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THE
BARN
“Look”,
said the real estate agent. “This place has a barn! Fine,
solid! Stood for over 125 years!”
We
looked and knew it meant that we could have horses, cows also if
we wanted. We admired the thick beams of chestnut wood, fitted
skillfully together and placed in exactly the right way to bear
any load. Strong, massive floors held a mountain of hay and
straw that smelled as sweet as a summer day in a meadow of green
grass. The floors were so thick that they did not shudder or
waver at all when the tractor with its wagon drove in.
I
looked at my father, his eyes were dreamy, conjuring the visions
of summers spent stacking hay, laying in corn and mucking out
stalls as great muscles bulged under his shirt. There was a tiny
smile on his lips that day as he told me how we would repaint,
rebuild.
In
five minutes, we had the stall layout planned, in our heads of
course, and set to work on it even before the papers were signed
that would make the house officially his. We smiled at each
other and knew nothing could stop us.
Nothing stopped us. We sweated side-by-side for years, each
trying to outwork the other. We smiled and laughed and suffered
together but he was the stronger, more muscular.
***
The wood stuck up at odd angels and the roof laid crazily over a
pile of beams. The paint, once bright and fresh and red after a
summer’s work that took us up and down the long ladder, was
gone, washed out of the wood itself. One wall leaned against the
rubble. That one wall refusing to give in to gravity.
There he was, ahead of me, looking, staring at the ruin the barn
had become. Back bent, head shaking slightly, he shuffled over
to me and I saw the color had washed out of him too.
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