The Next To Last Mistake Read online

  It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t asking if I could or if I would. He was telling me to slide my tiny nine-year-old hands into the cow and turn the baby around.

  I didn’t hesitate.

  After several minutes trying to distinguish hind hooves from front hooves, I finally felt the smoothness of the calf’s snout and was able to begin correcting the presentation from breech to head-first. Slowly, laboriously, the calf twisted within its mother’s womb, and once I was convinced I’d done it properly, my dad instructed me to pull.

  Moments later, I held the calf in my arms as Dad tried in vain to resuscitate it, covering its mucus-laden snout with his entire mouth while the heifer looked on. Sadly, the calf would not survive.

  “Remember this, Tess,” my mom said, handing me a tissue to dry my eyes as we shuffled back to the house in the pale light of morning. “Let the pain be a reminder—you can’t get attached to these animals. They’re a commodity. Nothing more. Don’t waste your tears on the herd.”

  But as I lay in bed that night, I couldn’t stop thinking of the mother cow. Of how woefully she’d watched as we’d carried her baby away. Her soulful eyes haunted me as I stared at the ceiling—I couldn’t let her spend the night alone. And so, after slipping on my coat and boots over my pajamas, I snuck out of the house, cringing as the screen door scraped against the jamb.

  I found her back in the barn, lying on her side amongst a fresh pile of straw, no longer damp with birthing fluids. She lifted her head to greet me, and I recognized for the first time how her spot did sort of resemble Florida. I could see it now, if I turned my head to the side, even if it was a stretch.

  I’d never been to Florida, but I’d heard it was a sunny place.

  “I’m going to call you Sunshine,” I said as I spread a blanket on the ground behind her and propped myself against her back. “I’m sorry about your baby. But I promise to always be your friend.”

  *

  Standing with her now, I remember my pledge and feel the overwhelming urge to look away. Down the line are Greta, Flower, Minnie, Daisy, Maggie, Bella, Penelope, Annie, and Muffin. I smile to myself because despite my mother’s counsel, every cow on our farm has a name.

  Names that will be lost forever the moment we move away.

  “Have a good day at school?” Dad asks from the doorway. Like always, he’s come to help me disconnect the udders from the machinery now that the milking is complete, acting as if this morning never happened.

  But the dull ache in the pit of my stomach confirms it most certainly did.

  I shrug and continue scratching Sunshine’s neck, unable to look at him directly. The tension pulls between us, tight as barbed wire, and I can’t believe he’s going all business as usual on me. Should I follow his lead or confess how devastated I am about every facet of his plan, forcing me from the only life I’ve ever known? Would it do any good to tell him how brutal it was holding myself together all day, tears threatening to spill over every time I noticed my own pained expression mirrored in Zander’s face across the room?

  He strolls past me over to the main line and clamps it shut. I lean down beside Sunshine to release her from the teat cups.

  “I know it’s hard for you to wrap your head around why I’ve made the decision to sell the farm, but the truth is, it’s been a long time coming.”

  This is news to me. The possibility he would consider a life outside the farm seems impossible. My dad loves being a farmer even more than I do. At least, I thought he did.

  “You never told us things had gotten so bad financially,” I say, grateful he’s broached the subject so I didn’t have to. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  He flushes a particularly finicky line and shakes his head. “Your mom and I didn’t want…” He hesitates then, fumbling with the tube’s connection before continuing. “I guess we didn’t want to worry you girls unnecessarily. The truth is, we were hoping the finances would work themselves out. But like I told you this morning, milk consumption is down across the country. Big farms are getting bigger and making it harder for smaller farms like us to remain solvent.”

  He lifts his head, and under the brim of his hat there’s apprehension in the lines of his face I hadn’t noticed this morning. Were they there all along or did my ignorance prevent me from seeing them before now? It’s clear he doesn’t want to leave the farm any more than the rest of us. He’s disappointed in himself. Embarrassed even.

