A Photograph from My Past

“Stop,” I shout. “This is the old barn on my family’s property.” My grandson, Mark, turns and looks at me with surprise. But he pulls over to the side of the country road. And as he does, a miracle occurs. A barn owl unlatches its talons from the edge of the barn’s hay mow and soars on silent wings into the sky above us. I know it is not our barn owl, the birds do not live that long. Maybe it’s a descendant. I watch until it is a speck.

I turn back to Mark with a smile. He has no idea that years ago, this bird of prey influenced his life. It is my secret and mine alone.

In fact, his next words prove his lack of any connection.

“I’m glad we stopped here, Grandmom. A picture of this old barn might just win the photography contest I want to enter.”

“Take your time, Mark,” I say, as he gathers a tripod and camera from the back seat.

When I look out the window of Mark’s SUV, in my mind, the building still stands, strong and useful. Papa and our neighbors lifted the framed walls into place. Mama stayed inside our house when my father nailed shingles to the roof. She prayed aloud.

“Dear Lord, don’t let him fall off.”

I helped slap several coats of red paint on the rough boards. The trim on the door’s crosspiece, the upper fascia boards, and the cupola were white. Pretty probably is not the word you would use to describe a barn, but at eleven years of age, that word came to me when the structure was completed.

Now, small patches of red and white remain, but the exposed wood has weathered to silvery grey. The roof has partially caved into the hay mow.

The ladder I climbed so many times to take an afternoon nap probably would have fallen long ago. The first time I took refuge there, a barn owl perched on an open timber swooped out over my head startling me, but after a while, I guess he decided I was not a threat. He would dose and I would be lulled to sleep by the fragrance of the warm hay. When Mama called me to supper, I hurried too fast and fell off that ladder a few times.

Manure had to be shoveled out of the stalls, but I did it willingly. I wanted our cows to be clean and comfortable. They were income, but they were more than that. They all had names and loved to be petted. When their foamy milk sprayed into a bucket, I leaned into their soft sides and sighed in contentment.

Mark and his parents grew up in the city. They would not understand my feelings about this building. They never stuffed themselves full of farm wife’s cooking at a barn raising. Their milk in a carton has been through processes to make it “safe” and take out the fat, which is the best part.

But these fond memories are not the best ones. They pale in comparison with Jimmy Rhoades, the barn, and the barn owl.

Jimmy Rhoades was not part of the mainstream of our community. He never sat in a pew at our church or played softball on the park diamond with other boys. He was older and did not attend my school. In my teens. I never saw him at grange dances. I met him by happenstance my last year in high school.

One of our neighbors, Mrs. Morris had lumbago and my mother would send me to bring her supper twice a week. In a hamper, I carried a bowl of chipped beef in gravy on toast, a piece of peach pie, and apple cider in a bottle. As I dawdled down the gravel road wearing a red cape over my gingham dress, I heard someone walking behind me and turned to see who it was, a handsome fellow.

When he caught up with me, he said, “Well if it isn’t little Miss Riding Hood. Bringing that basket to Grandma’s house?”

“No, I bring dinner to Mrs. Morris on Wednesdays and Saturdays. But who might you be? The big bad wolf?”

He was even better looking when he laughed. “And what goodies are you taking to Mrs. Morris, my dear?” He used a wheedling voice that sounded like a storyteller.

I pulled back the clean dishtowel and displayed my bounty. “What kind of pie?” he asked.

“Peach.”

“Oh, no,” he moaned dramatically, “My favorite.”

The strangest urge hit me. I wanted to give him Mrs. Morris’ piece. I wanted to sit and watch him eat it. I would pull a clean hanky from my pocket and wipe the crumbs from the corners of his mouth.

I shook my head. What was the matter with me?

“I’d better go before her supper gets stone cold.”

“I’m heading that way. Mind if I walk with you?”

I felt my cheeks flush. “No.”

“So, what’s your real name, Red?” he said, as we started off again.

“Juliet Hastings.”

“Juliet, well I’m not Romeo, just plain Jimmy Rhoades.”

Unfortunately, Mrs. Morris didn’t live that far away. I stopped by her gate. “Well, see you around.”

“I left a bit early for my job today. I just might make a habit of that on Saturday considering I would be able to accompany a girl who stepped out of a fairy tale.”

