not every animal on the Woodrow farm serves a purpose: aside from Owen, there’s a bunch of cats running around in the barn. So far, I’ve also spotted a big hamster cage and two miniature pigs, which I thought were raised for private meat production, until Linden explained that his mom adopted them from an abusive breeder.
“Were you the only kid around that place?” Brandon wants to know as we slowly bump down the dirt road. Endless acres of pasture stretch out on both our sides. I imagine it must look even more impressive in spring when the grass is a lush green rather than a sad yellow.
“Is summer always this hot around here?” I ask instead of answering him. My shirt is already clinging to my back again from the short car ride, even with the AC blasting.
Brandon blinks, obviously surprised by my sudden change of topic, then shakes his head.
“God no. I mean, over the past years, we have had noticeably hotter summers, but this is still an outlier. Winters have become warmer, too. We got about a month less of snow and ice. Means there’s a lot of ticks and mosquitoes around to torture us. But people never learn. They still drive their fucking cars to the next house over, buy another fifty shirts they don’t wear, and cheer when politicians bomb the shit out of countries they can’t even find on a map.”
I hold my breath at the anger vibrating in his voice, my thoughts going back to my father and the topics he cares about—which are chemtrails, electromagnetic mind-control, and the flat earth theory, mostly. Rationally, I know that Brandon is correct, but it’s not always easy to shake off my father's voice whispering in my ear:It’s all lies, son. Don’t believe them.
“Hasn’t the weather always been subject to change?” I ask tentatively. Shame prickles at the back of my neck, making me shiver despite the stifling air around us. I don’t want him to think badly of me, I realize. Somehow, it’s incredibly important to me that he doesn’t make me out as a nutjob—and not just because he’s Linden’s father.
“True, but it’s become more unpredictable in general. The year I broke my hip, we had some horrible flooding. And fuck, but I already fear there’s another downpour coming for us. You feel it in those broken bones, let me tell you.”
I perk up at that information, relieved that we’re not talking about me anymore, even when I can’t detect a single cloud in the sky. “Linden mentioned he took some time off to help out around the farm when that happened.”
“Yeah, that was my fault. A terrible storm caught us off guard, and we had to get the cows back in. Some of them were standing knee-deep in the mud; poor things. Went out with the tractor, got stuck, then toppled it over when I tried to pull it out. Lost several ladies that summer.”
Brandon doesn’t look at me as he recounts this, but I can hear a slight tremble in his voice.
“That must have been bad. Like…financially?” I hum.
He doesn’t answer me at first. Instead, he stops at the side of the road. To our left, I detect the broken fence, with the wire detached from the weathered post. There’s no mean bull around. In fact, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even need me to fix this.
“Yeah.” Brandon sighs when he kills the engine, leaning back in the seat for a moment. “If I hadn’t had Linden, we might not’ve made it that year.”
I let the words sit with me, wondering if Brandon knows how badly Linden needs to hear them instead of me. And then, for a brief second, I allow myself to think my father will say the same to his friends in the commune. Maybe even to Dex, who happily shows off every piece of equipment they buy from my scholarship to his handful of YouTube subscribers.
Might not’ve been able to afford this without Micah—I shudder at the thought, scrambling to follow Brandon out of the car.
We work quietly but swiftly, pulling the old post out and driving the new one in before replacing the wire. The silence between us is filled with the chirping of crickets and buzzing of insects. Oak disappears into the field with Owen hot on his heels, his orange tail sticking out between the dried grass like a little flag.
