The Caretaker of Lorne Field

Durkin didn’t bother looking at her. He took one of the imported beers Charlie Harper had brought over and sat alone at the kitchen table. Later, when Lydia was at the stove, he told her in a tired monotone that Lester would tell them what happened and the boys would come home then.

Lydia had warmed up leftover pot roast for dinner and they ate quietly with neither of them looking at each other. Halfway through dinner Lydia asked him to just tell the truth about what happened to Lester.

“I know it must’ve been an accident,” she said. “You were probably trying to show Lester how to dig up one of those weeds and something slipped. If you just tell people the truth everything will be able to go back as it was.”

Durkin dropped his fork and knife onto his plate and looked up to meet Lydia’s eyes. As he stared at her his own eyes became liquid. He sat motionless for no more than half a minute, but to Lydia it could’ve just as easily have been an hour, at least that’s how long it seemed. He broke the silence by pounding on the table with his fist hard enough that the impact knocked a glass off the table and Lydia almost leapt out of her skin. The glass shattered into dozens of tiny shards with pieces scattering across the antique pine floor.

“If you think I’m going to clean that up, you’re crazy,” Lydia said.

Durkin’s thick eyelids lowered an eighth of an inch as he stared at her. “You took the videotape out of that camcorder,” he said.

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“Don’t lie to me. You think I’m stupid? After you kept telling me to wait on videotaping the Aukowies.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she insisted stubbornly.

He pounded the table again. This time it had no effect on her.

“Goddamn it! I could’ve proven to the town that Aukowies are real. The videotape would’ve shown what they really are. Damn it, Lydia, why’d you have to do it?”

She had shifted her glance away from him. As she met his liquid eyes again, her own were as dry as sand.

“Why? Because I spoke with a lawyer yesterday who has a way for us to make a lot of money. More than you could imagine. But not if you start videotaping those weeds so you can prove to everyone they’re nothin’ but weeds. I’m not going to let you ruin this for us.”

“Goddamn you-”

“You shut up! I have one son in the hospital and another taken out of my home, so you have no right to curse me or blame me for nothin’. You understand me?”

Durkin didn’t say anything. A hot intensity burned on Lydia’s small wrinkled face. Her hands clenched into tiny fists and her knuckles showed bone-white.

“If I thought for one second that you hurt Lester intentionally, I’d already be out the door, but not before putting a nice heaping spoonful of arsenic in that pot roast. Tomorrow morning you’re going to admit to people what really happened. You’re going to say that it was an accident and not a weed that bit off Lester’s thumb.”

Durkin didn’t say anything. He just sat breathing hard, the moistness in his eyes quickly drying up.

“And why couldn’t you bring Lester’s thumb back with you?” Lydia demanded, thin veins streaking her neck and a large bluish one standing out in the middle of her forehead. “The doctors could’ve reattached it! Why couldn’t you bring it back?”

“There was no thumb left.”

“Shut up. Don’t you try that nonsense with me!”

“But there wasn’t,” Durkin said. “Once the Aukowie was done with it there was no thumb.”

“Shut up!” She hit the table herself with an open palm-not nearly as hard as her husband had, but hard enough to make a sharp crack. She grabbed her hand and held it as if it were broken. Tears welled up in her small eyes and started to leak down her cheeks. “Just shut up and quit talking this nonsense,” she cried softly.

“Let me get some ice for that.”

“I don’t need any ice from you.”

Durkin pushed himself away from the table, hobbled over to the cabinets making sure to avoid the broken glass littering the floor, then found a plastic bag and filled it with ice from the freezer. He brought the bag over to his wife and placed it gently against the hand she was holding.

“Do you think you broke it?” he asked.

“No, nothin’s broke.”

“Maybe I should take you to the hospital and have them check it?”

“Just sit down and finish your dinner.”

Durkin opened his mouth to argue, but instead sat back down. He halfheartedly continued eating. Lydia watched him for a while, then told him the lawyer was going to be stopping by soon to explain how they were going to turn their lives around. “You’re going to agree to whatever he says or so help me,” she said, her voice not much more than a snake’s hiss.

“I ain’t violating the contract.”

“You won’t have to.”

He nodded dully and went back to his food. He peeked at her a couple of times to try to figure how badly her hand was hurt and how he was going to get someone as stubborn as her to the hospital.