Unwrapping Hank (9 page)

The other two cows showed up, and Micah tried to give them attention too, but the first one, True, wasn’t having it, trying to push her way into Micah’s hands.

“Wow, I had no idea cows could be so tame,” I commented. Then again, I’d never been close to a cow.

“Oh, Trueheart was born here on the farm, and the boys helped with her birth. They about petted her to death when she was a calf, so she got used to it,” Lilith explained.

“She’s certainly not shy.” Weren’t cows supposed to be meek and mild? These ladies were rather pushy with each other and with Micah, like toddlers in a sandbox.

“Nope. Not at all. Micah?” she called out. “You’re on morning milking this trip.”

“Ouch!” Micah held his side like she’d just stabbed him, but he didn’t really seem to mind.

“You milk them?” I asked, surprised.

Lilith laughed. “Yes, Sloane. That’s why we keep them. We get milk, and sometimes we raise a beef cow too. We don’t have one right now, though.”

“Hey, Sloane, come meet the girls.”

I wasn’t entirely sure about that, but it would be embarrassing to act afraid of a dairy cow, especially since I was studying to become a vet. I climbed over the gate trying to mimic the casual cowboy way Micah had done it. Grinch, being much smarter than I was, stayed on the human side of the gate.

“Here.” Micah pulled me closer by my coat and took my hand. The cows were ignoring me, all fixated on Micah or each other, and when Micah put my hand on True’s jaw, she gave me a suspicious look. After a lengthy flat stare from big brown eyes, she nudged into my hand as if demanding I pet her harder.

“Scratch her chin. She likes that.” Micah said.

“Sure, she does. Who doesn’t?” I joked as I scratched her strong jawline. “Maybe you can do this for me after supper.”

“Maybe.” Micah gave me a weird smile.

“So you really know how to milk a cow, huh?”

“Yeah. What, you don’t?” Micah asked with mock seriousness.

I bent down to look at True’s swollen teats. God, those suckers were like four inches long. “Not really my area.”

Micah laughed. “No? You mean you won’t do that for me after supper?”

I choked on some spit and coughed. What the fuck? Did he just imply what I thought he did?

Micah pounded me on the back. “Kidding, Gregore. Come on, let’s finish the tour.”

They led me through the barn, which was old and rustic and spider-webby and cool, and up some rickety steps—Grinch struggling a bit—to an upper level where they kept hay and straw. We went through a little door and came out on the back side of the barn. Ahead of us was a fenced-in area with bunch of chickens and a few ducks.

A hand-painted sign,
Chick City
, hung over the gate.

“Let me guess, you guys named it,” I said with a laugh.

“That was Hank’s brilliant mind. Don’t blame me,” said Micah.

We went inside, Micah closing the gate carefully behind the three of us. Grinch was apparently not to be trusted with the fowl, so he sat at the fence, his gaze locked on me like I was an unexploded nuke, or maybe like I was about to pull BBQ ribs out of my pocket.

“It’s really good for the birds to be outside on grass,” Lilith informed me. “They eat bugs and weeds and seeds, and that makes their eggs more nutritious for us. They also get lots of leftover veggies and cuttings from the garden.”

“Wait ’til you taste mom’s scrambled eggs,” Micah said. “They’re better than any eggs you’ve ever had, guaranteed. I can’t even eat the ones at school, I’m so spoiled.”

Lilith beamed proudly at this. As with the cows, I was surprised that the birds were tame. Micah approached one with goldenrod feathers, and the bird squatted down and let him pick her up.

“This is Eggy,” Micah said, bringing her over to me. “Eggy Lee.”

“Cute.” I stroked her head. “Was that Hank too?”

“Yup. He’s the punster in the family.”

“Of course he is,” I said, by now resigned to having nothing about Hank make sense.

“And that beautiful male over there is our Christmas dinner,” Lilith said, pointing to a large brown bird.

