Putting Down Roots – Valerie Hunter

“This Raymond Treadway’s place?”

Dean turned from the fence post he was pounding into place and squinted up at the stranger on the horse. “He’s not here.”

“Oh, I know that,” the man said. He had bushy sideburns and a smile that looked this side of simple. “Miz Treadway here?”

Dean squared his shoulders. “What’s your business with her?”

The man dismounted. “I got a letter here from her husband. We’re pals, and when he heard I was heading back this way, he thought I could deliver it for him.”

“You know my Raymond?” Ma’s voice seemed to soar across the yard, bright as the late May sun, and Dean stood aside as she flew past him toward the stranger.

“Yes, ma’am! We’re fine pals, me and Raymond. I feel like I know you already, the way he goes on about you. I’m Marcus Leeds, by the way. Perhaps he’s mentioned me in his letters?”

Ma beamed, and Dean had to look away. Was this all it took to make her happy? Some cockamamie stranger who knew Pa?

“Come in for a spell,” Ma chirped. “You’ll stay for supper, won’t you?”

“I’d be a fool to turn down a real meal, particularly one from Selah Treadway! Why, Raymond says you’re the best cook in all of Ohio.”

“Oh, go on,” Ma said with a laugh that gnawed at Dean’s ears. “Dean, where are your manners? Take care of Mr. Leeds’ horse.”

Dean took the sorry-looking horse’s reins and led it to the barn, glad for a moment’s peace. What did this Mr. Leeds have to come along for, getting Ma all atwitter and disrupting their lives? Letters from Pa were bad enough without having one personally delivered.

Dean gave the horse a good rub down; it looked bone-weary and wasn’t to blame for its idiot owner. Of course his own mood wasn’t Leeds’ fault, either. This was all Pa, finding a way to remind them of his existence.

Personally, Dean was sick of such reminders, even if Ma wasn’t.

By the time the horse was rubbed down, watered, and fed, and their own animals cared for, Ma had supper on the table. Thankfully Dean wasn’t called on to make conversation, just to sit there while Leeds prattled on about California and Pa while Ma nodded encouragingly and peppered him with questions whenever his words slowed.

The only time Leeds turned his attention to Dean was to say, “I didn’t expect you to be such a strapping big boy. Way Raymond talked, I thought you were just a little fella.”

Was that how Pa saw him? As ten years old, like time had stood still for the past eight years?

“I reckon he wouldn’t know anything about me,” Dean said.

“Now, Dean…” Ma began.

“What about you?” Dean asked Leeds. “You leave a family behind?”

“No, I’m a bachelor. I had a sweetheart when I left, but she wasn’t interested in trekking across the country, and I could hardly expect her to wait for me…”

Dean gave a harsh laugh. He could feel Ma’s eyes on him, angry.

Leeds went on, oblivious. “I’m eager to get home to see my ma, though. Pa died last year, and I promised Ma I’d come back and look after her.”

Dean almost said that it was nice that some people kept their promises, but instead he excused himself. Better to leave the table than to anger Ma even more. Besides, his issues with Pa were none of Leeds’ business.

Dean finished with the fence posts that Leeds’ arrival had taken him from, trying to clear his mind. It didn’t work, but he did get the job done.

When he finished, his neighbor Grady was walking down the path toward him, jiggling his baby son in his arms. Grady was four years older than Dean, and growing up he’d been friends with Dean’s older brother Alec. The two had delighted in ignoring Dean then, but Grady was a second son, too, and in the end that turned out to be a better bond than age. They’d both been left behind, both become the men of their farms.

Grady had gotten married a couple years back, but Dean still hadn’t quite gotten used to that. The baby in particular was jarring, like that time it had snowed on the first of June.

“Jack was fussing, thought I’d take him for a walk,” Grady said. “Fence looks good.”

“It’ll do,” Dean said.

“That stranger find your place?”

“Yep.”

“Everything all right?”

“Just dandy.”

Grady gave him a look, shifting the baby to his other hip. “You sure about that?”

“Yep. Just didn’t feel like hearing about the wonders of California all evening.”

“Your pa all right?”

“Of course,” he said, then wished he hadn’t. After all, Pa’s continued health wasn’t a given; Grady’s own pa and brother had died of a fever out there. Dean looked away.

“You want me to leave you be?” Grady asked.

Dean managed a smile. “Nah, let’s walk to the orchard. I think this might finally be the year we get apples.”

“You say that every year.”

“Well, one of these years I’m bound to be right.”

The apple trees always calmed him. He’d helped Pa plant them almost nine years ago, had cared for them faithfully through dry years and storms, and had been keeping a careful eye on them this year after their blossoms fell. He tried not to get his hopes up, but it surely looked like apples were developing to him.

