The Lost Children: Homecoming

Amidst an ocean of fallow hay fields sits an old farmhouse, mostly unoccupied. Years of neglect have taken their toll on the old structure and left a mark on the surrounding grasslands. From the only window of the sole occupied room, an elderly woman sits to a warm glass of tea, memories for comfort and company.

The bedroom around her is sparsely decorated anymore, the yellowing walls bearing nothing but various lighter colored shapes where pictures once hung. Before her a small end table, long since converted into the lady’s lone dining table – though the unkempt bed covered in layers of quilts to her immediate right seemed to serve much the same purpose. Larvae undulated across the scraps of food scattered about the bed, flies buzzed the room in all its sweltering heat.

Once more the lady attempted to stare out the window, only to be defeated by a combination of her failing eyesight and the mass of overgrown weeds outside. Still, something in the action stirred her memory and for a moment her trembling hand stopped, holding her favorite teacup steady.

The room shifted and as she looked around it was the middle of the night, the room was clean and she was no longer alone. A sadness took possession of her soul as she realized where she now was.

Jim Braxton, or Big Jim to everyone who knew him, lay quietly in the bed he’d shared with his wife for decades. If not for the pallor of his skin and the profuse sweating he was doing one would believe him to be sleeping peacefully. Nancy Braxton stood sobbing internally, powerless to help her ailing husband in any way. Momentarily she allowed herself to breathe deep the smell of candles burning, though the smell she once enjoyed brought no surcease to her pain.

The overweight Dr. Harlow, mostly as wide as he was tall, strained to walk from Big Jim’s side at the head of the bed towards Nancy. Old brown eyes filled to a bursting point with an emotion he refused to allow himself to show.

“…” He cleared his throat, attempting to speak but failing initially.

“Mrs. Braxton, I’m afraid Big Jim ain’t going to wake up…” Dr. Harlow’s words forced themselves before her. She couldn’t bear to look at his miserable face, all scrunched up in his display of sympathy and pain. “With the fall he took, his injuries are just too severe. Why was he even on that damned tractor?”

“A tree had fallen on our old barn.” Mrs. Braxton answered, though it was merely the shell of the woman speaking at this moment. “He had to tend to the property.”

“I understand that things have been tough for both of you since…” Again, the Doctor found his words refusing to budge. When he’d come into the house, he had noticed the brown box sitting on the coffee table in the living room, where it had been for over a year. The box seemed to have not been touched since being placed there. “… I know it’s been tough since Little Jim passed away over there.”

“Mrs. Braxton, Nancy – you know y’all should have burnt that old snake pit to the ground years ago! “ The doctor switched topics, he regretted bringing up the loss of Nancy’s son as her husband lay dying. “I would like to give him some morphine, it will help him…it will help his pain, if you’ll allow me.”

“I told him the same thing you know. I said, Jim dear just leave that old barn alone. “

A shadow moved across Nancy’s mind and for a moment she was floating in a vast nothing of darkness. In the blink of an eye she found herself standing in the living room, the brown paper box sitting untended on the coffee table. Nancy could almost hear her admonishment to Big Jim still echoing in the room. “Jim, dear just leave that old barn alone. “

“Well Nancy hon, what am I to do? Once this war is over, we can find some young men to come help rebuild the farm. “ Big Jim was fastening the buckles on his blue denim overalls. Folks that knew Big Jim knew two things; the first was that if they saw Big Jim he would be in those same Key brand denim overalls and two, well he would only ever have been called Big Jim as a joke. Big Jim barely stood over five foot tall and was of a very modest build. “But I have to do something until then, we’ll need those corn cribs. You know that old well pump inside the barn is the only water out on that side of the farm, I can’t let the barn fall in on it.”

“What would Little Jim say about this?” Nancy followed her husband as he turned and exited the front door.

“Well, if I’m being honest with you Nancy…” Big Jim’s face turned a bit red, highlighting his tufted white eyebrows and mustache. “He’d say that we shouldn’t have built that barn over the well. We can’t afford to have it collapse in on top of it and we lose access to the spring on the western side of the spread!”

“Jim, you know that well ain’t nothing but full of snakes.” Nancy hissed, not unlike a snake, to add a bit of comedy and underscore her point, waving her hands around foolishly.

