Raising Cain

The test was negative, of course.

I don’t mind, though. Really. Being a vessel for my Pick Me golden sister is not something I would choose, except that it’s what "the family" wants.

No one ever asked what I wanted. But if I’m a part of this family, too, don’t I get a say? Don’t my feelings count?

But I guess my needs aren’t fathomable, or matter, really. Queer and ace. In a family that values children above all, in the theoretical. Caring for them? Not so much. We raise cattle, chickens, and feral humans. Been that way since time immemorial, world without end.

And my sister caught a horrid case of baby rabies, and doesn’t understand why she can’t have kids. When the IVF funding ran out, they looked at me.

Oh, no. Oh hell no. And when Sis suggested all-too-sweetly that we might even do it the old-fashioned way, I just about exploded.

Pops cut into the family row. That’s my Grandpa, not my Dad, Dad’s gone. He took off because Mom’s nuts, and Mom wouldn’t let me go with him. Sis is really Step Sis, though I get smacked every time I say it that way. We’re all family, Mom says, and Step Sis nods along in time. Pack of nutters, the lot of ‘em.

Just to complicate matters, Pops is Dad’s parent. Step Sis isn’t even related to Pops, but here she and Mom squat, after her second try at baby trapping failed spectacularly. Pops regrets not getting involved sooner in his kids’ raising, he was busy with the farming. Now it’s too late for his kids, he says, but he’ll make up for it with the grandkids. The ones he knows about, anyways.

But Pops… he’s a smart one. We may all live together, but he’s the one who usually keeps the lid on the mixed nuts can. So he sent us all to our rooms, in the big ol’ family home. Yeah, it’s that big. Cuts down on the rent money, for sure.

He talked to us all individually. He saved me for last.

Didn’t tell me what all he said to them, but he told me, they’ve got three tries to get me pregnant. After the third, subject’s closed, never to be brought up again, and he’ll enforce it. And he’ll bring me the “sample” himself, make sure everything’s on the up and up.

I heard yelling, through three floors. Pops winked. “I may have told your step sister, in front of that piece of duck shit she married, that it had better be his sample, and not the boyfriend’s that she keeps on the side. And I told him, he’s gotta get tested for disease. Not putting you at risk.”

Before I could scream about decisions being made about my body without my input, he leaned in. “Whoa, easy. Where in all this did I ask you to actually do it? I’ll bring a turkey baster and a cup, and you can flush that nastiness right down the toilet. And take a shower after, because they’re all nuts. Don't want it rubbing off.”

Well, I guess that settles that.

So this was the second test. Pops and I did the squeamish dance ten days ago, and I handed him the stick today through the bathroom door to take to the others below.

This is so wrong.

But I think Pops has an ace hidden up his sleeve. He’s been lurking, and smiling a lot, when no one’s looking at him. Well, when that lot looks at him, which is rare. They can’t push him around, and they don’t dare mess with him. Pop’s best friend’s a lawyer, and they know how to collude in a very professional manner.

Pop’s got some plan cooking, I can tell.

Lucky I’m a good lurker myself, because I really, really need it.

They’re all stalking me.

Mom’s after me, babbling about getting a man.

Step Sis is after me, chattering about baby clothing, or sister wives, trying to touch my belly, divining if it’s boy or girl. Or twins. She wants twins.

Her lummox husband keeps glaring at me, and flexing his hands. I can just imagine what he's thinking about me, with Step Sis and her side piece.

I spend a lot of time in the other buildings on the farm.

There are a lot of them. Some are still used, some are from the original farm, some are only buildings in a theoretical way. Pole barns to protect equipment, the small chicken coop that doesn’t fit our two hundred head of poultry, the original barn, the garage, the store-all shed, the other shed, the new shed. The new barn, for all the cattle.

I like the old barn the best.

It was the first building, when the farm was steaded. My ancestors slept in the hay loft, cooked on an outdoor hearth, till they had time to set the foundations for a sturdy human house. The old masonry is very strong, and there’s a lot of old stuff still there from my far-back family.

Like the old grain bins.

If you hop in one, you can still smell the corn, wheat, oats, and barley. Later, the one on the end became a coal scuttle, and still has some of that smell to it. You can curl up in the shadow at the back of a bin, and watch ancient dust motes swirl lazily in the sun coming in the high air slats. Time slows down, and you’re left with your thoughts.

I think I need to make a plan to get out.

Being born a girl makes it a bit difficult, since everyone still expects me to marry and settle down. Every boy that ever showed an interest in me was really eyeing up my farm inheritance, and Pops would send them packing, even as Mom was screaming for them to come back inside.

I know farm work, and I work hard as any boy my age. I wish I could hire myself out to local farms, I could make a bit of money from it.

I can use the equipment, too, Pops showed me how.

