Hannah Gersen - Home Field

“I’m sorry,” Robbie said. “I really am. I just wanted to come here.”

“I would have taken you. We could have come here together.”

Robbie nodded, acknowledging that this was what he should have done, but Dean could see that he didn’t believe it.

“Why didn’t you ask me?” Dean said.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t explain.” Robbie tugged on the hem of his T-shirt, a gesture Dean recognized from his toddler years.

“It’s okay, I’m not angry. I just wanted to know.” Dean took his son’s face in his hands, savoring the feeling of his soft skin. “You’re my Robbie, you’re my boy. You can’t do this again.”

“No, no, I won’t. I promise.”

Stephanie and Bryan came into the room. They climbed up onto the foldout mattress to hug their brother. Bryan cried, the tears coming effortlessly, almost joyfully. “You came to Grandpa’s!”

Dean’s father stood in the doorway, where Dean had been just a few minutes before. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever come back here,” he said.

“Neither was I.” Dean couldn’t look away from his kids, together on the bed, the sheets and blankets rumpled beneath them. Stephanie leaned behind her brother to turn on the lamp and the light filled the room.

Stephanie awakened early, when it was still dark outside. She closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but the floor was too hard, even with the three heavy wool blankets her grandfather had laid down as a makeshift mattress. She could hear her brothers’ breathing, both of them asleep on the foldout. Outside the sky was a faded predawn black.

Stephanie changed out of her pajamas in the bathroom. The floors creaked as she made her way to the kitchen, where the stove clock said it was almost six. Her grandfather’s lined plaid shirt hung on a hook near the back door and she pulled it on as a jacket.

Outside, the cold air felt like something bright on her exposed skin. The stars were still visible in the sky, and so was the moon. In the distance, the white barn where her mother killed herself was a pale gray. It looked peaceful, pastoral. The barn in her memory was different. It stood on a hill, it glowed white in the high summer sun. The road that led to it was hot and dusty, the fields that surrounded it were violently green.

It was November now. Winter was coming. Soon the whole landscape would be covered in layers of snow and ice, and on some days the barn and sky and ground would be almost the same shade of white.

Stephanie felt a sudden gratitude for the change of the seasons. It made life easier, somehow.

She began to run, the cold air spurring her to move. She jogged aimlessly, or what she thought was aimlessly, until she understood that she was following the horse trail down to the creek, the same trail she’d followed on that day.

In the summer, the trail was deeply shaded by the deciduous trees that grew alongside it, but now the gray end-of-night light shone between the bare branches. The trail had a steeper grade than she remembered, the road tipping down toward the creek. Stephanie heard the water before she saw it — a soft, rushing sound. There was a break in the trees above it, and when she reached the creek, the light was stronger there, and the clear water reflected some of it, like a dark mirror. Stephanie ran along the banks, stopping at the watering spot where she had stopped so many times before. The pebbly, muddy beach had hardened with frost, the shapes of horse’s hooves and tire tracks preserved from the last warm days.

On the other side of the creek was the field of another farm. Stephanie often saw cows grazing there, but it was too early in the morning for them to be out. She looked upstream and noticed that a huge tree had fallen across the creek. A willow. The current was pulling its dead tendril branches downstream. It still had some of its leaves, and they were still faintly green. They’d never yellowed and fallen, Stephanie realized. The tree had plunged into the creek sometime over the summer. Stephanie remembered seeing it when it was alive, remembered her father saying it was going to fall over and stop up everything. She gazed at it, mesmerized by the way it disturbed the even current, and also by the water that continued to flow beneath it and over it and around it; there were dozens of miniature waterfalls spilling over the smaller branches that reached out across the surface of the water, and there were places where the water churned violently to get past the heavy trunk. The water was going to break down the tree, over time.

Stephanie stood and stared at the fallen willow for a long while before making her way back to her grandfather’s house. The sun was rising, it was a bright orange spot of light low on the road. As it made its way up into the sky, shining between the tree trunks and then the higher branches, it seemed to be caught. But then it broke free.

EVERYONE HAD AWAKENED early, out of discomfort or exuberance or some combination of the two. They had to crowd to fit around the kitchen table, where Dean’s father arranged two platters, one of toast and the other of bacon — the best breakfast he could provide on short notice. Dean had slept well, but he was still tired and looked forward to going home, to spending time with just his family, his boys, his girl, the four of them.

Dean’s father turned on the radio to hear the weather. Rain was forecast for later in the morning.

“Do the girls still race if it rains?” Bryan asked.

“It’s rain or shine,” Dean said. “Let’s hope Megan has spikes. I forgot to remind Joelle.”

“We can bring them to the race,” Bryan said.

“Honey, we’re not going to the race,” Dean said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s far away. We don’t have time.”

“We could make it. The race isn’t until ten thirty.”

“It’s okay, the girls are still going to run it. They don’t need us to be there.”

“But don’t you want to see it?” Bryan said.

“If we can make it, we should go,” Stephanie said. “Why not?”

“Because we don’t need to rush from one thing to the next,” Dean said. “We’ve been through a lot. Right, Robbie?”

“I don’t mind going,” Robbie said.

“Robbie doesn’t mind! Come on, Dad, let’s go, please. I want to see if Megan wins.”

“We’d have to leave really soon,” Dean said, checking in with his father, who nodded his assent.

“That’s fine!” Bryan got up from the table. “I’ll go brush my teeth!”

“I guess that settles it,” Stephanie said, with a funny smile on her face. She got up and began to clear the dishes.

The room was filled with new energy as they prepared for departure. Dean folded up all the sheets and blankets while Robbie changed into the clothes Dean had brought for him to wear. He frowned as he pulled on his sweatshirt, and Dean wondered if he had picked the wrong thing.

“What’s the matter?” Dean asked. “Do you want to take a shower? You can, if you want.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Do you want to skip the race? We don’t have to go. Bryan will understand.”

“No, I want to go.”

“Okay,” Dean said. “Is it something else? Do you feel all right?”

“I feel fine, it’s just that I wanted. . I wanted to go to the barn.”

“The barn?” Dean repeated. It was all he could think to say.

“Never mind.” Robbie looked ill. “Forget it.”

“No, it’s okay,” Dean said. “We can go.”

“I just wanted to see it when it’s normal inside, with all the horses there like they are in the mornings. So I can remember it a different way.” His chin trembled. “I know it’s strange.”