Love Song of J. Sidney Barrymore

She flew home from London, and he told her about the foxes.

He had been field-stripping a cigarette on his property near dusk when he saw the mother running toward an old woodpile behind the red barn. The mother was carrying a dead rat in her mouth and he saw her drop it next to the foot-wide hole in the ground that was partially obscured by scraps of wood.

He stood very still in the field, slowly moving the cigarette paper and filter into his jacket pocket. After a few moments he heard the chittering, mewling sounds of the kits as they came out of the hole.

This was Saturday, the day before.

“There were five of them,” he told her. “They looked bigger than I imagined. Maybe twelve weeks? I’m guessing they were born in late March.”

“What do we do?” she asked.

“Well, nothing,” he said. “I talked with somebody from DNR and they believe it’s a temporary situation. They’ll probably move on when the food supply is depleted.”

“The barn?”

He smiled. “It’s like an Old West ghost town in there. Before the foxes, there was nothing but scurrying and thumping and now it’s absolutely still. I think there must have been carnage on an epic scale.”

“The Rat Apocalypse.”

“Rodentpalooza.”

“Barn foxes,” she mused.

“Could be the new thing. We’re ahead of the curve.”

She finished her drink and stretched her stockinged feet onto a second chair. “I’m positively knackered.”

“It’s good to have you home,” he said, from the kitchen sink.

“I’m glad to be here.”

“Do you mind if I stay up? I’ve been moving stuff around in the barn. It’s actually kind of pleasant, now that the critters have gone.”

“Go ahead. I’ve got a hot date with my pillow.”

She slept until eleven, more exhausted than she imagined; the flights were harder on her now than when she was forty, or even fifty, for that matter. She spent an enjoyable hour watching television alone in bed, flipping between the news and a romantic comedy from the 80s. John wasn’t in the house, she knew; she could tell by the stillness, by the way the air moved through the rooms. Probably running an errand, John was a great runner-of-errands.

She took a long, luxurious shower, then went downstairs for coffee. The thought of eating immediately after rising was always abhorrent to her, but she thought John might be up for driving to town in a few hours for a late lunch.

She drank her first cup of coffee while looking out the window above the kitchen sink. She tried to discern any signs of movement in the old barn, a flash of light, or a sudden glimpse of shadow between the boards, something, but the barn looked the same as it always had. She briefly tried to imagine the family of foxes behind the woodpile, too, the mother ripping various rodent limbs off with her teeth, etc., but she couldn’t do it. She had never seen a fox. John would always report on the wild animals he encountered on his solitary walks, rabbits, raccoons, wild turkeys, groundhogs, skunks, coyotes, (and, on one memorable occasion) a beautiful grey wolf, but Elizabeth had no interest in the wildlife of their Great Frontier. She had set foot in the barn exactly one time in twenty years, one week after they had moved in.

She nixed the idea of a lunch date and discovered, to her delight, a beautiful, freshly made quiche in the refrigerator, one of John’s trademarks: carmalized onions, goat cheese, pancetta. He had left a note on a piece of masking tape over the stretched saran wrap: Welcome Home! She heated up the gas oven and placed the entire quiche on the center rack, then did a little reconnaissance. The keys to John’s Buick were on the dining room table and both cars were in the garage. He must be in the barn. She checked her phone again for messages and found none from John.

She ate a third of the quiche while standing at the kitchen sink, not even bothering to put the pie on a plate, holding the tin with a kitchen towel and digging in with a fork. She could see a light in the barn now, filtering through the cracks of the long planks. John was an early riser, which meant he must have been in the barn a good nine hours already.

After lunch she called her daughter, checking in. They talked about her trip. Mary asked about her dad and Elizabeth said, He’s fine. She told her about the foxes and the barn. Mary laughed and then asked if he was still in his dreamy phase.

“Yes, he is.”

“Is it anything to worry about?”

“He’s retired, I think he’s allowed.”

At 7:00pm he sent her a text, their first communication of the day.

Still in the barn.

You should check it out, it’s really coming together.

Sure thing, she wrote. Just make sure the chaise lounge has a blanket and don’t overcook the salmon.

Ha ha, he wrote.

I’ll be in soon.

She climbed into bed around 10:00, and fell asleep immediately. Sometime in the night she smelled the Dial soap on his skin and the woodsy scent of his shampoo as he pulled her close, his left hand curled around her stomach. She grinned to herself, in the dark, and measured her breath with his.

On Tuesday he asked about her trip. Two full days after her return flight, after two full weeks in England. Five years ago, she imagined, that would have precipitated a day long fight, and ten years ago, she probably would have spent the night in a hotel. But now she just shrugged.

“It went well. I had to bludgeon the office the first day but by the end of the week it was all pints and curries.”

“Do they want you back?”

“No,” she said. “They’re not looking to restructure, just a little tightening of the screws. To be honest, I might move my time line up a bit. I don’t have a lot of these flights left in me. I’m thinking maybe a year from now.”

He was nodding, and nodding, but she knew it was for show and he was already thinking about something else. This happened a lot now. He would be engaged and listening and then he’d be gone, a million miles away. Like that. Five years, ago, she thought again, a huge, bloody fight.

But no, not at all: “When I retired,” he said quietly, “I thought it would be like pulling out a thorn. That thorn that keeps you up nights, you know: Did I lock the door? Did I set the alarm? Did I pay the premium? Or: Are my kids safe? But as it turns out, I still have that thorn, but only now I have no idea what to do about it.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. “Is it always like that?”

“Well, so far,” he said. Then he stood up. “I’ll be in the barn,” and left.

For two months John spent most of his time in the barn and for two months Elizabeth continued to stay away from it. They saw each other in the afternoon, occasionally, when John would come in for cigarettes or food, and sometimes late at night, if Elizabeth was still awake. John had lost about ten pounds due to the thick humid air in the barn but he felt clearheaded; Elizabeth noticed a less dreamy, more talkative husband, especially late at night, when Elizabeth was trying to sleep.

On the night before he showed her the barn, this is what he said to her:

“There is a large work shelf, about four foot high, with two battery powered lanterns on each end. The shelf is a perfect height for me to write as I’m standing; I can rest my arm on it, and there’s room for coffee and an ashtray. It juts out from the wall about two feet, and it’s eight feet long. I can place six notepads in a row, or six manuscripts, which means I can instantly grab any revision I want.

“The wood on the floor underneath the shelf has rotted in spots and I find that I will occasionally get my foot stuck in the floor as I’m bobbing and weaving. I never realized how physical writing is for me; by the end of a session, I’m absolutely exhausted.

“I don’t know if any of it is any good. I’ve never written before. But I discovered I was searching for a poem that I could never seem to find, and it just seemed logical that I should write it myself. It took me nearly seven decades to figure this out.

“I used Barrymore because he was humiliated in his later years and everyone talked about the wasted brilliance and the crude caricatures that he made of himself. But that’s unfair; it’s impossible to get older without being a caricature of yourself. I felt like he deserved a fair shake.

“It’s long. It’s the longest poem I’ve ever read, longer than ‘Don Juan,’ I think. But I want to see if there’s anything there. So I’d like you to read it, if that’s alright.”

Elizabeth sat still on the bed. It was alright.

In the barn, the next day, she read the poem. It took most of the afternoon.

There was something there.

She smiled at how pleasant it was to be in the barn.