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Spiced Cider Sunday

Stepping through the back door of the farmhouse that had been in his family for three generations, Lukas Hart inhaled deeply, letting the enticing scent of maple syrup, French toast, bacon, and coffee offer reassurances to his stomach that it would soon be fed. He left his sodden hat on a hook beside a row of ponchos, and his dripping boots on the wrought iron boot stand beside the door, before making his way to the kitchen and heading straight for the coffee pot.

 

“At this rate, we’ll have to check every tree for root rot when this rain finally decides to let up. If it decided to let up,” Luke grumbled as he added creamer to his cup. “Might as well chalk this up as another lost day and see what else we can clean or fix around here.”

 

“But think of how nice this old place will look when we’re through,” his mother replied, as she sat down at the table with her plate.

 

“I love you mom and I love that you can always manage to pinpoint something positive in an ocean of suck, but in this instance, I’ll take dusty end tables over endless rain.”

 

Any further response he might have made was cut short by a stream of loud, insistent honking from outside and the pounding of feet on the stairs as his younger sister came thundering down.

 

“Hang on and I’ll wrap you up something,” Luke’s mom offered half rising from her seat.

 

“No time. Gotta go. Love you mom, see ya Luke,” Billie Jean declared, punctuating her exit with a slam of the front door that rattled the windowpanes.

 

“That girl, I swear, one of these days she’s going to take that door clear off the hinges,” luke’s mom complained as she settled back down in her seat. “And for the record, there in absolutely nothing positive ive ever been able to pinpoint about ???”

 

“Okay, you got me there.” Luke conceded, before digging into his meal. For a little while, the only sounds in the kitchen were the scrape of cutlery on plates and the soft thunk of a coffee mug being sat back on the table.

 

“I know you’re worried,” Luke’s mother said as she drew lines in the syrup on her plate with her fork. “But worrying never did a lick of good for anyone except add a bit more silver to their hair and shave some years off their lifespan. We’ll be okay. No matter what this harvest yields, we’ll be fine.”

 

“This year, but…”

 

“This year is the only one that counts right now,” she told him firmly. “We can’t sit here and speculate on what next year or the year after that might bring. It’s a waste of time and brain power. Now, finish up your food and go see what you can do about that apple press, we’ll need it sooner rather than later, rain or not so best to figure out what’s wrong with it now so we can come up with a plan for how to fix it.”

 

“I hear ya, mom.” Luke replied before turning his attention back to two remaining bacon slices on his plate.

 

“Hearing me is one thing,” she replied, as she stood, taking her plate with her. “Actually heeding my words, that’s something else all together.”

 

She was right, but telling him not to brood was like telling him not to breathe. The best he could hope for was that tinkering with the press would offer enough of a distraction to get him through another two days of forecasted rain. If not, he was going to see about fermenting one of those gallon jugs of cider in the basement and seeing if that might produce enough of a kick to take his mind off shit for awhile.

 

He heard his mother turn off the faucet, then felt the press of her lips on the top of his head. “There’s nothing you can do about the rain, son but wait it out.

I know your father would be proud of everything you’ve accomplished in the past two years. You have to believe he’s looking down on us and smiling right now.”

 

Luke sighed at that, even as she hugged him to her. “I can’t help but feel like I could be doing more, if it wasn’t for this damn knee.”

 

She hugged him tighter than, and he could feel the moment when she sucked in a breath and held it.

 

“None of us are born with a gift for knowing the future,” she said. “I suppose if we were, it would take all of the surprises out of life, good and bad. You and your dad and that bull riding, that’s something I never pretended to understand, but I couldn’t ignore the joy it brought you both. You just have to look at the photos on the wall in the den to see that. Every time I walk through there and see the exuberance on your faces, bodies frozen in time, just you and the bull in mid leap or twist, I can feel it. You lived for those moments, and not matter how it ended, you shouldn’t look back on something you loved with regret. It was a season, like so many other seasons you’ll experience in this lifetime; some long, some short, all unpredictable. Cherish the good, learn from the bad, carry the lessons into the future, that’s all you can do. Dwelling just wastes precious time and none of us know how much of that we have left.”

 

“I know that. But I’m also aware of all the ways its slowed me down and limited what I can do around here,” Luke admitted. “I wasn’t thinking about the future when I was climbing up on the back of those bulls. I was thinking about the challenge. Testing myself and hopefully walking away with a buckle at the end of the season. That something could go so wrong that it isn’t even safe for me to climb a latter never entered my mind. Don’t you think it should have? A responsible adult would have given consideration to more than the next ride.”