And so, it began.

***

As my grandson drives me back to the Clifton Assisted Living, seeing the old barn has jogged all the memories of that wonderful, horrible time. I close my eyes and remember, and Mark is quiet thinking I am asleep.

Now at the same time when I was seeing Jimmy, there was another boy who had made it clear that he liked me. Arthur Armstrong played baseball on our school’s team, sat in a pew with his parents at the same church I attended, and said “Please, thank you, and yes, Ma’am and Sir. His parents owned Armstrong’s Feed Store where he hefted sacks of grain, which made him strong and muscular. His chestnut brown hair was thick like Jimmy’s, but his face was neither handsome nor ugly, just unremarkable.

Arthur invited me to dances and parties. I accepted because I loved dancing and being part of a group. My friends began to think of us as a couple. My parents liked him, and my mother hinted in subtle ways that he might make a good marriage partner.

However, Saturdays became my favorite day. Jimmy would carry the basket and the next time Mama made a peach pie, I slipped in an extra piece for him, and my fantasy came true. But I wanted more from that mouth than wiping crumbs from it. Mrs. Morris’ meals likely needed to be reheated in the oven as we took our time getting acquainted now on Wednesdays and the weekend.

What I found out about him though made me decide I did not want to share my new friend with anyone. He lived farther down the road on a rundown acre. His father had stopped caring after Jimmy’s mom had died and began to drink to forget.

“We moved away in my freshman year of high school, never did go back. My dad’s pension isn’t much, so I’ve got to work.”

In the afternoons after chores, he tended a gas station and did minor mechanical work there. In the evenings he liked to read books from the library. As an only child with no siblings to play with, books were my friends. We discussed authors we liked.

“What do you want to do with your life?” he asked me.

I shrugged. I had no great plans. I expected I would marry, have a family, and settle down close to where I was born.

“What about you?” I said, deflecting his question.

“I don’t want to stick around here. I want to travel, maybe eventually go to mechanic’s school. I’m good with my hands.”

But one day, Mrs. Morris was out in her flower bed when we sauntered up with her meal.

She leaned forward on her cane. “Who is this young man, Juliet?”

I knew the minute she got back inside she would be calling my mother.

I was right. Mama met me at our door. “Mrs. Morris says you are traipsing around with some older boy.”

“Um, his name is Jimmy Rhoades, he walks up that way to work and we like to discuss books we’ve read.”

“Hm-m, Rhoades,” she gazed at the ceiling. “I think I heard his dad’s a drunk. I would stay away from this Jimmy. He may have a tendency toward drink himself.”

My stomach had a sinking sensation. What if they forbid me to see him?

***

Mark touches my shoulder. “We’re here, Grandmom.”

I open my eyes. “Thanks for the outing, Dear. When you get the photographs, I’d love to see them.”

“Okay, I’ll get your walker out of the trunk.”

As I slowly make my way down the curved walk toward my single bedroom cottage, I think of how I used to love to run and how I ran the day everything changed.

One Saturday months later, I started off for Mrs. Morris’ anticipating the sound of Jimmy’s steps on the gravel soon after, but they didn’t come. I kept turning around hoping he was just a little late. Finally, I stood outside her house and waited, but he did not appear.

I pleaded homework I hadn’t finished doing during the week, so I would not have to stay for the usual chit-chat with our neighbor. I ran back home.

“Mama, it’s so pretty out today, I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Okay, but I would like help with supper.”

“Oh, I won’t be gone that long.”

I walked away sedately, but as soon as I was out of sight of the house, I sprinted toward the crossroads where Jimmy lived. When I arrived out of breath, I slowed, walking up the lane. I had seen the house from a distance, but up close, it looked tired, sagging porch, and peeling paint. Hesitating for a couple of minutes, I pulled in a breath and knocked loudly on the door. I waited, no sound. I knocked again. Defeated, I walked away.

As I turned back into the lane, across the street a neighbor was pulling mail from her rural postal box.

“You looking for Mr. Rhoades or his son?”

I nodded, but did not specify which person I wanted.

“During the night, an ambulance came screaming down the road and woke me and my husband, so we grabbed our bathrobes and came out. Jed Rhoades was taken to the hospital in Milo and his son went with him.”