I stared at the wall opposite the grain bins, looking at the one knot in the wood. It always looked like a keyhole to me. I thought there might be some tree fairy out there, really ticked off, that their house went missing while they were off visiting kin on the far side of the mountain.

But wood can’t have a keyhole…

On impulse, I stood up, looked around. Good, no one’s followed me.

I poked my finger in the hollow of the wood, where the knot had fallen out.

There was a piece of thin rope back there.

I wiggled my finger around, trying to get ahold of it.

I got above it, and realized – it was a latch string. I pressed down, hooking it a bit, and tugging a bit. It must have been old, it was tricky.

There was a click, and a door swung open a bit, flush with the wall.

Why would our old barn have a secret room? In the granary?

I stepped inside.

The only light was from the doorway, which I reluctantly left open. Simple rough tables, chairs, a broken lamp. A stack of wood bowls, pewter spoons.

And a pile of rusty, broken, manacles in the corner, with a chisel, a hammer, a rock with chisel marks all over it, and a hacksaw.

Hunh.

I know my history. I didn’t know we were a stop on the Underground Railroad.

I didn’t have time to look farther, I heard the lunk’s footsteps. No place to hide here.

Uh oh...

“You!”

I picked up the hammer. I would make this as painful as possible.

“You need to learn your place! This is taking too long! You’re gonna give mah woman a baby, one way or t’other, and I’m here tah make you submit to it!”

I grinned, and swung the hammer in a slow circle ‘round my wrist. Idiot, thinking farm queers were meek little things. I swing hay bales around most days, feeding the cattle. Who did he think was a pushover?

And the idiot charged me.

Really?

I timed it, bounced a little, then ducked and swung as he went roaring by.

THUNK.

I felt the hit through my arm, and he dropped.

A little too hard.

Oops…

Blood oozed out of the hammer-head-sized hole behind his ear.

More footsteps, but those I knew. Pops.

He was holding a gun.

And he stopped at the sight, breathed out. “Oh, honey, I saw him go after you, and stopped just long enough to get the gun. I didn’t think-” He stopped, looking around. “I didn’t know this was here!”

“Just found it. I was staring right at it for years, hiding in the oat bin.”

“Huh.” He stared at me. “You okay? I would have spared you this, killing a man, even by accident, ain’t an easy thing to bear.”

I shrugged. “Didn’t mean to, but I ain’t gonna let no man do that to me, no how.”

“Yeah. Idiot.” Pops put the gun in a holster, that he was carrying. Didn’t have time to sling it on his belt. “Well. That floor is nice, solid clay, been here since the founding. No leaks. Nice place to make things vanish. Why don’t you go find a nice orchard or something to hide in, leave that hammer here. And I’ll make sure he’s really gone, and just close up this here room again. Seal it up good and tight. Make sure there’s no scraping or anything to lead anyone here, to keep any nosybodies out. Not what I wanted to happen, but, well, like I said, ain’t no one messing with you. Not while I’m around.”

I put the hammer back on the rock, and Pops made a face at the pile of chains. But he did check for a pulse or something, because he shook his head as he stood up. “Remind me to never make you mad, child.”

“Right back atcha, Pops.” I snuck away as Pops tidied up.

How did I feel?

Free.

And that’s disturbing, too.

Pops came to fetch me before supper, and walked in the house with me. He was silent when both women pounced – Mom on me, Sis on Pops, blathering about something. I wasn’t paying attention anymore, watching a thundercloud form above Pops’ head.

And once dessert was eaten, the storm broke.

He laid into them. He didn’t yell, or even raise his voice much, but he laid into them, up, down, sideways. Didn’t call them names, but called them out on their horrid actions, told them off in no uncertain terms, then dragged them back for another round.

I tried to take notes. Dang, he’s good.

And when he was done, he kicked them out.

Step Sis tried to beg to stay till her husband came back, and Pops told her that he himself will send his sorry carcass along if he came to light. I couldn’t help but flinch at that, but no one was paying the slightest attention to me.

Pops made them pack their stuff. He slung the bags and cases into the back of his pickup, and he drove them into town. To Step Sis’ boyfriend’s house.

And when he came back, we never spoke about it again.

Next morning, I was collecting eggs. Thinking about secret rooms, and how much an egg is like that. Forgotten, secretive, until a door appears, and life begins. Or ends, and a door closes. Or a person, who decides to close themselves off from family expectations, and choose their own path in life.

Pops was waiting for me, to wash and sort, and set dried eggs in cartons for his morning run to town. He’d already fed the cattle, like I’d fed the chickens. We worked in silence.

After, back in the kitchen, we were working ourselves through a second pot of coffee, when he ups and says, “So, we’ll likely need some more farm hands. You got any friends out there, like you, who need some place to be safe? And work where no one will fuss at them, for being who they are?”