Grady agreed. They stood in the little orchard and talked apples and corn and weather. No mention of California, no Pa, nothing unsettling. The baby drowsed on Grady’s shoulder, reaffirming that the farm was the most peaceful place on earth.

After Grady went home, Dean stayed on the edge of the fields, watching as Leeds left. He knew it was impolite not to say good-bye, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. At least Leeds wasn’t staying the night, though likely Ma had offered. Dean couldn’t shake the memory of her smile at supper. A smile shouldn’t be so unnerving, but it was.

When he finally went in, Ma had gone to bed, though she’d left the lamp burning for him. He could see the open letter from Pa on the table, but he left it be. Pa’s letters were always the same—I miss you. I get along all right. No luck yet, but things will change soon. Sometimes he’d address a portion specifically to Dean, but these too were maddeningly predictable—How’s the cow? You might plant some parsnips. Take care of your ma. Dean blew out the lamp and went to bed.

The next morning, Ma waved the letter in his face at breakfast. “Isn’t it grand?”

“What?” he grunted.

“You didn’t read it?”

He shook his head, eyes on his cornmeal mush.

“He sent for us.”

It took every ounce of his control not to let his head snap up, not to ask all the questions that raced through his mind, violent as a twister. This was what he’d dreamed about when he was ten, but he wasn’t ten anymore.

“You hear me, Dean? We’re going to California.”

“When?” he managed to choke out.

“Soon’s we can sell the farm. Pa said to have Lawyer Morris arrange it.”

“Lawyer Morris died three years ago.”

“Of course, but your pa don’t know that. We can ask that new man, though, that Mr. Atkins. Pa thinks we could get a thousand dollars for it. Enough for the journey with plenty left over.”

“So he didn’t strike it rich himself then?” Dean asked. It came out angrier than he had planned, but he didn’t care.

Ma ignored his tone. “Says he’s got a man interested in going into business with him. Thinks with the money we bring, he could start a grocery. All three of us could work there.”

“Oh.” Dean pushed back his chair and reached for his hat. “I’ve got work to do.”

It was nothing that couldn’t wait, but he needed to get out. In the fields he hoed with unusual viciousness, hoping that if his body worked hard enough and fast enough, his mind might slow down. Or maybe that he wouldn’t have to think at all.

But all he did as the morning wore on and the sweat slicked his back was get angrier. He wasn’t ten years old anymore, going to bed every night dreaming of California. This was his farm, his home, and it was worth more than a thousand dollars. And that was because of him. He had succeeded where his father had failed.

He could still remember the day Pa left. Dean had sobbed because Alec was the one sitting smugly in the front of the wagon instead of him, and Pa had knelt down and looked him in the eye and said, “No tears now, Dean. You need to be a man. I’m leaving the farm in your care, all right?”

Of course those had just been words then. Dean had been the errand boy, the extra pair of hands while Ma and Cass and a string of ineffective hired men did the heavy work, slaving to scratch a living out of the tired soil. Each year passed with haggard looks and tense conversations with the shopkeepers and the banker.

And then Cass ran off with that no-account Ernest Firley, and the latest hired man got let go because they couldn’t pay him, and Ma just looked so tired. Dean had been fourteen and he’d taken over, discovering with pride that he was no longer a runty little fellow but an actual farmer. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d done it.

How much of Pa’s own sweat had ever gone into this land? They’d bought the farm when Dean was six. Before that they’d lived in Kentucky, and before that, Maryland. Pa himself was from Virginia, and Dean knew he hadn’t stayed in the same place in California these past eight years, had even spent a year in Oregon. Maybe the problem was that Pa didn’t even know what a home was.

Likely Pa wouldn’t recognize the place if he saw it now, and the burgeoning fields were the least of it. They were a different family then, him and Ma and Cass and baby Noah waving as Pa and Alec rode away. In his memory the four of them looked inconsequential while Pa and Alec were large and important, ready to conquer the world.

Dean snorted. It was a ten-year-old’s memory, distorted. What had Ma seen that day? What did she still see, when she thought of Pa? There was no denying the light in her eyes this morning, the hope and the happiness. It was as though eight months had passed instead of eight years, as though there was still a family to reunite. He’d always thought of Ma as practical, so how could she act like this?

At noon when he trudged into dinner, her eyes were still bright. “We’ll visit Cass on our way west. Won’t she be surprised!”

