The Fence My Father Built (19 page)

I’ve already seen three guys pay with their lives. Lew, a new guy, left behind a wife and a tow-headed baby boy. And a teenage daughter, Susan. She must be about the same age as you are, Muri.

Susan's skinny. She wears too much makeup. Her outfits are too skimpy. I try to picture you, daughter, and I pray you don’t wear high-top basketball shoes with your skirts the way Susan does. She listens to a singer called Madonna and used to fat mouth her daddy before he died.

I hope you have the sense to eat properly. Remember how you’d only eat peanut butter and graham crackers when you were little? You’d clamp your mouth shut or just scream and scream when your mother tried to force you to eat any other food. Your mother said you were spoiled and difficult, but I thought you were strong and brave.

Susan used to argue with Lew about her curfew, about boys and parties, about getting her ears pierced. She’d stand out in the street, so it wasn’t really eavesdropping. I can imagine you being that stubborn.

That last day I worked with Lew he shook his head and told me, “That Susan—she never gives up. The younger generation is all going to the devil.”

We old-timers liked to scare new guys with stories of how a man could get impaled on the rebar up here if he happened to lose his footing, if he forgot to tie off. That's what we were doing, Lew and I, setting rebar. I always secured my line, but Lew didn’t. Said he couldn’t do his job tied up like a mule.

That day, the river was backed up against the sunset. I could almost feel the water bearing down on the concrete, millions of acrefeet boiling. It was as if the river thirsted for human sacrifice. That's when Lew fell, and his screams quieted everything for a time. Then we turned our attention back to the concrete because we had to get paid; we had a deadline. On the pour line, some grumbled that Lew shouldn’t have got the river mad. I pray for all the workers, especially new guys. Sometimes they die anyway.

Lew has been replaced by a guy from Oklahoma. Says he's got nine kids, none of them girls. Not a one. The Oklahoma guy drinks Everclear in the dark and says if something happens to him, well, he's got nine boys to take care of the wife. We talk about these things while we set the concrete forms, and at night we drink until we sleep.

Every day the Columbia bows down a little more, and I bow down right along with it. Don’t want to, but I do. I look to heaven and pray I’ll last long enough to see you, to tell you how I love my baby girl. Don’t give up on me, Muri. Don’t give up.

B
ack at Rubin's, my father's box sat waiting on the hood of the truck. It was already past five-thirty. Kristin was just sliding into her metallic red Accord. I was tired and hungry and needed to know where she fit into Rubin's life.

“So who's Kristin?” I picked up the box in case I didn’t like the answer.

He laughed. I looked into his eyes, which were a toasty light brown. “Books,” he said. “She does the books. Have dinner with me?”

“I didn’t let anyone at home know where I was going,” I stammered. Even in the twilight I could see the sparks in his gaze, hopeful, anticipating. Since when had I been so coy? Back in Portland no one knew your name. No one cared if you were hurting, or needy, or knew you’d driven your own father away at an early age. I wanted to believe that here, with emus clamoring in the pens, things
did
matter, that Rubin did care.

Rubin took a step back. “Look, I’m not trying to push you. Call home if you want. You have a phone now, remember?” He spoke as if he were calming a nervous mare. “Invite Tru and Nova over, too, if it makes you more comfortable.”

I looked down at my soggy shoes and torn trousers. “I’m a mess, that's all. And, really, you don’t want to get involved with—”

“With what?” He frowned a little.

“With me,” I said. “I’ll be honest. I’m on the rebound. My divorce only became final a few days ago.”

“Can we at least be friends? I know. That sounds like a come on, but I really enjoy your company.”

“You’ll be sorry.” My voice had shrunk to a whisper.

“We’ve all got stuff we deal with. I like to think God sees the glass half full. I’m an optimist too.”

I relaxed my death grip on the boot box. “All right, I’ll have dinner with you this once. But first I’m going home to clean up.” As if I could shower away the glow I was sure I now wore. If I weren’t careful, before long this guy would have me believing in miracles too.

I showed up back at Rubin's an hour later. I’d dressed in a white gauze top and faded jeans, fervently hoping we wouldn’t need to return to the stream tonight. Smells coming from the kitchen reminded me that I hadn’t eaten in hours.

