Dark clouds settled over the rolling hills in front of us. Cows lazily grazed on long, waxy green grass. Their thin, cropped coats would soon be soaked in rainwater and they would mark the mud with hooved indentations. Those marks would be washed away with the rain, and then the rain would come again.
“Let’s bring them in,” I said to my friend and father’s farmhand, Ernesto. He watched the clouds loom over our heads for just a moment more before we moved towards the herd. His tan slacks drug on the ground as he walked, and the strap of his dirty white shirt fell off his shoulders. Our brown collie followed us at his heels, and the wind blew through our hair.
“I’m tired of doing this every day,” I said.
“It’s not so bad,” He replied, shrugging his shoulders.
“I would think so too if it was temporary. No strings attached.”
“Strings can be severed.”
“I suppose so.”
“Go inside and take a break. I can do this.”
“Are you sure?” I asked him. He nodded.
☙
I walked into the house, seeking shelter when it was still possible. Part of me felt bad for going inside where it was cool and dry while Ernesto took care of the cattle, even if he offered. The house was small, and dim, with warm lights flickering onto the dusty floral wallpaper. It was saturated with scents that seeped into the walls after too many years of my father’s too-expensive cologne and manure-coated shoes.
I flicked the lamp on in the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My hair was a mess, a dark brown disaster barely luminated by the light. The skin under my eyes was purple and bruised from long days that led into restless nights. I thought of Ernesto’s thin mustache and flexed my arms in the mirror, content with the fact that I had at least one thing going for me. Being a farmhand kept me in shape.
“Warren.”
“Yes? —Sir. ” I said, embarrassed. My father had been watching me stare at myself.
“Did you bring in the cattle?”
“Ernesto is doing it.”
“It feels like that boy does more for us than you do.” We were silent for a moment before he said, “The storm is getting rough. Tell him to come back inside.”
“Yes Sir.”
After my father had left, I hollered out of the bathroom window at Ernesto to get him to come back in. He grinned and waved his arm at me, dismissively. One of the cattle kept going the wrong way, so the dog circled around her. The wind looked strong enough to knock them over. The cow was digging her heels into the dirt in an attempt to get away from the clanging of the tin roof on the barn. The dog barked at her, excitedly jumping and nipping inches away from her hooves. I cracked a smile and shut the window.
I thought about how Ernesto chose to stay the night with us every so often. It was a choice for him, a job. When his shift was over, he got to go out with girls or drive far away. He was barely an adult, just a year or two older than me, and could still do whatever he wanted. Yet, even with the expanse of empty fields that surrounded me, I felt as if I could not move.
☙
That evening, the three of us sat in the living room. My father lit a cigarette and read Of Mice and Men. Ernesto stared out of the window, sitting on a towel, watching the swirling sky shower onto the land. The tin roof on the top of the barns banged all throughout the evening.
“Could I stay here tonight?” Ernesto asked.
My father folded his book over the desk. “I don’t expect you to walk home in this weather.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
My father nodded and left for the bathroom. I leaned forward on my armchair and whispered to Ernesto, who turned in his seat to face me.
“I think I’m going to ask him tonight,” I said.
“About college?” He asked.
“Yeah. Should I?”
“Might as well.”
“What if he says no?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll help you figure it out,” he said. He got out of his chair, patted me on the back, and walked into my bedroom. I heard him pull the dusty mattress out from under my bed and stretch the elastic of our spare fitted sheet from the other room. I joined him, and soon enough, we were both asleep.
☙
I awoke with Ernesto asleep on a mattress, snoring almost silently. It was still dark outside. The moonlight shone through the window on the hardwood floor next to the sprawled quilt which did not quite cover Ernesto’s feet. He was too tall, much taller than I was.
When I went into the kitchen, my father was sitting there, staring at another book. He had finished Of Mice and Men, and was now rereading White Fang. “How late is it?” I asked him. He looked up from his book, startled. He didn’t realize I had stepped out of my room. “About four,” he said.