 

Laughter erupted from her like a rifle shot, loud and long and echoing in the room. Luke watched her press two fingers to the space between her eyebrows and shake her head, shoulder’s still quivering with the force of her mirth.

 

“Responsible adults do things others might consider reckless all the time,” she replied once she’d calmed herself. “They strap themselves into stock cars, secure themselves in shark cages, climb up trees with chainsaws and rope slings in order to cut them down, and yes, even sit on the backs of bulls and attempt to ride them. You were good at it, and you made a fine living doing it while you could. Let me ask you this, would you still view it as reckless if nothing had gone wrong and you were still out their on the circuit?”

 

“Of course not, mom, but….”

 

“Aut! No buts. You gave an honest answer, and it’s the one I expected. For the record, I never once thought you or your father were reckless. You had skill, you practiced and you honed your craft just like any other athlete. I couldn’t have been prouder of you both. That knee might give you problems from time to time, but do you know what I see every time I catch a glimpse of you in the orchard or out in the shed?”

 

“No, what?”

 

“Someone who didn’t give up,” she replied. “Instead of holding a pity party and wobbling around here on crutches bemoaning all the things you would no longer be able to do, you picked yourself up by your bootstraps, went to physical therapy sessions, and regained more use of that limb than the doctors initially believed would be possible. If we need to hire someone for harvest time to see to the things that you aren’t able to take care of, then that’s exactly what we’ll do. Now I don’t want to hear another word about it and if I catch you brooding again, I’m going to give you your great-grandmother’s silver to polish, and you know how picky I am about how that’s supposed to be done.”

 

“Alright already, I give. I get the point. No more pouting, no more brooding, see, I’m going, and with a big smile on my face too,” Luke replied as he heaved himself up from his chair and limped to the sink as fast as he could manage to rinse his plate and retrieve the out garments he’d hung up when he came in.”

 

“By the time you come in, I’ll have our supply list ready for you to take into town,” she told him as she stuck her head through the doorway while he was yanking his boots on. “I’ll go ahead and make up the flyers too, since you, my stubborn son, will come up with every excuse to put it off. You make sure you get them put up around town when your down there.”

 

“I will,” he replied. “You’ll just call Angus to check in on me anyway, so I might as well get it over with. If only to spare myself a second trip over the sloppy mess the roads have likely turned into.”

 

“I don’t know why they waste the money and the manpower putting new gravel down year after year when the roads always end up a mess as soon as the big trucks start flying through here it’s the qualifying track for the indy five hundred, the fools. One of these times they’re going to meet another vehicle in that curb, and it’ not going to be pretty, let me tell you.”

 

“You’re preaching to the choir, mom,” Luke replied as he plopped his wet hat back on his still damp hair. “I’ll stop in and have another word with Sheriff Dohlman if it’ll make you feel better, but you know what he’s going to say.”

 

“Yes, and it’s a crock of horse pocky if you ask me, but speak to him anyway. At least this way we can say we’ve done all we could do to try and prevent the inevitable.”

 

“I hear ya,” he replied before heading back out into the rain.

 

^^^

 

Tires crunching over gravel, the rattling shudder of wheels bouncing over frost boils and potholes a welcome break from the monotony of smooth asphalt and endless rows of soy beans and corn. He’d lost the last semi-clear rock station the house before and was steadily skimming through country songs, seeking out a new one at the first mention of tears, heartache, death, or pickup trucks, which meant it rarely remained on a station long. Just as he was beginning to think he needed to add bars to that list, the mailbox came into view. When Mr. Dailey had told him it would be unmistakable, he’d scoffed to himself, willing to indulge the older man as long as it meant he could get on the road sooner rather than later. Now, paused beside the black and white metal cow with the old school milk jug on its shoulder to collect the mail, all he could do was chuckle. The man clearly loved his cows, which was alright by him. He’d rather work for someone with their imprint on everything going on around their place than one of those weekend cowboys who thought owning some buildings and a bunch of critters gave them the right to call themselves farmers. The livestock sure as hell deserved better than that and so did their employees. For as many inquiries as Mr. Preston Dailey had made into his past and reputation, he’d made as many into the man known around these parts as Mr. dairy.