Three dogs and two cats greeted me at the door, but none of them was impolite: Rusty, a Welsh Corgi; Stone, a black lab, and Speed Bump, an enormous stray he’d taken in recently, wagged and slobbered their helloes. The cats were a bit more aloof. At Rubin's command the dogs went back to their rugs and lay down, and the cats kept on being cats. Rubin wore a white chef's apron that said,
2007 Emus Barbecue Cook-Off.
I hoped we weren’t in for another rack of bird ribs.

Celtic music played softly in the background, alternating between joyous and melancholy. Rubin had cleaned up too. He handed me a stemmed glass of sparkling cider and invited me into the kitchen.

“Pasta,” he said, waving one of those spoons with wooden tines for grabbing noodles. “Quickest thing I could think of.” A pot of marinara bubbled on the stovetop, and I set to work arranging refrigerated breadstick dough on a cookie sheet. I’d already noticed how well we worked together back at the stream, anticipating each other's moves. Every accidental brush of our arms, every slight bump of our bodies in the cramped kitchen made my stomach flutter.

“Everything smells delicious,” I said.

He stopped stirring the sauce. “You look nice tonight,” he said. My legs wobbled in spite of my mental command to be still, yet I kept up my casual act. I was enjoying the vet more than I wanted to, more than I knew was a good idea.

“What temperature do I set the oven on?” I asked, and slipped the breadsticks in.

“Three seventy-five, ten minutes. If you can trust the fine print.”

When the oven timer chimed later we both jumped.

We loaded our plates and Rubin refilled our glasses. We drank cider, not wine; but I felt buzzy, a little like those Dali paintings where everything drips.

At first I didn’t even feel like eating, knowing it would be impossible to eat angel hair pasta with red sauce in any dignified way. But the sweet mingling of fresh basil and elephant garlic was too tempting to resist. When my first bite splattered droplets across the white blouse, I said forget it and dug in. I tried to remember we were only friends, but I felt flushed and clumsy.

After dinner we headed outside to the porch. We sat crosslegged on the wicker settee and sucked on after-dinner mints. We both loved fresh basil. “What a coincidence,” I said.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said. “Everything happens for a reason. You included.” He looked serious now and gave me that kind of stare that made my breath catch.

When he moved closer, I gasped and pressed myself as far against the back of settee as I could manage.

“You all right?” Rubin looked confused but backed away.

“You don’t understand,” I said. A hot tingling crept across my cheeks. “I like you—really. It's just too soon. I told you. I’m not ready. Yet. Maybe never. Besides, I’ve got kids to think about.”

Rubin stood up. “No hard feelings?”

“None. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given you the wrong signal.”

“At least you’re honest. I like that.” He smiled. “Friends?”

“Sure. Friends.”

It was too soon. A jumble of emotions and thoughts swirled in my head. If I was this uncomfortable, I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I told myself to slow down, that I’d only been out here in nowhere land a short while. There was plenty of time to sort out my life. I scolded myself to quit obsessing about my new neighbor.

Yet I continued to think about this unlikely veterinarian turned conservationist, whose manners both surprised and pleased me. Here was someone special, I concluded, someone worthy of friendship. What could be wrong with that? We sat back down a little farther apart and time flew by as we shared our pasts.

Sometime after midnight I fluttered back to my senses. I stood up and stretched. “Walk me home, will you?” My heart pounded at the thought of Nova waiting up, grilling me with a bunch of questions for which I had no easy answers.

Rubin switched on the porchlight and smiled at me. “You okay?”

“I feel like a teenager that busted curfew.” I leaned against the porch railing and slid back into my sandals.

He laughed and then placed his jacket around my shoulders. “We’ll just say we were watching the stars, right?”

“The stars, right.”

We strolled across the hill back to the trailer. The moon was nearly full and spilled light across the creek. The only sounds came from distant cows and the crunch of the dry grass beneath our feet. The night sky was spectacular. I was glad I didn’t have to count the stars. Whoever said there are a certain number of them was guessing.

We lingered along the way, but I said I’d better get home. I took deep breaths, tried to steady myself, and then stopped short. “You smell that?” Smoke. I was sure of it.

Rubin nodded and stared in the direction of the trailer. “Over there,” he said, and broke into a run. “Your place is on fire!”

