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There’s a sign by the front door that makes me smile.Have a berry good day, it reads, and I can picture a wife kissing her husband goodbye as he rises with the sun to work in the fields. Maybe she wakes up before him to start a pot of coffee and make his morning eggs. Or maybe he slinks out of bed and dresses in the bathroom quietly so she can continue sleeping undisturbed, only brushing a passing kiss on her cheek on his way out.
I stroll through the rest of the house with a sort of deference for the life and people who lived here. It’s so easy to walk past the collection of floral casserole dishes and China plates and picture a happy family around the dinner table saying grace. To look at the height markers on the door jamb, written in crayons and pencil over the years and imagine the house full of kids playing or coming in muddy from a day outside.
I find a hallway filled with black and white and sepia tone photos hanging on the walls. They clearly tell the story of Bartlett farm from the earliest generations. A pair of men stand in a freshly tilled field in work overalls, their arms draped around each other’s shoulders. Accomplished smiles light up their faces even as they squint into the sun and one of them proudly has his foot on a shovel head staked in the ground.
I recognize one of the men in another photograph. He’s older and has a woman at his side with a baby on her hip. They are posing in front of what I assume is the original hand-painted sign for Bartlett Farms.
I watch the baby turn into a young girl, gain a younger brother, learn to ride a tricycle, and jump off the pond’s dock as a teenager.
I know these are idyllic snapshots of years of life. Life that is bound to be full of laughter and tears, joy and heartache. But still I can’t help but feel a bittersweet pinch in my chest seeing happy,normal, childhoods. More bitter than sweet.
The resentment that suddenly overcomes me is suffocating. I mourn what I never got to have. It’s a sad kind of anger that makes you want to scream into a pillow and cry in a dark room.
But at the same time, I don’t want to stop looking. Like watching a movie you know has a tragic end, I am drawn to the fantasy of the charming, farm-family life even if it hurts.
There’s a photo that shows the barn in its just-built glory, another of a Fourth of July parade, and then one in particular that catches my attention. It looks like the family inside some sort of bunker or low-ceiling concrete dome, simple bunk beds built into the walls and cans of food lining shelves. A bomb or fallout shelter?
I pull out my phone and snap a picture of the frame, curious if this structure is still on the property, and making a mental note to find out.
The pounding sound has returned, different from the bag but still just as annoying. I leave the farmhouse and walk around back to investigate—even though I already know who the culprit is.
Finn swings the axe above his head and brings it down hard on the log of wood. He’s in jeans now, but just like this morning, he’s still shirtless, still sweaty, and still so gorgeous it hurts.
Last night, he fucked me slow. He didn’t grip my flesh nearly as hard as I expected him to. He was unsettlingly gentle, but I wonder, was his head thrown back as he rocked into me, or did he keep his eyes on the job in front of him like the wood? WasIjust a job to him? Or a hole? Was I even a fucking person?
Was the entire act a dream turned nightmare like it was for me?
I kick a piece of gravel as I walk and Finn spins at the sound. “Where you’ve been?”
“Around.” His lip quirks at my short response.
“So, is this what you do when you’re not killing men and ruining lives? Play lumberjack in the country?”
“Thought a fire would be nice.” He looks down and brushes wood chips off the stump before looking back up at me. “It was cold last night.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say to the uncharacteristically thoughtful gesture. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable, and I fidget with the keys in my hand.
“Anyway.” He clears his throat, as if my awkwardness is contagious. “I, uh—Come with me. I want to show you something.” He swings the axe to lodge in the stump and picks a white shirt off the ground, shrugging it over his head.
“What is it?”
“Just fucking—” I widen my eyes at his tone, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I mean, will you please come?”
“I’m shocked you didn’t gag getting that out.”
He shakes his head. “Follow me.”3
He walks in the direction of the woods and cold grips me when we enter the forest. Like the memories of what happened here linger in the air. Last time I entered these woods, life was never the same.
The path has narrowed since last time I was here, but Finn continues as if he’s sure of the way. The pond is visible through the trees, and I wonder if the dock is still there, it looked on the verge of collapsing ten years ago.
As if reading my mind, he says, “The dock is a quarter mile that way. I can take you on the way back.”
“It’s still standing?”
He chuckles. “Surprisingly.”
We walk in silence until we arrive at a clearing and stop in front of a semi-circle concrete structure that disappears into the earth. I recognize it as a similar shape to the shelter I saw in the photograph.