Dean gave a noncommittal grunt. He’d stopped trying to figure out Cass’s reaction to anything. Used to be they were good pals, but that was before the hard years. The crops had died and Noah had died, and something had seemed to die in Cass, too. He still couldn’t figure if she’d run off with Ernest Firley because she genuinely liked him, or just because he provided a means of escape. Her letters were few and far between, brief and bland, worse than Pa’s. She’d had a baby last year, and hadn’t bothered telling them until after the fact.

Ma chattered on, every other sentence starting with, “Pa says.” Dean hadn’t heard her talk this much in years. “How quickly do you think we can sell this place?”

What, Pa hadn’t said anything about that? Dean didn’t say that, though, just mumbled, “Dunno.”

She gave him an eagle-eyed stare. He tried to ignore it, but her eyes seared into him, and he knew they would until he spoke.

“We could make more if waited until after the harvest,” he finally offered. “The land would still be worth plenty, plus we’d have the money from the corn and the rye.”

“But then we couldn’t leave till next spring.” She frowned. “Though I reckon that might not bother you.”

“I reckon it wouldn’t,” he replied.

Ma’s expression shut like the door of the cabin, and she didn’t talk during the rest of the meal. The silence should have been comforting and familiar, but instead he found it as upsetting as her chatter about Pa.

One silent day passed into another. They grunted good night and good morning, but there was no real talk. Was Ma furious with him, or did she feel just as mixed up as he did?

If they sold the cow and Dean’s horse, it would be enough money to send Ma to California. He could say he’d follow in the spring, and then when he didn’t… well, what could they do about that?

Except Pa wanted the money. Probably the money was the only reason he was sending for them at all, had Ma considered that? Well, they could sell the land, sell everything, but Dean could stay on. Hire himself out to whoever bought it, or to Grady. Save up his money year by year until he could afford his own land, land nobody could take away from him on a whim.

It should have felt good to have a plan, but it didn’t. He didn’t tell Ma over supper, unsure of how to break their silence, least of all with this.

After supper, Ma turned to him. “It’s time we talk.”

Dean nodded, feeling shaky inside, afraid of what she might say. Of what he might say in return.

“I’m the one who had us stay here, eight years ago. Your pa was all for the whole family going. I said no. Said Noah was too small, the journey’d be too hard for him. Thought your pa wouldn’t like California, that he’d be back within a year and would be pleased then that we’d held onto the farm. Course I didn’t tell him that part, but that’s what I was thinking.” She looked at him with those fierce eyes of hers. Alec had those eyes. “You’re going to be angry with your pa, best be angry with me, too.”

Dean shook his head even as the doubt crept in. The might-have-beens. If they had gone with Pa, would they all be together now? Or even if Noah died regardless, would Alec still be around? Would they all be happy and—

Is this what Ma lived with every day? Might-have-beens could haunt you if you let them. Hell, even if you tried not to let them, they had a tendency to sneak in, anyway.

“Then he wrote a year in,” Ma went on. “Said life was hard out there, but it was the life for him. Said he missed us and it was time we came and joined him. We’d make do together, like we always had.”

Dean stared at her. He thought he’d seen every one of Pa’s letters, had all but memorized the ones from those first few years.

He’d definitely never seen that one.

“I never told you. Never told Cass. We could have gone, but I told him I wanted to wait. I was bolder in my letter than I was face-to-face. Told him outright that I didn’t want to be living in some rough shack in the middle of the gold fields, not when I had a solid home in civilization. Told him he had to promise me more than eking out a living before I’d throw all this away.

“Well, he didn’t much like hearing that, I could tell. But it’s hard to argue by letter. Your pa and me, we had our spats when he was here, but we could always talk each other down to quietness afterwards. I never went to bed angry with him in my life. But this… I almost wrote him two dozen times to tell him we were going to come, but I never quite could. I’m just as stubborn as he is, and we’d both dug in our heels thinking our way was best.”

Dean had never thought of his mother as stubborn before. She was just Ma, quiet and steady and there.

“Then Noah passed. And it wasn’t more than a month later, me still wrapped up tight in my grief, when we got word about John and Matthew.”

Grady’s pa and brother. It had been a terrible winter of mourning.

“After that… it was like neither of us could broach the subject,” Ma went on. “I couldn’t, anyhow. Didn’t feel right deciding because look how my decision-making had turned out the last time.”

Those might-have-beens creeping in, festering all this time. Likely festering with Pa, too, but Dean’s sympathy still lay with Ma first. “He could have come back,” he argued. “Could have come and gotten us. Could have come and talked.”

Ma shook her head. “He’s a proud man. Not to mention stubborn. And then, after Alec… I don’t know if your pa knew how to come back after that, you know?”