I ran after him, and a few seconds later we barreled around the oven door fence and into the yard. Flames licked the nearby shed room. I dashed for the trailer door and nearly yanked the screen from its hinges.

“I’ll get the hose!” Rubin yelled. He cranked the spigot open and sprayed the roof of the trailer. “Sparks landing on the house,” he shouted. “It's liable to catch any minute!”

“Fire!” I screamed and dashed through the smoke. I tripped over a video game controller in my son's room as I tried to shake him awake. He roused, and I steered him into the hallway.

“Hurry, Truman.”

“Nova! Aunt Lutie! Tiny! We’ve got to get out now,” I shouted, and they emerged from their bedrooms with startled sleepy looks.

“Are we going to die?” Tru mumbled.

“No, son, nobody's going to die,” Tiny said. Jim the pig awoke from his spot next to the TV, and we all stumbled out into the yard.

The small storage shed next to the trailer shot orange embers into the air; some of the cinders swirled onto the roof of the house. Rubin aimed the garden hose at the blaze, but the flames edged closer to the house every minute. It was plain we didn’t have enough water pressure to make a dent. Then I saw the van through the haze.

Decrepit as it was, it was the only thing of value I had left. Flames poured out the cracked, blackened windows, and a burned-rubber smell bit into my eyes and nose as the engine compartment sizzled and popped.

“The van!” I grabbed a bucket.

“The pigs!” Tiny screamed, squeals coming from inside their wooden pen. He ran as fast as I’d ever seen my uncle move; and when he got the door unstuck, Dave, Gordo and the others raced into the open. Nova jumped out of their way. “Oh, Mom,” she said. “The van's totaled.” She buried her face in her hands.

Lutie disappeared into the house and emerged with an armload of pots, pans, and Tupperware bowls. She dropped the load beside a utility sink on the side of the house and proceeded to fill them. “Let's go kids,” was all she said, and even Nova obeyed. Tru threw water against the trailer walls as fast as he could, while Nova seemed intent on saving the van. Lutie muttered prayers as she filled empty containers.

The water from the hose was little more than a trickle now. “There's no pressure,” Rubin shouted above the crackling roar. “Get Linc on the phone.”

“What for?” I asked. Linc was the last person I wanted to see.

“He's got the water truck at his place,” Rubin explained. He dialed the number and tossed his cell to me. A man answered, and I quickly told the hired hand about the fire.

“We’re on it,” he said, and the phone went dead.

Please let him show up
, I prayed.

The pigs huddled next to Tiny and kept getting tangled in the hoses. They looked as forlorn as Nova, and all except Jim whimpered like small children. Tru had decided he belonged with the men and directed them where to point the hoses.

The only thing I could think to do was to fill up a bucket I’d found. Out here there was no such thing as fire departments or 911. Out here you had to rely on your neighbors— neighbors who might be trying to force you out or siphon off your water for themselves.

I managed to slosh most of the bucket's water down my shins. When I tossed what was left on the burning engine of the van, the fire practically laughed out loud at me. Nova sat at the farthest edge of the yard, staring at the ground. Rubin saw what I was doing and shook his head. “It's a lost cause,” he said.

“Isn’t anyone coming?” I pressed the empty bucket against my abdomen. I wasn’t giving up.

“Linc should be here any minute.” He shook the hose as if to coax more from it. “Pressure always like this?”

“Been that way awhile,” Tiny said. “Pipes rusted.”

Nova yelled, “Can somebody get these pigs away from me?” They had bunched themselves around her.

Tiny led his pets away from Nova. “They won’t hurt you,” he said.

When the water truck showed up, Linc took his time getting out of the cab. “Good thing I was close by,” was all he said. The men got to work getting the fire under control, and I kept the bucket brigade going just so I wouldn’t be tempted to break down and cry. Linc worked as hard as any of them
to put out the blaze. Maybe he wasn’t so bad; after all, he did show up with the water truck.

My fingers ached from hauling water. It was nearly light now; the first tinges of red and pink brushed the horizon. The air was still thick with smoke, but the noise had died down. The pigs slept in a knot next to a heap of old machinery. The scene appeared sad and ghostlike. Even Lutie and Tiny stood silently, as if there wasn’t much left to say.