Our Souls At Night [Sentinal/Willow Ann]

She was up before first light. First, she checks the hens to count the eggs. They chirp and hum as the red-head sticks hands underneath their feathered stomachs to retrieve each white shelled prize. She pats Sophie and Agnes for their health; she whistles to Dorothy and Deborah to not shove one another; she coos at Lily that tomorrow will be a better day. You’re more than just this, She whispers across the darkness of the henhouse, her hand gentle against the bird’s soft neck. Joshua would have rolled his eyes (they’re just a bunch of dumb birds!), but Willow Ann has never treated her brood as just animals.

When she was a girl, she remembers how she and Nonnie would have names for each and every animal that came across the farm. Why should they have not treated them as family, for all that they were willing to sacrifice? It wasn’t right to ask so much of a cow, or chicken – any of the packs of sheep – for what was theirs, to become hers. She couldn’t rightly prove whether or not her gentle touch gave better quality products, or even if they’d suffered less through droughts or harsh winters. Somehow, though, she’d kept the farm afloat herself. Without the aid of her parents, or after Jack had gone off on a cattle drive and not come back. She was as much ivory as she was steel: a woman that held roost in her home, and suffered little from fools.

Briar and Joshua had come to live with her and her son Nat just on ten years ago. The twins had been a cause célèbre: their mother, Noreen (Nonnie, as Willow had known her) died in the sixty-first games, just after they’d been born. Some twenty games gone, the fascination had died a quiet death among the dirt and weeds. Now Briar sewed hats and cobbled boots, and hitched up with a set of women that wanted to live on the edge of the district. Joshua had stayed to mind Willow Ann (or so he liked to say), now out of the reaping, and rudderless. This was the drought of youth – when there should have been a world for him to trace, to step through. Not one that kept him locked in place.

Willow Ann had arranged for Joshua to spend his days elsewhere. Your face can’t just stay looking so long at me, She’d said, to which he gave a usual shrug. There was a man in need of some help just up the way, one who’s reputation as a firm hand seemed a good match for a quiet boy like Joshua. And so she’d pushed and pulled and gotten her way, Joshua disappearing after a cup of coffee to tend to the Stratford farms. She didn’t seem him until after sundown, for a bit of dinner and tea, before he’d able to his room and toss down atop his box spring.

When six months had come and gone, Willow got it into her head that she had to thank Mr. Stratford somehow – and to let him know all the good that he was doing for Joshua. The boy had let her know he enjoyed spending time with the animals, and mentioned the way some of them showed a bit of personality he’d never thought they could have. She’d stood, stirring a stew and eye brows raised, not wanting to say a word that would send Joshua into a fit of eye rolls or huffs (though she would whisper to herself, in a voice low enough, I told you so). So she’d put pen to paper, sitting at her little wood desk in candle light, a note:

My Dearest Sentinel,

What wonders you have done for our dearest Joshua. Supposing that you would so kindly oblige, I would request your presence on the week after next for a dinner. Let me celebrate all your good work with my Nephew, so that I can repay you the only way we can? I promise good company, and good food, if you should so delight us.

In Kindest Regards,
Willow Ann Lexington

Joshua had brought back a one word answer not long thereafter, Okay.

And so she settled on cooking up a set of potatoes and garlic, with a pat of butter and mix of milk, creamy and whipped, and good for the best company. A set of string beans, cauliflower, and broccoli, steamed with salt and pepper. Her gram’s biscuit recipe. Her pop’s best whiskey in tumbler glasses. A brisket slaved over in the oven, tenderized and loved into perfection. All ready to be served on the good china (there was no bad china – they simply never had reason for use of it).

The clock in the foyer struck seven and Willow Ann was just finishing up in the washroom. She’d sprayed some perfume and brushed out her hair; a dab of rouge and some lipstick came next. She was not one for finery, but tonight seemed as good an occasion as any to be formal. When the knock came at the door she was all smiles, and came to face the man that’d so warmed Joshua’s spirit.

“Evening, Mr. Stratford. So kind of you to make your way here. I trust you’re well?”