The Caretaker of Lorne Field Read Free Page A

filled he dumped out its contents into a stone pit and continued with his weeding. After an hour of watching that, she got bored and headed back to their house with no interest in ever watching him at work again.
    For the first ten years or so of their marriage she had no real complaints, although she didn’t much care for her husband’s hardened attitude towards her three miscarriages, acting as if it didn’t matter because the babies would’ve been girls. And she didn’t like the fact that months before she found out she was pregnant with Lester he had acted all nutty, mumbling stuff about how if she didn’t have a boy soon he’d have to divorce her—that it was stated so in the contract. But other than that cold behavior on his part things were okay. More than just the house being free, people did things for them during those first ten years. Doc Wilson never charged for medical care, old man Langston who owned the local butcher shop gave them their meat for free, and others helped them out, too. Lewis Black came by and did free carpentry. Tom Harrold the same with plumbing. Ed Goodan for the electrical. There was little she had to pay for during those first ten years. And there were times when Jack, in his own gruff way, acted kind of sweet with her.
    About the time she was pregnant with Lester things started to change. Doc Wilson died and the new doc who took over started to charge them full price. Several years later when old man Langston passed the butcher shop on to his son, he made him promise to continue giving the Durkins their meat free. The son did for a while but after the old man moved down south he went back on his word. Over time most of those who’d been helping out were either dead or retired elsewhere, and the ones who took their places didn’t have the old generosity. Worse, she started noticing townsfolk looking at her funny, like they knew all about the scam she and Jack were running on them. Before too long the eight thousand dollar annual honorarium didn’t seem like much, even with the free housing—especially after Bert was born and they had two hungry boys to feed. The last few years they were barely able to scrape by. Pipes, water heater, furnace—something always seemed to need fixing in that old house, and she couldn’t afford to take the boys to the doctor anymore, let alone have their crooked teeth fixed. She had gotten to the point where she was just worn out from it. Hell, welfare would pay more than what they were getting.
    The last cigarette she lit had mostly burnt out. She took several last puffs from it and crushed it out in the saucer she used as an astray. She heard some scuffling noises behind her and turned and saw her two boys. Both were thin as string beans with alfalfa-like hair that seemed to shoot in all directions. Lester was seventeen and already over six feet tall. With the way Jack stooped, the boy appeared to tower over his father. Bert was thirteen and short for his age—barely topping five feet. Both boys physically took after her, Bert maybe more so than Lester.
    Bert scratched the back of his head as he yawned. Lester stared at her sullenly and sniffed. “Dad already left to pull weeds?”
    Lydia nodded. “You two boys want breakfast?”
    Lester rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah, that’s what we’re here for.” Bert joined her at the small kitchen table and flashed a good-natured smile. It tore her up to see either of them smile with the way their teeth looked, almost as if cherry bombs had gone off in their mouths leaving them twisted and crisscrossing over each other. It killed her that she couldn’t afford braces for her boys.
    “How’d you two like blueberry pancakes and bacon?” she asked. Lester, making a snuffling noise, said it was okay with him. Bert just smiled hungrily and rubbed his stomach. She got up and found the bacon, blueberries and eggs that she had hidden in the refrigerator behind a bottle of prune juice and a head of wilted