Lambsquarters by Barbara McLean

Author:Barbara McLean [McLean, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-37044-0
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2002-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

FOX

SUMMER ON THE FARM makes us lazy and it makes us diligent. The humid heat forces a slow pace yet urges wild growth and lush gardens, pastures and crops. The days are long and light. They begin early with the hoe and end late with the hose, which fills troughs for grazing animals, and baths for parched birds. And in between lie all the tasks of putting up and putting down, from planting in spring to constant harvest in summer as radishes sprout and lettuce ripens, as the first potatoes form on stringy subterranean stems, and early basil starts to shine.

Repairs seem to top the list for every facet of the farm, from machinery to windows, paint to putty, gates to rooftops. Fences bulge and bind, or give way to the constant worry of the flock and beg for wire, plier and twist.

It can be difficult to work in summer—too hot, or wet and storming, dangerous with lightning or sodden in mud. Steamy days when everything ripens and I can’t budge myself from the shade or the shelter of the house, its thick walls keeping cool around me.

Children’s tempers flare. They forget to share. They badger or beg to be taken to the lake, and my work must wait as we pack up and go. I watch with one eye and read with the other as they splash and swim, wear themselves out and abuse me for staying ashore, out of the marl and muck they roll in like puppies.

The summer of 1990 began with a tense sticky heat. It agitated the sheep; the ewes bleated continuously for different pasture, and the rams turned cocky and belligerent.

Late on one of those humid nights when the only movement through the window is the springing crash of June bugs against the screen, my friend Malka called. Since the day I’d followed her home years ago we had become close friends. She handspun gifts for my babies, had drawn my portrait. We gardened together. But never before had she called in the middle of the night. Her husband, her partner, the love of her life, had been driving home from the tavern when he misjudged his distance, crashed into a tractor and died.

In the week that followed, thunderstorms alternated with surreal skies of ochre light; carmine sunsets warred with cobalt clouds, and the air crackled with static. All the clocks in Malka’s house flashed 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 in a neon vermilion glare as the power bounced in and out with the lightning.

Days passed with baskets of fruit and bouquets of roses and squares and muffins and cakes and casseroles that arrived in armies, like ants on the move. A widow now, Malka ate none of it. She was quiet and alone. A space that everyone silently respected formed around her kitchen chair. People continued to arrive. They set up camp, cooler bars in the trunks of cars. Hot tempers stamped mooselike down the lane. The inevitable senseless lures of “if onlies” and “what ifs.

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