“Thank you,” I said, “Do you know what happened?”

“Nope, but Jed’s been poorly ever since he got here, not really sick but …” She stopped herself. “Are you a relative or a friend?”

“More of an acquaintance,” I said, “Thanks again.” Quickly, I walked away before she could get nosier.

I walked back home. How I wished I could see him.

***

I folded my walker and stowed the contraption in the hall closet. I pulled off my shoes and lay down on my quilted comforter. The next memories were the best and the worst.

That Sunday after Jimmy’s father was taken to the hospital, I was gazing out my bedroom window, trying to decide if I should wear my lilac organza or the flowered shirtwaist to church. A flurry of wings glided by. Why was the barn owl flying in the daytime? Was someone out in the barn? The cows had been sold years before.

My crew socks, like the silent wings of the Barn Owl, made no noise on the hardwood floors. Carefully, I opened and closed the front door. I slipped into my rubber boots on the front porch and walked toward the barn on the back of our property.

Jimmy stood, head down, by the side of the barn, kicking pebbles. I ran to him and threw my arms around him.

“Is your dad, okay?”

His hands were knotted into fists at his side. “No, he’s dead.”

I stepped back. “Oh, Jimmy, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Is there someplace we can go to be alone and talk?”

“Yes, but I’ve got to make an excuse to skip church. Wait here, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Back in the house, I knocked on my parent’s bedroom door.

“Dad, Mom, I think I’m coming down with a sore throat. I sure don’t want anybody to catch this.”

My mother opened the door. “Oh, Honey, that’s too bad, we are going the potluck in the basement after the service. Will you be all right here by yourself?”

I fake coughed, feeling guilty. “Sure, I going to get back into my pj’s and go back to bed and read, maybe get in some more sleep.”

“Good idea,’ Dad said, in the background. “There’s some cough syrup in the medicine cabinet.”

They took an eternity downstairs. The aroma of coffee brewing wafted up to my room. Mom came back upstairs with her coat on and kissed me good-bye. Finally, I heard our car’s wheels backing out over the gravel driveway. I leapt out of bed, ran a brush through my long brown hair and reapplied pink lipstick.

“Please, let him still be there.” That hypocritical prayer only rose as high as my bedroom ceiling.

But he still was there.

“Come,” I said, taking his hand. “To my special place.”

He followed me up the stairs to the loft. I arranged a soft blanket on the dry hay. He sat down beside me. I waited for him to speak.

“I miss my mother. If she hadn’t died, I would miss my dad more now. At one time, he took me fishing, helped me with my homework, heck, he even talked to me. But these last five years, he kept turning inward, hardly spoke, and drank from morning until night. Sometimes, we didn’t have enough food because he’d spent his pension money. I hid my pay from him, or I swear he would have taken that too.”

His home life was so foreign to me, I had no idea what to say. Instead, I reached over and touched his hand. He reached for my other one and held it.

“I have to make funeral arrangements, though Lord knows where I’m going to get the money for that. I just want to run away. You’re the only person I’d miss.”

“I hope you don’t run away. I’d miss you too.”

He reached for me, and we clung to each other. After long minutes in paradise, I tilted my head back and he leaned forward and kissed me, slowly at first, but then with more urgency. He was wrong about him not being Romeo to my Juliet, but he was right about the fact he was good with his hands.

He unbuttoned my pajama top. He caressed my face, my shoulders, my arms. His fingertips softly traced a circle around my erect nipples.

“So beautiful,” he sighed.

My body responded like sun and spring rain on flowers, pushing upward toward full bloom. The rest of our clothing joyously discarded as the final barrier between us, we could be bonded. Naked, but as unashamed as Adam and Eve before eating forbidden fruit.

But he hesitated, his breath coming in gasps.

“You’re sure?”

Had I ever been so sure of anything until now?

I said nothing, just pulled him down on top of me.

It hurt when his body found a home inside mine, but I did not care. I was his and he was mine.

We fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.

I awoke as something sailed over us. I looked up to see our guardian and protector, the barn owl. Then I heard a car out on the road, my parents coming home.

“Wake up, Jimmy,” I said, shaking his shoulder. “I’ve got to get back in the house. My parents are coming.”