Big Jim couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his wife, her face and hair lit by the suns of many decades, acting as if she were nineteen again. He finished adjusting his clothing and pulled her into his chest, breathing deep the smell of her flesh and the light smell of her perfume from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.

Jim released his wife and turned for the door. Nancy, still tickled at her snake impersonation, watched him shuffle towards the door with a smile herself. As the door closed panic struck her and she charged after him, swinging the old white door open.

Dark clouds consumed the sky beyond the porch where Nancy now found herself. Big Jim was nowhere to be seen, only the dust cloud following the mail truck retreating down the long gravel driveway. In her hands she held a white letter addressed to her and her husband, the sender listed as “Department of the Army”.

At her feet sat a medium sized box wrapped in simple brown paper, scribbled handwriting on the outside. Her hands shaking, she peeled open the letter, choosing to ignore the box as she withdrew the letter and unfolded it.

“Dear Ma’am or Sir” A single tear fell from her eye, staining the typewritten letter embossed with the seal of the Army.

“The Adjutant General of the Army has notified me that your son, Private James Edward Braxton, died while on active duty with the Army. While I know that nothing I can say will lessen your loss, I do desire to extend my heartfelt sympathy to you…” Nancy couldn’t bring herself to continue reading the remainder of the letter, she knew all she needed to know.

Slowly she bent over, picked up the box. Another tear fell as she recognized the delicate swirls of her sons handwriting addressing the box. For a moment she recalled the many evenings she spent teaching Little Jim to properly hold a writing instrument. She envisioned the delighted squeal he would sound off with each time he correctly drew another letter.

She looked out at the horizon, both hoping to see Big Jim coming home and praying that he would take as long as humanly possible to return; she couldn’t imagine how she could ever tell him that there only son was dead on some battlefield in Europe. She turned slowly and entered back into the house, delicately closing the door behind her.

The squeaking of the door on its hinges brought an errant thought, and with it a smile, “I’ll have to get Jim to oil that old hinge when he gets in, I been on him about that for weeks now.”

With a slightly dejected motion, she placed the brown box on the coffee table in the living room. She collapsed onto the nearby couch, both hands moving to her face to cover her eyes and massage her forehead.

The air in the room changed, the moist warm air disappeared and was replaced with hot dry air. The smell of cinnamon and apples filled her nose and laughter filled her ears. She moved her hands and opened her eyes. Before her, her young son Jim and her husband sat in the floor playing checkers. It was Christmas and Little Jim was ten years old. He had just opened the present from his parents, a carefully folded paper sack beside him, a bright black and white checkerboard in front of him. Her ears moved as her smile threatened to touch them both.

Outside the wind whistled sharply against the small house, carrying fresh falling snow atop deep drifts of snow. Blue hued moonlight speckled through the large window across the from Nancy, intertwining with the orange tinted light of the many candles spread throughout the living room. In the nearby kitchen the leftovers from their modest chicken dinner still sat on the table, their small kitten struggling to find a way up on to the red and white covered table for scraps.

Little Jim giggled at his father overacting dismay at the loss of his first piece of the game. From a nearby table, she grabbed her rose covered white teacup and sipped at the warm liquid, savoring both the moment and the bitter strength of the unsweetened brew. A loud thump and humiliated mew echoed from the kitchen.

“Momma? I think kitty is trying to get some of our chicken!” Little Jim chuckled. The cat was his idea, he had spent weeks begging both of his parents for the permission to have such an animal. Nancy and Jim eventually relented but still maintained a façade of disliking the small grey and white kitten.

“I know I know Jimmy.” Nancy drained the last drops of tea, careful not to drink down the dregs of tea leaf floating in the bottom of the cup. She stood and headed for the kitchen, speaking from over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your cat son!”

The darkness returned as quick as a heartbeat. Nancy fumbled around in the darkness in terror until the laughter returned. She found herself back in her bedroom, laying in bed. From the other side of her locked bedroom door, she could hear her son calling out. “Mom, I’m home, come on out here to me.”

Her heart didn’t have a chance to jump before she heard Big Jim’s voice joining in, “C’mon out Nancy – you’re taking forever dear!”

Quickly she bound from her prone position, not noticing that she felt no pain in doing so. Laughter echoed out from the nearby living room as her bare feet padded across hardwood floors, causing them to creak and pop as she went. A warmth moved deep into Nancy, and it felt as though bubbles were moving across her flesh as a bright white light enveloped her.