  “Your mom was the one who encouraged me to re-enlist. Believe it or not, we loved military life, in some ways as much as we love this one. The Army can provide for us in ways the farm no longer can, and with the problems in the Middle East…” He switches off the pump, and it falls silent. “Let’s just say our country needs my particular set of skills now more than ever. In fact, if it weren’t for my unique decoding abilities, the Army might not have agreed to take me back. But they did, so I’m trying really hard to think of it as a good thing. And I know it’s gonna be hard for you to leave Zander and the herd behind, but I hope maybe someday you’ll see this move as the opportunity it truly is.”

  This simple acknowledgment of my sacrifice lifts some of the resentment, and a bit of the anger I’ve been harboring against him slips away to reveal a twinge of pride. Our move will allow him to defend the Syrian people while providing for our family at the same time. No one could be more selfless than my dad. This understanding, however, doesn’t ease the tightness in my chest as I move down the line, taking care to give each cow an extra rub or scratch or pat. Our days together are still numbered, regardless of the reasons why.

  “Your sister’s got herself all worked up, though, hasn’t she?” he says, forcing levity into the conversation. “Your mom warned me she was gonna be piss and vinegar, and boy she wasn’t lying. You’ll work on her for me, huh?”

  Like the invitation to right Sunshine’s calf inside her womb, this isn’t a request I can deny. It’s an assumption of action. And, of course, I’ll do my best.

  “I’ll talk to her,” I tell him, releasing the last cow, Muffin, from the equipment. “But no promises. It’ll be hard to convince her it’s all gonna be okay when I’m having a hard time convincing myself.”

  He turns to me, and our eyes meet. They’re glassy in a way I’ve never seen before. “I’m so sorry,” he says, “for uprooting all of you like this.” He unties Muffin from the rail and swats her rear, encouraging her out of the parlor into the field. “Even you, Muffin old girl.”

  chapter 3

  Bur Oak

  Saturday, November 10

  As one of the smaller parcels in our area with just under 120 acres, the entire western perimeter of our farm runs along Zander’s property line, which is nearly triple the size of ours. Because of its larger scale, his farm includes a sign and a moniker—Robert’s Farmstead Dairy—while ours remains a nameless entity. The point at which the properties meet is marked by a lone, sprawling bur oak, sixty feet tall and visible from both of our houses. Mere proximity isn’t what brings Zander across the barren cornfield to where I’m perched among the lowest limbs this morning, though.

  “It’s freezing out here,” he calls from below, craning up at me with his hand at his brow, shielding his eyes from the morning sun.

  “I figure I better enjoy the cold while I can. Before I ship off to the balmy South.”

  Instead of venturing a reply, he begins climbing the tree, scrambling to the same branch we’ve been sitting on together since we were tall enough to hoist one another up.

  “You know,” he says as he settles in beside me, resting his head on my shoulder, “it gets cold in North Carolina, too. You’re not moving to Miami.”

  I sigh. “It feels like I’m moving to the moon.”

  He pulls me closer, wrapping me into the folds of his coat, and I can’t stop myself from molding into the hollow of his chest. It would be better if I didn’t need him so much, but he’s a habit I’m not inclined to break.

  “It’ll be better
than the moon,” he says. “For one, I hear there’s oxygen in North Carolina. And also, other people. Plus, think about how close you’ll be to the ocean.”

  I haven’t considered my improved proximity to the beach. I’ve never even seen the ocean before.

  “If you take me to the shore, I’ll totally come visit you,” he adds. “Maybe this summer, after planting and before harvest.”

  I envision the two of us walking along the beach together, dipping our toes in the frothy surf. As pleasant as the image is, everything about it seems wrong. We don’t belong there. We belong here. On the farm. Milking cows. In Iowa.

  “Do you even have a proper bathing suit?” I ask him.

  “I have cut-offs,” he says with a shrug.

  I smile. The idea of him swimming in the ocean is ridiculous, even if he could pass as a surfer with his shaggy, sandy hair.