I threw on my bed clothes, clattered down the ladder, and ran barefoot across the lawn toward the back door and into the house.

My parents caught me at the bottom of our stairway.

“So, you’re up. Are you feeling better?” Dad asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I did get a nap. Just coming down for a glass of water.”

“You look feverish,” my mother said, touching my cheek. “You had better stay home from school tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said. I went to the kitchen, poured myself some water, and went straight back upstairs.

I crawled underneath the covers and relived the new and wonderful experience. I could hardly wait for Wednesday to see him again.

But on Tuesday, when I assured my parents, I was well enough to go back to school, I got up early, dressed, and went out to the barn. I wanted to visit the scene of my heavenly rapture. I climbed the ladder and smiled at the hollow we had made in the hay. I grabbed the blanket to bring back inside to wash and when I did an envelope fell out. He must have come back and wrote me a love note. My hands shook as I opened it.

Dear Juliet,

I am so sorry about what happened. I was so sad and at the time what we did seemed so right. But you know about my situation. I can’t marry you. I have part-time job that pays hardly anything. The rent on our place is due, the funeral home wants money to bury my dad, and in five days I’ll be kicked out of the house. I got a Greyhound ticket to travel to the West Coast. I don’t know where I’ll land, anywhere I can get a decent job, I guess. You are better off without a guy like me, so I didn’t come say good-bye.

I’m sure you will have a happy life here where your parents and friends love you.

Know that I will never forget you or our time together,

Jimmy

I stuffed the note back into the envelope, stuck it into my pocket, and held the blanket against my chest.

In a daze, I walked back to the house and dumped the blanket in the utility room dirty clothes hamper.

The aroma of bacon wafted from the kitchen as I opened the door.

“You know, Mom, I thought I was better, but I don’t feel so good. I’m going back to bed. I don’t want any breakfast.”

Upstairs, my pillow muffled the sound of my sobs.

***

When I finally went back to school, everyone buzzed about Senior Prom and graduation. Nothing excited me. Doing my schoolwork was only so I would pass.

Arthur stopped me in the hall after English class and asked me if I would be his date for Senior Prom.

I hesitated, as he stood waiting for an answer.

Well, why not. Jimmy never said he was coming back.

“Okay,” I said, listlessly.

“Is everything all right? You sound kind of down,” he said.

I felt bad. He was being kind.

“Sorry, I’m worried. I have got one more test today and I should have studied harder. What if I don’t pass?”

“Gosh, you always seem to get good grades. I didn’t realize you were concerned about passing.”

He really was nice, but he wasn’t Jimmy.

***

My mother was more excited about the prom than me. We were going on a Saturday to pick out a dress and shoes. I feigned interest in a coral taffeta dress that hugged my waist and flared out around my knees. It was pretty, but I kept wishing Jimmy could see me in it.

The night of the prom, Mom helped me wind my long hair on top of my head and Dad took pictures of me and Arthur, who showed up wearing a suit and tie, and looking more attractive than usual. This time there were no admonitions of; “Be home by eleven,” just, “Have a good time.”

He had borrowed the family car, a sleek Pontiac. Some of my gloominess lifted thinking about dancing which I loved.

All our friends were there. The band from Thurston played all the latest songs. I hardly sat down between Arthur and other boys asking me to dance. At eleven, the band started putting their instruments away.

“A bunch of us are driving up to Thurston to Dunuchhi’s, that Italian place. Wanna come?” his friend, Tom, asked Arthur. That sounded good to me, but Arthur spoke up. “No thanks, we’re having our own private party.”

Tom wiggled his eyebrows. “I see.”

As soon as we got in the car I said, “Uh, Arthur, what did you mean about a private party?

He reached underneath his seat. “I sneaked some spiced rum from my dad’s stash. Ever had some?”

“No, nobody drinks at our house.”

“Its real sweet, I bet you would like it.”

What the heck, I had been breaking commandments right and left lately, lying, and lying down with a man.

“Let’s drive to the river and try it.”

I knew what was down by the river, a lover’s lane frequented by certain kids in our town.

“Okay.”

We parked and he poured. “Just one glass.”

The fiery liquid slid down hot in my throat.

“Come over here,” he said.

