The home inspector follows Dad out the back door while I linger inside, running my hand along the splintered fireplace. Pap’s old farmhouse is weathered and wonderful, as he used to say.
He was crazy independent. Even after Gram passed fourteen years ago, he remained. When he hit eighty, he remained. And when Dad insisted that he move into a nursing home, he remained.
“You shouldn’t be working so hard at your age,” Dad had urged. “The upkeep of this place is too much. Time to relax. Let someone take care of you.”
“Hogwash,” Pap had said, ending the conversation with a wave of his veiny hand. He had that way about him. Even in his semi-lucid state, no one ever said no to Pap.
I’d come over a few weeks before his death. Pap was trying to start one of his many rickety mowers. I revved up Rusty Red before she choked out, then tried Ole Blue who didn’t even breathe. Eventually, Pap told me to stop messing with the girls and come in for some iced tea.
“You gotta talk your daddy into keepin’ the farm after I’m gone,” Pap urged, pupils foggy. “It’s a member of this family. Our blood, sweat, and bone marrow are in this soil.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll hold on to it,” I said, naively certain that Dad would be unwilling to sell off his childhood home. “I’ll probably live here with my kids someday.”
“Sonny, sonny.” He patted my knee, then rested his hand on the sofa. “Your innocence is humbling.” His fingertips began their habitual tapping, rolling right, then left and back again. “But, when you’re my age, you’ll realize that you don’t ever really know a person. Not ever.”
He’d been uttering strange thoughts in his twilight. I nodded and held his hand, unwilling to accept that he’d be gone soon.
My thoughts reach back to happier times when his mind was strong.
Pap teaching me how to hold a baby chick, ever so gently. The yellow fuzz tickling our palms, making us both giggle.
As I got older, I helped maintain the land, pruning and mowing. Harvesting when there was corn to harvest. While we worked, he gave me advice on whatever was happening in my little world.
I glance out the bay window. That once vibrant field is now wretched and wild. Tears barrel down my cheeks.
“Get your son! Let’s go!” The home inspector’s gruff voice cuts through my memories.
I rub my eyes and jog out back. Dad’s face is sapped of color.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m calling the police.” The inspector walks away, hand over his mouth. He looks like he’s swallowed a cockroach.
“Dad?” I say. The silence throws me into a panic. I reach out and shake his shoulder. “Dad!”
He clears his throat. Words trip out between cracks. “Fingers poking out, under some loose sod. At least two bodies. Maybe more.”
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