  He pulls out his phone to check the distance from Fayetteville to the closest beach, and seeing it reminds me of one of my numerous concerns for the future. “You do realize that once I move, you’re gonna need to use the call function of your cell if you wanna hear my voice,” I say. “A long-distance friendship can’t survive on emojis alone, and I’m worried actual phone conversations might kill you.”

  He dated Gabby Landford through most of our sophomore year, and she was chatty. Refused to text and called him every night at eight o’clock to talk for at least an hour about ‘nothing.’ Zander’s words, not mine. By contrast, he and I never talk on the phone and barely even text—only enough to coordinate driving arrangements or confirm homework assignments.

  All our communication is done in person.

  That is, until after Christmas, when there isn’t going to be any more in person.

  “If you’re referring to my horrible phone calls with Gabby, you know I hated talking to her because I never had anything important to say.”

  “Oh, and you’re gonna have important stuff to say to me?” I hope my sarcastic tone masks the desperation in my voice. If our long-distance conversations feel compulsory, he might opt out the way he did with Gabby. Being cut out of his life is not an option. My heart will not allow it.

  His reply comes without hesitation, calming my nerves. “Are you kidding? Of course, we’ll have things to talk about. I’ll have to fill you in on everything going on back here. Like if the chess club finally gets the funding to go to regionals. And about Lacey and her cronies and how your farm’s getting on.”

  I try to imagine what talking on the phone with him will be like, but my brain gets stuck on the semantics of your farm because it clearly isn’t going to be my farm anymore. Or ever again.

  And if I don’t live on the farm next door and I don’t have the same homework and I’m no longer a member of the same chess club, how long will it be before Zander and I don’t have anything to talk about anymore?

  I don’t respond, but he continues, almost as if he can read my mind. “We have sixteen years of history together, Tess. Nothing can take those memories away from us. You’re always gonna be a part of my life, even if you’re no longer a part of my days.”

  I turn to face him, struggling to keep my balance on the branch. He isn’t smiling, but his eyes are warm, and I reach out with my finger to trace the scar cutting across his temple through his left eyebrow—the only remaining physical evidence of his fall from the silo when he was eleven. For a farm boy, he certainly has a way of knowing the right things to say.

  One of the many reasons he’s always been my lone confidant.

  “I have no idea how to make new friends,” I confess to him now. “What if no one in Fayetteville likes me?”

  He shakes his head like he’s considering blowing me off before meeting my gaze. I want him to tell me I’m crazy and have nothing to worry about. I want him to say people will love me, and I’ll make a ton of new friends on the first day. But he doesn’t. Because we don’t lie to one another. We never have. I didn’t lie to him when he asked if he was any good at playing the guitar in seventh grade (he wasn’t), and he didn’t lie to me when I asked if he liked my pixie haircut the summer we turned fourteen (he didn’t).

  And so now, instead of coddling me the way a pseudo-friend would, he tells me the truth.

  “It might suck, Tess. It might suck big time. Those kids, they aren’t gonna be like us. I mean, probably not. Because Mid-West kids and East Coast kids are pretty different, right? But here’s the thing—you’re smart and fun and super pretty, and I’m betting you’ll find at least one other person there who gets you.”

  I let my chin drop to my chest, embarrassed not only by the way his compliments raise heat to my cheeks but because of how worried I am about moving on without him. Leaving the farm and the herd wouldn’t be nearly as scary if he could come with me. But without him around to act as my relationship liaison, my inability to make small talk and fear of rejection are going to seriously inhibit my capacity for making new friends.

  “I’m not a typical girl, Zander. And I can almost guarantee there isn’t gonna be another dairy farmer/chess wiz waiting to be my new best friend in Fayetteville.” The whine in my voice is grating even to my own ears, so I can only imagine what Zander must think of the self-indulgent pity party I’m having for myself. It doesn’t stop me from continuing, though, burying my head into his chest. “What if they all hate me?”

  He doesn’t immediately respond, and my trepidation hangs in the air between us—an inadequate articulation of how nervous I am about being a potential outcast—a country bumpkin in a sea of cultured urbanites. It’s one more thing to add to the growing list of reasons I can’t sleep at night.