Scooting next to him, he put his free arm around me. I sighed and leaned into his shoulder. At least somebody wanted to be with me. The spicy nectar bathed my tongue in sweetness.

The feeling that Arthur had come here to tell me something made me turn and look at his face.

He cleared his throat, “Juliet, do you know how long I’ve been in love with you? Since grade school.”

I was sure I looked shocked. I knew he liked me, but loved me?

He leaned in and kissed me. “You’re the one I want for my wife. What do you think about that?”

My throat constricted. I took another large swallow of rum. “I don’t know what to say. I have to think about this.”

“Sure,” he said, “but you probably know we’d have our parent’s blessing.”

I nodded, feeling woozy. He poured more rum in my glass, and I did not object. I sipped until my body felt languid, like floating in warm bath water.

My lips burned as he kissed me deeper and deeper, his tongue probing mine. He set his empty glass on the floor.

“I really don’t know how to make love and I sure don’t want to hurt you.”

He loved me, wanted me, and wanted to marry me. I set my glass down. “We’ll learn together,” I said, pressing myself against him.

He drove me home slowly. “Don’t want to be stopped by a cop,” he said. He kissed me again when he left me at my doorstep. “Remember, you are my one and only.”

***

I blinked looking at the clock. One a.m., and yet my mother was still sitting up reading a magazine.

“Have an enjoyable time, Honey?”

“Yes, we did,” I said, hearing my words slurring.

“Juliet Hastings, are you drunk?”

“Yes.”

My mother stepped back, and her eyes widened. She whispered, “Did anything happen?”

“I promise you I will tell you tomorrow. But right now, I just want to go to bed.”

I slipped off my heels and staggered up the stairs to the bathroom where I vomited.

Mercifully, my mother let me sleep in, but after they came home from church she tapped on my door.

After she sat down on the foot of my bed, she said without preamble, “Did you have sex?”

“Yes.’

“Did he force you?”

“No, Arthur’s a good guy. We drank too much, and it just happened. Anyway, we’re engaged.” At least I hoped we were. He did say he wanted me for a wife.

“Juliet, I can’t believe you did this. All these years we took you to church.”

“Its not your fault, its ours.”

“You didn’t think of the consequences? You could be pregnant. In this small town that would have tongues wagging. Could Arthur support you if you got married? I know he works in his dad’s business, but I’m sure he doesn’t make much.”

I said nothing. I had no answers to these questions.

But toward the end of the month after my anti-climatic high school graduation, I had an answer to; Am I pregnant? I was. The other question was unanswered. Whose baby, was it?”

When I told Arthur, he did not hesitate.

“Let’s get married right away.”

We went to a Justice of the Peace in Thurston with both families in attendance. Arthur’s father said he had planned to give Arthur more responsibility after graduation and there would be a raise since he would be working all day.

My parents helped us with the rent and security deposit on a small furnished apartment. We ate lots of hot cereal and canned soup to get by. Some relative gave us, “How to Cook Hamburger 100 ways.

Arthur left for work whistling. I did housework, washed, and ironed clothes, went for walks, visited my parents, read books from the library, and took naps as my belly expanded. Arthur loved to pat my stomach and even spoke to the little resident therein. He was a good husband and eventually I could say, “I love you,” without lying. No fireworks, I’m afraid, but I felt comfortable and protected with him.

When Aaron was born with head of thick deep brown hair. “Looks just like his dad,” my father-in-law said. He was not the only one who said that. But Aaron had my high forehead and my blue eyes.

Arthur proved to be a good father. When Aaron was older, he taught him to ride a bike, play baseball, and helped him with his schoolwork.

When Arthur’s father retired, Arthur took over the feed store and I would cashier and visit with the customers. We bought our first house with three bedrooms hoping for another child, but it ended up being my sewing room.

Aaron married young to a local girl, Ginny, who I liked. A year and a half later, they had Mark. I babysat him when she got a job as a researcher for an attorney, so we have always been close.

***

Mark is coming today to bring me the picture of the old barn that won grand prize at the state fair. He says he put it in a silver frame to match the picture I have up of the barn owl. I have set out tea and coconut cookies, his favorite.

He knocks. I call out, “Come in, Mark.”

Such a handsome young man, the spitting image of his grandfather, Jimmy Rhoades.