 

In the end, it had been a no brainer. He’d signed the contract, faxed it back, and started packing the moment he’d gotten confirmation it was received. Rolling green fields lay on both sides of the quarter mile driveway leading up to the house, Jersey’s grazing on one side, dairy goats on the other, and up closer to the house, Holsteins, the prize of the old man’s spread. Windows down, he breathed in the sweet scent of damp grass and manure, the lingering traces of last night’s storm evident in the way the creek still overflowed its banks and left a low-lying field flooded in several spots. Not a single cow stood in the standing water, but deer did, at least twelve of them drinking as calm and completely at ease as if they were used to having the run of the place. Hell, for all he knew they probably were. He couldn’t see Mr. Dailey allowing hunting on his place, not even far from the fields where his cattle grazed.

Mooing cattle, tweeting birds, and rushing water mingled with the soft hum of a nearby wind turbine, and Jenson took a deep breath as he stepped from his truck, well aware of the irony of driving the very damn thing so many of those country songs were singing about.

 

He was still humming one as he walked up the steps to ring the bell, notes dying on his lips a few seconds later when it was abruptly yanked open to reveal a glaring man wearing lopsided glasses too big for his face.”

 

“Can’t you read?” The man barked.

 

Not even a hello. Who the fuck had he come all of this way to work for?

 

“Huh?” Jenson remarked, staring at the man who’d answered the door. Stormy gray eyes continued to glared at him as Jenson followed the line of the man’s fingertip to the sign beside the door.

 

I don’t like cookies

 

Got all the religion I can handle

 

Ain’t got time for magazines

 

And would be more inclined to shoot a politition than vote for one

 

If you be family or friend, feel free to knock,

 

All others kindly go away

​

“Yes sir, I can read,” Jenson replied.

 

“Then get the hell off my old man’s poarch,” the man replied, starting to shove the door closed in Jenson’s face when he jammed the toe of his boot in the crack to stop it.

 

Now that was beyond rude!

 

Inside, Jenson was fuming, but knowing this wasn’t the man who’d hired him helped him tuck some of his fury away. He was proud of the fact that his voice was steady when he addressed the man. “Sorry. Can’t do that. Your old man’s who I drove all this way to see.”

 

“Guess you’re shit outta luck then, because the old man had a stroke the other night. He’s up at Mercy, will be for a while. He’s not seeing anyone but family, so whatever you need, it’ll have to wait indefinitely.”

 

“He hired me on as farm manager, said he needed someone who could be hands on out here and take some of the weight off his shoulders for a while. I’m guessing he knew he was sick.”

 

“No clue, I haven’t lived out here for years. My siblings and I don’t keep up with farm matters, have no interest in the place whatsoever, which is why we’ll be selling it off. The old man can’t run it anymore and I’ll be damned if I leave the city to come back here.”

 

Jenson took in the rant with dawning realization, that he’d come all the way out here for nothing.

 

“If you’ll excuse me, we’ve got a lot of preparations to make,” the man remarked, and to Jenson’s surprise, managed to shove the door hard enough to dislodge his boot. For a moment Jenson simply stood there blinking and trying to work out his next move, ‘cause damn, this was unexpected. Hell, he didn’t factor in any sort of contingency plan for this trip. His only focus had been on getting the hell away from the memories and guilt that had plagued him since Doug’s accident. Turning away from the door, Jenson trudged back to his truck and took a moment to check the ropes keeping the tarps tied down. Still tight, which was good because there was no way of telling when he’d be unpacking it.

 

“Fuck!” Growling, he slammed his hand onto the steering wheel until his palm ached and he’d accidently sounded the horn twice.

Judging from the look on the face of the man stalking towards the truck, he was none too impressed. Firing up the truck, Jenson tore out of there in a spray of gravel. By the time he reached the blacktop he was marginally calmer. Space Lord blared from the radio, a merciful break from all the damned honky-tonk bullshit, and he cranked that shit up until the beat thumbed through his body and his fingers on the steering wheel began a rapid race to keep up. Windows down, he ignored the crispness of the breeze rushing in, to savor the rush of the wind against his face.

 

“I bet this is what flying feels like.”