  He nudges me with his shoulder. “No one is gonna hate you. There’s literally nothing about you to hate. Except maybe the fact that you’re a total spaz.”

  He’s working the deflection, trying to get me to laugh.

  “The only reason I fit in here is because of you, and our school is full of nothing but farm kids. How am I ever gonna find someone there?”

  He shakes his head but falls short of rolling his eyes. “You’ll talk to people. Get to know them. And let them get to know you. Be yourself and give it some time. If they still don’t get you after you’ve given them a chance, I’ll be here to listen. But you can’t go in with a defeatist attitude. You gotta be positive. You gotta believe you’re gonna find new friends.”

  I sigh. I want to tell him I don’t want to find anybody else. Instead, I say, “You’re not gonna be easy to replace.”

  He chuckles, lifting his foot in the air. “I know. I wear a size fourteen. These are mighty big shoes to fill.”

  I can’t help but smile. “You’re a dork.”

  “The dorkiest,” he replies.

  We sit together in silence for what seems like a long time but is probably only ten minutes, until my fingers get so cold I can barely feel them. When I tell him I need to go home—to help with the herd, finish my history report on why the United States entered WWI, and start packing—he climbs down first and grabs me by the waist to lower me to the ground beside him.

  There’s an awkwardness between us that’s never been there before, as if neither of us wants to say goodbye, even if we’re only heading across the field to our respective houses. I kick at a clump of dirt with my shoe, hands buried deep in my coat pockets. He gives my arm a sympathetic squeeze before heading toward his house, but stops a moment later, calling over his shoulder.

  “I’m going with Bruster and Pete to Mason City to see the new Spielberg movie tonight. You wanna come?”

  I remember the tentative plans the guys set before my dad released his bombshell. In a few short weeks, Zander and I won’t be going anywhere together ever again. I stifle the thought.

  “The alien one?”

  He nods.

  “Sure. I’m in.”

  “Pick you up at six,” he says.

  He ambles across the field, tall and lanky, more man than boy, and it reminds me of how he once was, a carefree kid with
skinned knees and a farmer’s tan, running back and forth between our houses. I add this older version of him now to my mental scrapbook of memories, an image to call upon when my recollections of him begin getting fuzzy around the edges, as they certainly will in the months to come.

  chapter 4

  New Year’s Eve

  Monday, December 31

  Pete hands me a pair of ridiculous looking glasses which are designed so you look through the date into the promise of the coming year.

  “Claire gave out noisemakers, too, but they only came in a pack of six so there aren’t any left,” he explains to me as I follow him from the foyer down the stairs into Claire’s basement.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “These glasses are more than enough excitement for me.”

  It seems I’m the last to arrive as everyone else is already scattered around the room in groups of twos and threes. Zander’s in the corner, embroiled in what appears to be a particularly serious game of foosball against Mike and doesn’t even look up as I enter the room. Since our conversation at the oak tree in November, things have gotten seriously awkward between us, which is why I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t offer me a ride to tonight’s party or ask for me to pick him up on the way.

  Over the course of the past several weeks, I’ve felt a not-so-subtle shift in our friendship. After Thanksgiving, he started catching a ride to school with Bruster instead of tagging along with me. Around the same time, he stopped walking me to each of my classes and began making excuses for why he couldn’t come over on Wednesday nights to play chess. The worst, though, was during the final week before Christmas break when he abandoned his post beside me in the cafeteria. As much as all the others hurt, this final snub felt most like a kick in the teeth. Because barring illness, we’d eaten school lunch together every day for the past eleven years.

  I know in my heart as I look at him now that he’s only bracing himself for what’s to come. Preparing for the days I won’t be able to drive him around or walk with him to class or sit beside him as we eat our chicken tenders and pineapple tidbits. It’s merely self-preservation. A means of protecting his heart. And maybe I should be grateful he’s been pulling away for the both of us. But acknowledging this and accepting it are two entirely different things.