Dean didn’t, but he also did. He had memorized the letter Pa had sent three years ago, the first after a long, worrisome gap. Alec had “left,” had “figured on trying things on his own.” The following letter had haltingly admitted that Pa had no idea where Alec was.

“And now?” Dean asked. “What exactly did he say in his letter?”

“That it’s been too long. That it’s time to let go of the past and look to the future. That he’s got a home for us, can give us a life there.”

As if a home could be made that easily. As if they didn’t already have a life here. “You believe him?”

“Your pa has many a fault, but I’ve never known him to be a liar, have you?”

Dean shrugged. He hadn’t known Pa since he was ten years old, and what did a ten-year-old know?

“He’s not a liar,” Ma repeated, but whether to reassure him or herself he couldn’t tell.

He nodded, then let go of the words he’d been holding onto. “You should go, then. But I’m staying.”

She looked at him a long time. Her eyes weren’t fierce anymore, just sad. The same way they’d looked in the weeks after Cass had run off with Ernest Firley.

Well, she’d get over it. That’s what the two of them always did. Kept going, no matter who else left.

Dean got up, and Ma didn’t try to stop him.

 

 

Dean went to the orchard first, but for once the apple trees didn’t make him feel better. By the time the crop came in, the farm would likely belong to somebody else.

He could still remember holding the tiny saplings straight while Pa tamped down the dirt around them. “Trees are a commitment, Dean,” Pa had said. “You know you’re home when you start planting trees.”

He’d left less than a year later. Dean wished he’d had the wherewithal then to remind him of their commitment to the trees. But at ten he’d been just as excited at the prospect of California as Pa had been, certain it was a land of gold and happiness.

He walked up the road to Grady’s, where his friend was relaxing on the front steps. They hadn’t talked since the day Leeds had come. After exchanging greetings, Dean got on with it.

“Pa sent for us.”

He expected Grady to need a moment to process this, but his friend’s face immediately split into an enormous grin. “Well, that’s grand!”

Grady’s cheerfulness felt like a punch in the gut. “I’m thinking on staying here,” Dean said cautiously.

“Really?”

Dean nodded, words building up steam. “Pa wants to open a grocery. A grocery! I’m a farmer, not some grocery clerk. Not that he’d know that. Do you know anyone looking for a hired hand?”

Dean had hoped that Grady might offer him a job himself, but Grady just frowned. “Haven’t heard of anyone. You sure you’ve thought this through? You’d leave your ma like that?”

Grady’s ma still lived with him and his wife. Grady took care of her, just like Dean always figured on doing with his ma. But Ma would be leaving him. There was a difference, even if it amounted to the same thing.

“She’ll be with Pa,” Dean said firmly. “You think I’d make a decision like this lightly? I’m not my pa.”

“You make him sound like some bogeyman waiting to swallow you whole.”

Wasn’t he? Not a monster, no, but a shadow, a ghost, looking for a son who didn’t exist anymore. If he went to Pa, he stopped being the Dean of the past eight years, the young man who took care of Ma and the farm, the one who was steady and reliable and knew what he was doing, at least most of the time. Pa didn’t know that Dean, might not be willing to meet him.

But somehow he couldn’t seem to find a way to explain that to Grady. Instead he said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words fell out of his mouth, even before he saw Grady’s face.

“No, I wouldn’t. Do you know what I’d give to be in your shoes? My pa and Matt still alive, no matter how long it had been since I’d seen them?”

The words kept coming out of Dean’s mouth even though he knew he shouldn’t say them. “And do you know how many times I’ve wished we could switch?”

Grady looked at him like he was a cold-hearted fool. “You don’t mean that.”

Dean shook his head, everything breaking inside of him that he’d held together for so many years. “If it had been your pa who lived, he would have sent for you long ago, you know he would have.”

Of course now he knew that Pa had sent for them, but it was hard to change his way of thinking after so many years. Besides, if Pa really cared so much he could’ve come back himself, no matter what Ma said.

“And Alec… it’s the not knowing that hurts the worst. Probably he’s dead, and I’ll never know, but that one tiny speck of hope chews away at me till I’m like to go crazy thinking about it. At least you know what happened to Matt. You know he’s not coming back. You don’t have to go back and forth wondering if he died somewhere all alone or whether he’s turned into such a terrible person he can’t even be bothered to let his family know he’s alive.”

His voice was ragged, as close to tears as he ever got, so he clamped his mouth shut. He was not going to cry. He wasn’t going to run, either, much as he wanted to right then.

He was not his pa.

Grady looked at him, that steady look he had like he could see right inside a person. “Guess I never thought of that,” he said finally.

“Wish I hadn’t,” Dean managed to say.

