Shattered

Jacob stood in the hallway with the telephone handset pressed hard against his ear, nodding his head slightly. The fingers of his left hand tapped against the slick surface of the table next to the receiver, making a semicircle of tiny circles in the dust.

"Yeah, that's right," he said. "He just left. Said there was nothing much else..." The soft solemnity of his voice caught suddenly with a guttural choke. He looked down the hall toward the front door, where a dim beam of late afternoon light made its way through the cracked diamond window set into the wood. He nodded again, rubbing his eyes.

"I know. I know, thanks. Thanks Molly." Glancing down at his watch, he sighed. "Hey sis, I have to go. Ok, I will. You too. Goodbye."

After placing the handset back onto the receiver with little sound, Jacob walked to the diamond window and stared outside. Snow was coming down fast enough to have partially filled in the footsteps leading out past the old Dodge pickup truck. He smiled faintly at the snow covered truck, which even in the fading light showed bits of blue poking through the rusted doors. The smile faded as he noticed one of the headlamps was smashed out, and he pulled his gaze from the truck to the five saplings he had planted in a line just off the front porch earlier in the spring. They had dropped their leaves, looking more like dried sticks poking out of the ground than actual trees. Their tiny branches were spread out still, as if in some sort of silent vigil. He stood for a long time staring at them as a slow grimace formed on his face. They were barely visible when a weak cough came from up the stairs.

#

The stairs creaked loudly despite the care Jacob showed placing his feet down. He reached the end of the hallway, his steps echoing against the floor into the open doors of darkened rooms. The door at the end was closed, however, and the warm light coming from the crack underneath it poured out behind him as he opened it. He slipped into the room, closing the door behind him, his eyes darting to the fireplace, where there were still small flames licking the air above it. He took a split piece of wood from the small rack and set it into the fire gently. Standing up, he looked over to the figure in the bed and smiled.

"Hey Deirdre," he said, walking over to the stand holding a glass bottle with a tube coming down out of it. He nodded, and looked back down at her. Her eyes reflected the firelight back up to him; they seemed so large against her face. Her skin was drawn taught against the bones of her face, and had a waxy complexion. A few strands of hair poked out from underneath the blanket wrapped around the top of her head, but her brow ridges were bare. Jacob went to the other side of her bed and sat down in the plush reclining chair.

"Hey you," Deirdre whispered. A delicate, bony hand poked out of the side of the blanket covering her. Jacob covered it with his. His hand seemed giant in comparison.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. She smiled at him thinly through pale lips.

"I could use a warm milk," she said. He nodded.

"I'll get some in a moment," he replied, giving her hand a light squeeze. "I was just thinking about when I first bought the Dodge, and bringing it over to your place for the first time. Do you remember that?" She nodded. Her shallow breaths made small wheezing sounds as she replied.

"I was so angry," she said, "that you bought that giant hunk of metal before even coming to see me." She paused, taking a few more breaths before continuing. "You had just gotten back from the War and I hadn't seen you in 2 years." She paused again. "I'm afraid I wasn't too kind to you, dear." Jacob laughed silently, looking across the room at the fire.

"It's alright," he said. "I thought your anger was..."

"Do you regret any of it?" Deirdre asked. He jerked his head toward her. She was looking directly at him, directly into him.

"No," he said after a moment, sighing. "No. Of course not."

"I do," she said, closing her eyes. "Some." Jacob squeezed her hand again before standing up.

"I'll go warm you up some milk."

#

He made his way to the kitchen, navigating through the mostly dark house. He pulled the glass bottle of milk out of the refrigerator, pouring some into a small sauce pan. He twisted the knob on the gas stove and set the pan on the flame, then stared out the window as he idly stirred. It had stopped snowing, and the sky was clear. The moon reflected off the snow covered field beyond the house, illuminating the split wooden fence at its near edge. A single deer was making its way on spindly legs across the field, past the edge of the old barn to the forest beyond.

After a couple of minutes, the milk started bubbling slightly, and Jacob took the milk off the stove. He filled a mug halfway, then took a sip. He took another sip after pouring some of the cold milk into the mug, then poured the warm milk from the pan back into the bottle before returning it to the refrigerator. Grabbing the mug in both hands, he turned around and his foot caught a rippled edge of the braided area rug placed just behind the stove, and he careened into the heavy wooden table on the other side of the room. The cup flew out of his hands, crashing into the wall and exploding into a white mist. He used his right hand to catch his fall on a chair as the ring on his left hand cracked sharply against the edge of the table.

"SHIT!" he cried out, the word echoing down the hall. He pulled himself up shaking his left hand, and stood staring at the broken bits of ceramic, his breathing fast and sharp; a minute later it slowed. He went to the hallway closet, pulling out a broom and dustpan.

When Jacob came back into the bedroom with a fresh mug, the fire had dimmed back down and Deirdre had fallen asleep. Placing another log into the fire, he glanced over again at the IV bottle before sitting down in the recliner. The fire cracked and popped as he sat, studying her as she drew in slow shallow breaths. He sipped on the warmed milk until it was gone, then leaned back in the chair and closing his eyes.

#

A cold breeze on his cheek tickled his eyes open. The fire had gone out long before, and the moonlight streamed in through the window, past the crack in one of the panes that let the trickle of air in. Jacob turned on the table lamp on the way to closing the curtain, stopping for a moment to look at the moonlight reflecting to illuminate the old barn. Most of the paint had long since been scoured away by wind, and the curved roof had areas thinned out to almost nothing. A set of footprints made their way through doors that had been rusted opened permanently.

He glanced down at his watch, but the face had been shattered. Sighing, he looked back out the window, tapping his finger against the watch face. He had his hands on the curtains to pull them shut, when he looked back down at the set of footprints leading into the barn. With a start, he whirled around, then past the empty bed, through the hall and down the loudly protesting stairs. The heavy front door was open wide; he burst through the storm door into icy night air that bit him immediately.

Slowing down to a brisk walk, Jacob followed the shuffling trail that weaved by the truck around the side of the house. The tracks were long, never quite picking up out of the snow, running parallel to each other. At some points they veered off, only to correct themselves; he traced the tracks precisely, regardless of the directions they took him.

The barn stood in front of him like a monolith. He stopped in front of it, staring at the dull, grayish wood punctuated by glassless windows that had been broken out by the storms they had weathered long ago. One window had a shard still sticking up from the bottom, like the last tooth in the mouth of an old man. Jacob began walking again, slowly this time as if pulling the energy to move forward from the ground itself. The darkness of the inside of the barn drew him in. The cold had wicked the scent from the air, and besides the slight crunch of the snow powdering the dirt floor underneath his slippers. He moved through the barn rather than into it, past stables that had once housed livestock, past rings that still hung tools long unused. Toward the back an altar sat tilted against the wall, looking almost as if it had grown out of the very framework of the barn.

He moved through the barn, exiting out the back to where the field lay spread out before him. The white sheet of snow was marred only by the footprints of the deer that had passed by earlier. Turning he turned to the left, where a line of single crosses spaced a few feet apart were painted at about waist height along the back wall of the barn. A name was written under each cross, each name had a single date written underneath. The names back toward the corner of the barn had faded into almost nothingness, and Deirdre lay collapsed between the fourth and fifth name, her spindly arms splayed out as if she was pulling the world into an embrace.