As if realizing we were watching him, the bird puffed up his feathers, his huge fan-shaped tail snapping. It was a turkey, and not just a boring turkey either. It was the kind you saw in old American paintings—a
real
turkey, in the flesh, with magnificent bronze plumage that had a blue sheen to it, a big fan tail, and red fleshy stuff hanging from his head.

Lilith and Micah both watched me for a reaction. There was a pause.

“Yum?” I said doubtfully.

Lilith laughed. “It’s okay. I know it’s a little strange for most people to meet their food before they eat it. But that’s what we believe in.”

“
Mom
.” The tone was tight. I turned to see Hank coming in the
Chick City
gate. He was wearing a red parka and ski cap that made him look even more ornate than the turkey. “Sloane doesn’t need to hear all that stuff.”

“I’m sure Sloane is curious about how we live, especially since he grew up in other countries,” Lilith said patiently.

“Yeah, like we’re the average American family,” Hank muttered sarcastically. “Anyway, I’m gonna run over to the Fishers to pick up the pies. Wanna come, Frenchie?”

“What do you call him?” Lilith asked with surprise.

“He thinks he’s funny,” I said dryly. “But surely the inventive rascal who came up with ‘Chick City’ and ‘Eggy Lee’ can do better than ‘Frenchie’.”

Hank hung his head in mock defeat. “I’m never going to live down this visit,” he muttered.

“You shouldn’t call him that if he doesn’t like it,” Lilith said in a motherly tone. “That’s rude.”

“Yeah,
Holden
, that’s rude,” I echoed.

I had him, and he knew it. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Hey,
Sloane
, wanna drive with me to go pick up some pies?”

“Sure,
Hank
, I’d love to,” I said sweetly.

It became clear when we got in the car that Micah wasn’t coming. Grinch looked truly despondent to be left behind, sitting in the driveway, his giant head on his paws and his eyes bottomless wells of self-pity. I waved to him guiltily as we pulled away.

“So pies,” I said, as Hank pulled out of the driveway. “Do we have to hunt down and kill the Great Pumpkin first?”

I’d meant it as a joke, but Hank groaned. “You don’t have to go to that.”

“Go to what?”

“The, um, turkey killing ceremony.”

“There’s a
ceremony
?” I asked. “Are you yanking my chain?”

His big hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel. “Look, my parents… they’re different. That’s all.”

“Okay.”

“Like they think if they’re going to eat meat, then they should raise it and give it a good life and kill it as humanely as possible.”

“That’s… noble,” I said with a shrug. “In France, the best restaurants keep their own livestock in back and things are served
very fresh
, if you get my meaning. It’s not that weird.”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t France. This is like… Xanadu or Woodstock or something. Just… you don’t have to do everything we—they do. That’s all.”

He didn’t look happy. I probed around it in my mind like a sore spot, trying to understand it. “Your parents seem amazingly nice.”

“They are.”

“So….”

“So nothin’. It’s just… look, they were vegans once. Like growing up, Micah and me, we got beans and tofu and kelp, that’s what we ate. Then, suddenly, they went all ‘primal’ and have to raise their own meat and chant over it…. It’s just… I don’t take it seriously because it’ll change again. That’s all.”

That clearly wasn’t all. There was something about it that bothered Hank, I could tell by the wasp-stung tightness to his voice. But I couldn’t for the life of me see what that might be. Clearly, he loved his parents, but there was a tension there I didn’t understand. I knew he and Micah weren’t vegetarian, because I’d seen him scarf burgers and meat lovers pizza at school so…?

Mysterious Hank and his enigmatic mysteriosity!

I decided changing the subject was the better part of valor. After all, a visitor should know when to stay out of the family drama. “So… what kind of pies are we getting?”

Hank sighed from the depth of his soul. “I swear, you’ll think you died and went to heaven. Mom and Dad don’t eat sugar. Or flour. Or grains of any kind. So we get pies from an Amish lady, Mrs. Fisher, every year for me and Micah. They are, in a word, phenomenal.”

“What flavor of phenomenal?” I insisted, suddenly hungry.