“Shouldn’t you be going to bed soon?” I asked.
“Shouldn’t you?”
“I was. The thunder woke me up.”
“Hm,” he said, and closed his book. “I’m thinking about letting Ernesto go.” I rubbed my eyes with my wrist and sat next to him. The thunder crashed louder than it had yet that night, and the cattle clamoured from the barn. I got up out of my seat, ready to go outside and calm them before my father looked at me. I sat back down. “Don’t go out there. They’ve been up all night.”
“Yes sir.”
“I know you like that boy, and I know he does good work.”
“He does.”
“We can’t afford him anymore. I’m going to let him stay here a couple nights, until he can get home, and then I’ll let him finish out the summer. No more, though.”
“I thought we were making enough.”
“We’re not,” he said. I looked at him, really looked at him, and saw how thin his hair was, how thick his arms were from years of ranch labor. We both knew we couldn’t survive another season without help. I knew he couldn’t do it without me. “I think we need to keep him,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“I’ve been thinking about college. I got a full ride in Maryland.”
He tilted his head upwards, to look me in the eye. I turned to avoid confrontation and looked at the bookshelf in the next room, full of first editions and signed copies. The silence between us became thick, almost unbearably so. My ears burned bright red as he watched me, and my neck became flushed. Part of me was embarrassed to bring this up to my father, to suggest something most parents dreamt their children cared about. There was not a noise in the house except Ernesto’s light snores and the pounding rain. My father seemed paralyzed by my request.
“We can’t afford that. I can’t keep this land by myself,” he said.
“You can use my college fund for the next couple of years. Don’t we have one?”
“I did.”
“We did? What happened to it?” I looked back at the bookshelves and remembered the times my father would spend hours at his desk, trying to learn how to invest in stocks. He would get sucked into pyramid schemes, cursing at himself when he fell for another scam, and work harder than he ever had the next day. It was almost as if he thought careful labor would make up for all his losses. I knew he did it for me, for the farm, but that didn’t mean I ever wanted him to.
I said, “I want to get a fine arts degree. I’ve always got good grades, and I know you love to read, so part of me thought you would understand. Maybe you wanted to do something like this when you were younger.” My father had stopped me before I could continue with the wave of his hand. “It’s a no,” he said.
“If we kept Ernesto, and if you sold-”
“No.”
Anger welled up inside of me, but I did not show it. I unballed my fists and walked back into my room, shutting the door gently. Ernesto slept peacefully, moonlight now illuminating his face, the curve of his jaw. When I climbed into my bed once again, defeated, my stomach turned as I watched him sleep.
I felt bad for Ernesto. He would find out tomorrow that he would lose his job and be forced to face the uncertainty of unemployment. I felt bad for myself, since I would be losing my closest friend. But most of all, I felt envious. I envisioned him climbing into his truck, away from here, an entire school year ahead of him. He could do whatever he wanted, and yet, all he wanted was to stay. Watching him was what hurt me most of all, seeing how deeply he slept, knowing I have not slept through the night in years, and would not, until I was as free as he was.
☙
The next morning, the sun blazed hot onto the muddy ground. When I stepped, my boots became encased in a thick layer of mud, which hardened around my soles if I stopped moving. Ernesto’s soles were muddy the entire morning, as he cleaned the pens and fed the goats.
I grabbed a bushel of hay and walked back to the barn when I saw Ernesto across the field. My father walked up to him, hands on his lower back, and pulled him aside under a weeping willow. They were so far away, their bodies became small specks under the bright green of the tree’s leaves.
They talked for a moment. My father lifted his right hand as he tried to explain his situation to Ernesto. When they were done, my father patted him on the back, and walked away. Ernesto turned around and got to work once again.
☙
“I’m sorry,” I said.
The sun had set, and the chill of the night air began to prick the hairs on Ernesto’s tan forearms. I sat next to him, leaning against the barn. This was the first time I had talked to him all day.