 

The memory of Doug’s words echoed in his mind, and he smiled as he pictured Doug’s smile and the feel of his arms wrapped around Jenson’s torso, face pressed to Jenson’s leather jacket covered shoulder. It was something Jenson had never given any consideration to, one way or the other. All the bike had ever been to him was a backup way to get from one place to the other when weather was good. Newer model or not, big ‘ol trucks like his weren’t the best on gas mileage. Besides, the old KZ750 had been given to him in trade for work he’d done when the guy who was supposed to be paying him found himself short on cash and overwhelmed with a ton of bills. It was in pieces now in the bed of the truck, wrapped and tarped tightly so he wouldn’t have to look at it until he was ready to, if he would ever be ready for that. Doug’s blood still stained the paint and chrome in places and it was going to take more than a change in scenery before he was in the right headspace to clean it off.

 

Hanging a right on to Main Street, he looked for an empty space to park, cursing whatever city planners had a hand in deciding to go with parallel parking on all their streets. He cruised Main Street four times before finding a spot he could pull into, ‘cause damn if he needed to cause a fender bender just trying to park. Parrell parking had never been a strength, in fact, Pacey had called it everything from a disaster to a dumpster fire, with train wreck sprinkled in more times than he could count. His three-point turns were worse, but his twin couldn’t back up straight to save his life and Pacey had a lead foot that had left him with enough speeding tickets to wallpaper half the living room back home.

 

Of course, their mom’s tickets could paper the other half. When he hopped down from the truck he was smiling at the memory of his father’s exasperated face the day both his mother and Pacey had gotten tickets within hours of one another. It was almost odd, standing on that quaint street, watching a few cars rumble past, traces of conversations echoing down the block instead of the horns and jack breaks.

 

Smelled a whole lot different from the city too, more like fall leaves and cinnamon rolls than three competing dumpsters waiting for pickup day. Maybe it was just that he’d grown jaded and disillusioned with city life over a year before he’d decided on leaving and staying too long had soured him on the place. Twelve months was a long time to live somewhere you’d truly grown to hate. If it hadn’t been for Doug, he’d have given notice and hightailed it out of there before last Christmas.

 

Standing there on Main Street, looking up and down the block, Jenson toyed with the idea of just climbing back up into his truck and heading home, letting his mom fuss over him a bit and fix all his favorite foods, spend time with Pacey catching up and diminishing the surplus population of fish in the pond on the edge of the property. Thing was, that would also lead to a conversation about Doug, the accident, and no way in hell was he ready for that. Pacey already knew too much about the shit storm that relationship had been disintegrating into. Add in the twin thing and Pacey was likely to tell him a few things about the situation he’d never even noticed. Best leave that as a last resort for now, though depending on what else the town had to offer, it might move up on that list.

 

Damn, something smelled good. Halfway down the block from his truck he caught a whiff of the most tantalizing odor he’d smelled in a very long time. Detouring through the doors, he grabbed a seat in the nearest booth and didn’t even bother with the menu, just asked the waitress what smelled so good and happily ordered the special of beer battered chicken fingers, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with gravy and warm caramel apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

 

With a happy sigh he dug into dessert first, and wished he’d ordered a second piece, it was so damn good. Holy shit. A sudden thought popped into his head, and he took a picture of the bowl and snap chatted it to Pacey, nearly choking on a bit of crust when his brother quickly responded back with a pouting cartoon panda gif captioned with the words ‘you suck’ adorning it. Seconds later, Pacey sent a second photo, this time of him seated on the tailgate of his pickup truck with the contents of todays sack lunch spread out beside him. Double stacked sandwich, a wedge of chocolate cake, a peach and a 12 oz pop that looked to be unopened. Pacey’s hair was shorter than when he’d seen his twin last, and red instead of the black it had been. While he was contemplating the reason for this latest change, his phone emitted the tones for Don’t fear the Reaper.

 

Jansen took a moment to lick the the caramel from his fingers before answering to Pacey’s greeting of damn, that looks good, where the fuck are you?

Bumblefuck, Wisconsin,” Jenson grumbled, “A little diner in that town I was telling you about.”

 

“How’s the new job going?”

 

“It’s not, the guy had a stroke the other night and long story short, his kids are planning to sell it so I gotta look for another place to work.”

 

“There is that or you can just come home and work with me.”

 

“Soon, I promise. I just need to deal with some shit first.”

 

“best place to do that is here, with family, not strangers who won’t recognize when you’re beating yourself up over something that was not your fault  to begin with.”

 

“Isn’t your current job temporary?”

