wind out of it for the other kids? Mrs. Henry Brusett? Could she imagine him reading that out loud in front of people? Did she want to be such a big distraction or put her new husband through what would have to be a pretty embarrassing evening for him, too?
Karen didnât want any of these things, and so, a week early and with Mr. Tannerâs tepid congratulations and his promise that her diploma would be in the mail, she was allowed to be done at school; Mr. Tanner said of her last few days of class, âWhy bother?â
Henry had sent her to school that day in his old Triumph, which, as soon as heâd seen her in the driverâs seat, heâd pronounced her Triumph, â . . . for what itâs worth. Itâs the TR4, and theyâre worse than temperamental, but it happens to be runninâ strong right now, and you look good in it, so have a big time.â The car made an outsized rumbling, and it rattled from a history of use on roads for which it was never designed, but as Karen drove out of the school parking lot, summarily dismissed from the last of her old life, her life to date, and chafing a bit at the injustice and the anticlimax of it, it felt fine to shake her hair out and run through the gears, which she was already doing with precision. With the money that had been earmarked for her cap and gown, she stopped at Pearsonâs Supply and bought three laying hens and a newly weaned kid, a goat with a puppyâs disposition, and she had these crated, and she stacked and strapped the crates into the passengerâs seat and set off with the top down and her new chickens flying in place beside her. She had in mind an endless summer.
On seeing how her menagerie pleased her, and how perhaps Fitchet Creek had been a little underpopulated while heâd been its soletenant, Henry bought her more pullets later that week, and he bought her more goats, and because all these creatures would want feed and make fertilizer, Henry thought a garden should be made, and so early one morning the Brusetts went into a stand of lodgepole together, and by late that evening theyâd decked enough poles to raise a deer fence around the new garden and to build some pens and a supplemental roof over the trailer. Henry said that during the previous year or two, a series of heavy snows had gradually crushed the trailerâs roof out of shape, and so the ceiling had been leaking, but he hadnât been too bothered by it until now. He said heâd been overlooking a lot of things until she came along. He told her during their day in the lodgepoles he marveled at it, that he felt better than he had in a long, long time, and he kept saying this even as he stopped from time to time to breathe like a woman in labor and as his limp worsened until his simplest locomotion was acrobatic. âFresh air and exercise,â he told her, âused to be those were the last things I needed to remind myself about.â Uneven ground was hard for him, or any kind of lifting, or to walk very far even on the level, but he said it was a price worth paying to get out sometimes. He said heâd been in real danger of turning useless before she showed up.
When he was feeling right, Henry liked to make things. He had a shop somewhere in the valley, on a piece of land behind the lot where he had lived with his first family. Karen imagined a space full of good light, bins filled with incomprehensible materials and tools. There, Henry could fashion from metal or wood or even from heavy fabric almost anything he thought to make, and whatever he made was for her: the pineapple carved in pine, the miniature windmill he set spinning on a stump, the spice rack. Karen once mentioned in passing her preference for eating and for sometimes sleeping out of doors, and so Henry had built the sleeping porch, built it in sections at his shop and then hauled these up the mountain and attached them to the trailer, toeach other, and all at
Karen didnât want any of these things, and so, a week early and with Mr. Tannerâs tepid congratulations and his promise that her diploma would be in the mail, she was allowed to be done at school; Mr. Tanner said of her last few days of class, âWhy bother?â
Henry had sent her to school that day in his old Triumph, which, as soon as heâd seen her in the driverâs seat, heâd pronounced her Triumph, â . . . for what itâs worth. Itâs the TR4, and theyâre worse than temperamental, but it happens to be runninâ strong right now, and you look good in it, so have a big time.â The car made an outsized rumbling, and it rattled from a history of use on roads for which it was never designed, but as Karen drove out of the school parking lot, summarily dismissed from the last of her old life, her life to date, and chafing a bit at the injustice and the anticlimax of it, it felt fine to shake her hair out and run through the gears, which she was already doing with precision. With the money that had been earmarked for her cap and gown, she stopped at Pearsonâs Supply and bought three laying hens and a newly weaned kid, a goat with a puppyâs disposition, and she had these crated, and she stacked and strapped the crates into the passengerâs seat and set off with the top down and her new chickens flying in place beside her. She had in mind an endless summer.
On seeing how her menagerie pleased her, and how perhaps Fitchet Creek had been a little underpopulated while heâd been its soletenant, Henry bought her more pullets later that week, and he bought her more goats, and because all these creatures would want feed and make fertilizer, Henry thought a garden should be made, and so early one morning the Brusetts went into a stand of lodgepole together, and by late that evening theyâd decked enough poles to raise a deer fence around the new garden and to build some pens and a supplemental roof over the trailer. Henry said that during the previous year or two, a series of heavy snows had gradually crushed the trailerâs roof out of shape, and so the ceiling had been leaking, but he hadnât been too bothered by it until now. He said heâd been overlooking a lot of things until she came along. He told her during their day in the lodgepoles he marveled at it, that he felt better than he had in a long, long time, and he kept saying this even as he stopped from time to time to breathe like a woman in labor and as his limp worsened until his simplest locomotion was acrobatic. âFresh air and exercise,â he told her, âused to be those were the last things I needed to remind myself about.â Uneven ground was hard for him, or any kind of lifting, or to walk very far even on the level, but he said it was a price worth paying to get out sometimes. He said heâd been in real danger of turning useless before she showed up.
When he was feeling right, Henry liked to make things. He had a shop somewhere in the valley, on a piece of land behind the lot where he had lived with his first family. Karen imagined a space full of good light, bins filled with incomprehensible materials and tools. There, Henry could fashion from metal or wood or even from heavy fabric almost anything he thought to make, and whatever he made was for her: the pineapple carved in pine, the miniature windmill he set spinning on a stump, the spice rack. Karen once mentioned in passing her preference for eating and for sometimes sleeping out of doors, and so Henry had built the sleeping porch, built it in sections at his shop and then hauled these up the mountain and attached them to the trailer, toeach other, and all at
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