“It’s alright. I knew it was coming,” he said.
“You did?”
“No!” He made himself laugh. He made me laugh, too. It got silent for a moment, and he bounced his leg.
“If it makes you feel better, I tried to convince him to keep you.”
He was silent for a moment, before he said, “Do you want to come with me?”
I sat upright and turned to Ernesto. His face was blank, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was joking, or if it was because he was entirely serious.
“Do you mean that?” I asked him.
“Of course, I do,” He replied.
“Where would we go?”
“Where did you apply?”
“I got a full ride for the University of Maryland.”
“To Maryland it is,” he said.
I rested the right side of my body onto his left. I didn’t mean to, some part of myself just compelled me to. He kept looking forward, and leaned back onto me.
☙
The end of summer came suddenly, too suddenly for my father. The air was still hot and sticky, coating our skin as we worked, but there was a noticeable shift in who we were. Ernesto and I had become paranoid, worried that if we did anything incorrectly my father would find out what we were planning.
We would sneak into the pastures and talk about the future. Cross-legged on the floor of the barn, Ernesto looked at the drawings in my sketchbooks as I budgeted on another sheet of paper. We found that packing up and moving to another state was harder than we anticipated. “What am I going to do in Maryland?” he asked me. I paused for a moment. Between us, he was never the one asking the questions.
“What do you want to do? I’m sure it’s not farmwork.”
“You would be surprised,” he said, rolling over to lie on his back. He put his arms behind his head. I picked out the hay that got tangled in his hair.
☙
Throughout the rest of the summer, my father had not forgotten about my college proposal, but he had not shown a change in his decision, either. We could not afford the frivolous business ideas he was always partial to, but he still did not budget in the way he should. He bought more livestock, hired multiple repairmen, and invited family over to eat and drink frequently. I have never considered my father an overly expensive man per se, but one who did not know what to do with money, and never felt capable of admitting he was wrong. This was the root of our financial issues.
He was atypically kind to Ernesto the entire summer, but on his last day, he was much more so. My father did not bother us as we goofed off in the pasture, our backs arched downwards, hands clutching our strained stomachs from laughing so hard. He did not fuss when the barn was dusty, and the horses grew bored in their pens. This kindness did not last long.
Evening fell slowly that night, so Ernesto and I decided to sit on the front porch, watching the western sky. We sipped on sodas and sat with our arms outstretched on top of our bent knees. His legs were long enough to reach his shoulders when he slumped, long enough to justify the baggy jeans he wore that drowned out the natural curves of his skinny calves, since he wore them for the length. Orange sunlight hit his tan face.
We sat in silence. Inside the house, my drawers were empty, my art supplies were gone, and my shelves had clear patches that the dust could not reach when they used to be covered with knick-knacks. The black suitcase we hid in the barn was next to us, with a 50-milliliter bottle of vodka resting on the top. Ernesto stole it for me a few days earlier, as a symbol of independence. Evidently, I needed the liquid courage.
I looked at Ernesto, and saw that he was already watching me. We both turned to stare at his rusty truck. He took a sip of his soda and handed me the glass. He unscrewed the vodka, and handed that to me, too. I arched my neck and drank. The smooth vodka slid down my throat, and the orange soda I chased it with fizzed where the alcohol once was on my tongue. We got up to leave.
My bag drug on the dirt behind me as we got up and walked to the truck. Ernesto ducked into the front seat, fumbling with the key, and turning on the engine. I put the suitcase in the passenger seat and climbed into the passenger side.
When we drove away, my father opened the front door, and stood on the porch. I could tell he knew what we were doing. I remembered what it looked like when his face fell from feet away, the moment he stopped yelling and started watching. He became still, entirely so, and smaller than he has ever been before. The house he stood in front of shrunk with the distance, but the acres of land rolling in front of him only grew. He was alone now, in his little house, with his enormous land, and even from the end of the winding dirt road, the only thing separating us was our size.