“It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“I think it might.”

Grady shook his head. “I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past eight years, too, you know. Used to be I thought my pa hung the moon. And I’d still do nearly anything to have him back. But I wonder, sometimes, what he was thinking when he left. How he could ever break up our family like that. Ever since I married Lena and we had Jack… I can’t ever imagine leaving them.”

“Then maybe you can understand why I can feel like I do. It’s been eight years, Grady. He’s not my pa anymore, he’s just some ghost who lives in California.”

Grady was silent awhile, and then he said, “I reckon a ghost is better than nothing. He’s the only pa you’ve got.”

“And this is the only home I’ve got. Which one do I choose?”

Grady shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”

 

 

Dean dreamed that night of his family, the way they used to be. Cass and Alec bickering and laughing, Pa tossing Noah the way he used to toss Dean, Ma’s smile impossibly large. But the scene dissolved and shifted until he was the only one left, the emptiness squeezing his chest.

He awoke with a start and tried to get his bearings. It was just a dream. He’d had plenty of similar ones over the years.

But tonight he couldn’t get Alec out of his head. A light had gone out in Ma’s eyes when they’d gotten that letter from Pa, but Dean hadn’t been worried. He’d figured that Alec had just gotten tired of California and was heading home. For a solid year he clung to this belief, expecting every day to see his brother walk down the lane.

But Alec never arrived.

How many angry days and sleepless nights had Alec let pass before he’d left? Had he ever questioned his decision?

He was dead, Dean knew that.

And yet maybe he wasn’t.

Dean rolled over in the darkness and shut his eyes tight against the memory of his brother. His own decision was made, sudden and sure. He’d go with Ma. He wouldn’t be responsible for that look in her eyes.

Besides, someone in the family was going to have to make a good living in California. Might as well be him.

 

 

Dean lingered over the chores the next morning, reluctantly making plans. He could see Mr. Atkins that afternoon, or should he see Grady first? Grady wouldn’t have the money to buy the land, but he could maybe afford the livestock. Dean would give him a good deal.

He knew Grady’d be happy for him, but it still didn’t feel right leaving him behind. Grady had turned out to be more of a brother than Alec.

They could start for California by the end of the month. How long would it take to get there? Eight years ago he probably would have known down to the minute, but he hadn’t concerned himself with such matters in quite a while, and besides there were more options now in regards to travel.

He trudged back to the house, where his bowl already waited on the table. Ma was bustling about, packing her valise.

Was she leaving now? Glad that she could put the sale of the farm in his hands and go to Pa immediately? Should he not tell her he’d changed his mind?

He wasn’t sure which was worse: breaking her heart by not going with her, or having her not mind at all.

She looked over at him, “Can you spare the wagon and team for a week or so?”

He gaped at her for a moment before stammering, “I—I reckon.”

“Good. I’m going to visit your sister.”

“I’ll drive you,” he said. He wanted to say good-bye to Cass, too. Meet his niece. “Or we could wait until the land sells, and we’re on our way.” He stressed the our, hoping Ma would realize his change of heart without him having to tell her outright.

She ignored the our. “Any woman who can manage without her husband for eight years can manage a few days’ drive on her own. The farm needs you, and I’ll make that husband of Cass’s promise to bring them here for Thanksgiving.”

Thanksgiving? He stared at her, but she continued to bustle about, not looking at him. “And on my way to Cass’s, I’m going to mail that to your pa.”

He noticed the envelope on the table for the first time, and tried to keep his voice steady as he asked, “What’s in it?”

Now she did turn, catching him in that fierce gaze. “I told him he’d better come home and see the farm before he decided to sell it. I told him we needed to discuss things as a family.” Her smile was faint but definite. “We owe you that much, Dean. Alec ran off, and Cass did near about the same, but all you ever did was put down roots and grow like one of those apple trees of yours. Your pa needs to see what it is he’s trying to uproot.”

Dean kept staring at her.

“Now, don’t go getting your hopes up,” Ma said. “Might be he won’t come. Could be he can even sell the farm out from under us, all the way from California. There’s no telling. But if he’s anything like the man I remember, I think he’ll come see. I asked him real nice, and that’ll count for something.”

“I decided to go with you last night,” Dean said, because it was the only thing he could manage. “Thank you” seemed far too small.

“Well, that’s really nice of you. Might be it comes to that, in the end.”

He nodded. “Whatever happens, I reckon we’ll manage.”

“We always do, don’t we?” Ma said, and went back to her packing.

Valerie Hunter is a high school English teacher in New Jersey, USA, and has had stories published in magazines and journals including Cicada, Colp, and Storyteller.