 

“More like seasonal, but they’ll be plenty of work to have come spring and dad’s got enough renovations planned to keep us busy all winter long.”

Jenson laughed and brushed a lock of hair back so he didn’t end up with any in his mouth along with his next bite of food.

“The house will never be finished, and you know it, I know it and mom’s been saying it for years,” Jenson remarked.

 

“I don’t know, man, he swears this is the last batch of things that needs to get done.”

 

“Uh-huh, which was exactly what he said when we were thirteen and spent the whole summer installing tile, switching out bathroom fixtures, removing wood paneling and learning how to put skylights in, which was a minor disaster, considering we never could keep the damn things from leaking,” Pacey reminded him.

 

“Yeah, well, he’s finally tired of mopping up the mess each spring, so we’re supposed to be exchanging those out, though he and mom are still going round and round about the coloring.”

 

“Which means it’ll end up some shade of brown, it always does,” Pacey said. “I don’t know why she bothers, even the one time they agreed on green he came home with that muddy brown shade claiming they must have given him the wrong one.”

 

“Yeah, had to love his excuse when mom insisted on him returning it too.”

 

“Remember how he tried to reason with her by saying that since they were closed until Monday and we did have the weekend off to help, we might as well

get her done,” Pacey said.

 

“Yeah, and she let him have that one, eventually. I think it was just because she was tired of tripping over shit and just wanted the whole mess to be over,” Jensen said.  

 

“Mom got back at him for that, finally,” Pacey remarked. “When she went over to Sears to pick up a new washer and dryer, standard, of course, none of the bells and whistles pops wanted her to get, you know how much she hates that shit. Got home and told him that since the guys were scheduled to arrive at three to hook it up, they might as well get ‘er done since there was a ton of wash to do. I was helping out at Cass’ place so I only heard about it afterwards when dad was grumbling during dinner. The shit-eating grin on mom’s face was epic though.”

 

Jenson shook his head, laughing at the mental picture Pacey’s words painted in his head. “I’ll bet.”

 

The diner was starting to become his second home. Jenson sat in the booth along the far back wall stirring sugar into coffee that had already grown cold. Every time the bell on the door jangled, he looked up to see who was entering, but so far it had just been older couples.

The guy he’d talked to on the phone had sounded around his age and nowhere close to as frail as the people who’d been stopping through all morning for their two egg breakfast specials, fake butter and pink sweeteners, please.

 

Conversations unfolded all around him, but they were all so mundane he only dropped in on them for a few seconds before letting his mind wander again. One lady’s doctor had warned her against using salt because her blood pressure had gone up again. Two women had grandchildren on the way, one dude needed a prostate exam.

 

It was a farming community, so weather was always at the forefront of people’s discussions. The current temperatures were mild for this time of year. Some felt that was a good thing and make for an easier harvest, others were worried that it meant the winter to follow would be a brutal one. It was the same anywhere. Worry about when the crops could be harvested, worry about when the fields could be prepped for the following year, worry about the amount of food that needed to be stored to get the animals through winter, worried about winter, because the unpredictability of it factored into everything from the town Christmas pageant to the annual horse drawn sleighride.

 

It sounded like the town went all out when it came to choosing a theme and decorating Main Street, not that Jenson would be around to see it. The farmer he’d come here to meet was already running more than a half hour late. Either he’d found someone else to work the job he’d been coming to interview Jenson for, or he’d decided that an out of towner wasn’t someone he wanted to take a chance on.

 

He got that, he did. He’d worked with drifters before. Some lasted a few weeks before moving on, some didn’t even make it a handful of days, it just depended on the type of work they’d done in the past. Jenson didn’t consider himself a drifter, despite his slightly nomadic lifestyle at the moment. Before taking the job that had brought him out here, he’d worked for two years at a small poultry farm with a couple he’d truly enjoyed working for. In fact, the job was waiting if he decided he wanted to go back. He didn’t.

 

He loved them to death but there were too many memories associated with that place and his fuckups.

 

Even with sugar in it his coffee was bitter, but he was going to finish it before he tipped the waitress and went back to the motel. Maybe Pacey would have a line on something for him, because at the moment he just felt stuck between two places he didn’t want to go back to.

When the bell jangled this time, he didn’t bother looking up, until the chair across from his scraped across the floor and a man dropped into the chair across

from him.

 

Well hello.

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