“My favorite is blueberry. Micah loves the peach rhubarb, and we always get pumpkin and shoofly too.”

“Shoofly?”

“Oh, my poor Frenchie,” Hank said knowingly. “You don’t know what you’ve been missing.”

         ~8~

Sloane

THE PLACE where we picked up the pies was an actual Amish farm. I was excited to see one in real life. I’d seen them before on TV, of course, and I’d googled them before we left PSU. But this was the authentic, non-reality show version.

The Fishers had a farm larger than the Springfields. On all sides of the farmhouse were snowy fields with their crops cut down for the season. The barn was old and freshly painted red, the farmhouse a classic white. The house had several add-on appendages as if it had been around forever and just kept growing. A black buggy was parked near the barn. Add in a simple pine wreath on the door, and it was about as Heartland as I could have ever wished for.

“This is ridiculous,” I said as we pulled in the driveway. “I’m going into a quaintness coma.”

Hank smirked. “Wait til you taste the pies.”

I felt out of place in my jeans, parka, and boots as we walked up to the back door. But Hank didn’t seem uncomfortable at all. An Amish woman opened the door, wearing a plain black dress with a blue apron over it. Her hair was pulled back severely under a white bonnet. She smiled broadly.

“Holden!
Wie geht es Ihnen
?” To my surprise, she gave him a hug around the shoulders.

“I’m good! How are you? And how are all the little ones?”

They chatted as a stream of children emerged from the house. It was like a clown car parody—they just kept coming. The smallest ones regarded Hank warily, but the older ones seemed to know him and hovered nearby anxiously waiting their turn as Hank and Mrs. Fisher caught up. She seemed interested in hearing about college, though when she asked what he was studying, Hank hedged and said he was still figuring it out.

“This is Greg Sloane.” Hank motioned me over. “He’s staying with us for Christmas because he wasn’t able to go home to his family.”

“Oh, no!” That appeared to be heartbreaking news for Mrs. Fisher. Immediately she was clucking her tongue at me in sympathy, and then I was being herded into the house on a wave of munchkins in black suspenders and dresses.

She sat us at a homey pine kitchen table and proceeded to serve us pie and coffee without asking if we wanted any.

“I have your order ready to go now,” she told Hank briskly with a German accent. “But you must try a pie I made this morning. It’s sour cream apple.”

I recognized an efficient saleswoman when I saw one, and sure enough, after one bite, I was ready to hawk my education in order to buy a dozen sour cream apple pies myself. Hank had a cooler head, or maybe he had in mind the other pies he’d already bought, but he added just one of the new flavor to his order.

I moaned in ecstasy as I took my last bite. “Oh, man, we should go into business with her, Hank. We’d sell a thousand pies a week at PSU, easy.”

Mrs. Fisher laughed. She wasn’t old and wasn’t young, and her face was plain but had pleasant crinkles when she smiled. “Ocht! I can’t keep up mit orders now. Not with these ‘uns eating all my ingredients.”

The children were still surrounding us like a peaceful version of Children of the Corn. A boy about seven was hanging around Hank’s neck and over the back of the chair as if it were perfectly normal to pretend to be a cape.

“The sour cream apple is sure gut, but the sour cream cherry is better,” a girl of about eleven said.

“Oh my G—gosh.” I said, mindful of my language. “Sour cream cherry! We have to get one of those.”

“I’m all outta that one yet. Sorry.” Mrs. Fisher didn’t sound sorry at all, the heartless wench. “We grow the fruit ourselves, and I put up the pie filling in the summer. These 'uns already finished the cherries I had canned for the year.”

“Dang. Guess I’ll have to come back next summer.”

There was a whine from the corner, and I glanced over to see a dog. It was a red setter, and it was looking at Hank longingly and smacking its tail on the blanket it was laying on.

“Mitsy!” Hank called softly, looking at her. He held down his hand.

“She won’ get up,” said the boy who was draped on Hank’s back. “She’s havin’ puppies today.”

“
Maybe
today,” Mrs. Fisher clarified.