That Darned Barn

That Damned Barn

My sister Hannah never brought back Tupperware when she took home leftovers, but the thing with Devin was far worse. We had a similar taste in men, and I was dating Devin first. I guess I was boring compared to Hannah. Once he met Hannah, he was hers. Hannah and I had never really been close after that. I just didn’t feel I could trust her.

I resented her deeply for stealing my boyfriend and I’m sorry to say I was cold towards her the last time we saw each other. Of course, I had softened my anger after the first decade they were together, but the resentment would well up when they seemed to flaunt their happiness.

When Hannah and Devin announced they were going on a second honeymoon for a six-month cruise around the world, I was envious and resentful. I demanded to know how she was going to pay for it. I was shocked to find out that she had a great deal of money from her painting career. I had always assumed she was a deadbeat.

She was an artist, for goodness’s sake.

I mean, I was a CPA. I had to show up for work on Monday mornings. Hannah would party all weekend, sleep through Tuesday, paint into the wee hours Thursday night, and then start the next weekend’s debauch. I don’t know how, but she made a decent living that way. I guess I was jealous. When we were young, we both partied a lot, but then I grew up and she stayed juvenile.

I got even angrier a few days after they left for the cruise. The Fed-Ex guy showed up with a heavily padded parcel. I unwrapped it to find a hand-painted picture of that darned barn she loved so much. I almost threw it down the stairs into my basement. When I heard about the accident, I unwrapped the painting. I cherished it because it was the last thing she gave me before she disappeared.

She must have sent me three hundred photos of barns and sheds while she was house hunting. Then, once they found the place and bought it, I got photo after photo of that darned old barn. She thought it was quaint. I thought it was a teardown. She intended to turn the barn into a spectacular art studio. Unfortunately, that never happened. And then, she disappeared.

It did not surprise me that Hannah had made me the trustee for her son without asking me, but that didn’t stop me from being furious. Here was this 18-year-old kid who looked like Devin and talked like Devin and who I was going to have to interact with for years. I had carefully avoided her son since the argument over my refusing to be his godmother. I don’t know how Hannah managed to be so clueless about my feelings. It’s not like I held back letting her know what I thought.

I’m sure Hannah never expected to die, and that she created the living trust just to look responsible. The lawyer said I was trustee, as well as one of the beneficiaries of her trust. It took me a while to adjust to the whole thing.

When I found out how much money she had, I was dumbfounded. I suspected it might be drug money rather that money from her art, but then I reviewed the last year of her books and saw the cash rolling in from respectable galleries in New York, London, and Geneva. To my surprise, she was apparently both prolific and savvy. With my share of her estate, I could have stopped working right then.

I put off seeing Bud for as long as I could, but I didn’t want him to hear about his parent’s death from anyone else. I drove out to North San Juan, got lost for two hours, and finally found the house. They really had moved into the middle of nowhere.

When I got out of my truck, I was struck by the beauty of the place, by the quiet, and by the old barn towering behind the house. I guess the people who built the place had their priorities straight. They built a tiny house and a huge barn. Darned right.

Bud’s dog, Honey, ran out to greet me first. She barked, then sniffed me, and finally decided I must be Okay, so she jumped up and licked my face. She was a beautiful dog, and sweet. Bud rounded the corner from behind the house. Once I saw him, I ran to him. “Bud,” I said, “I’m so sorry, I’ve got awful news.”

It took him a minute to ask. “What is it?” I wondered if he was mentally slow.

I told him about the storm and the accident and the loss of his parents. Now I regretted not having gotten to know him growing up. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling.

“Did you understand what I just said?” I asked, because he looked like he’d just heard that his lunch was going to be three minutes late. Not happy, but not sad. Then Honey nuzzled his leg, and he broke down crying. “Yeah,” he sobbed. “I got it.”

I had to get back to work Monday early, but I stayed through Sunday evening. I did my best to comfort Bud, to let him know that I would be here for him, and that he wasn’t to worry about money. Then, I remembered the locket.

When Devin was courting me, he had given me a golden locket that had been his grandmother’s. I had thrown it back at him when I learned he was in love with Hannah, but I never expected him to turn around and give it to her. It hurt a little every time I saw it around her neck. Early on, I had fantasized about strangling her with it, but the chain was too delicate and would have broken.

I assumed she would be wearing the locket on their second honeymoon, but I searched her jewelry box just in case. There, in a prominent top niche, was the locket. I scooped it up. I was sure Bud wouldn’t miss it. Then, I thought better of it. I went to Bud and asked him if he would mind if I took the locket. He burst into tears and said it reminded him of her. Then, he proceeded to basically snuggle with the delicate piece of jewelry. I wanted it, but he needed it more.

When I left Sunday night, Bud was out in the barn. He didn’t come in to say goodbye. I figured he was mourning, so I wasn’t too offended. At least Honey walked me to my truck. I patted her head, scratched her behind the ears, and then drove off.

I haven’t been back since. At first, I didn’t see him because I was busy at work in the city. Then, when it turned out Hannah wasn’t dead, that she had been washed up on an island and rescued by some natives in a hand-crafted canoe, he didn’t need me anymore, so I just stayed away.

How was Hannah so lucky? What are the odds of being found on a remote, unpopulated island in the middle of the South Pacific?

Of course, she wasn’t all that lucky. She had lost her husband of 20 years. She had been stranded on a sandbar for a year with no sunblock and her skin looked like she was a burn victim from a chemical fire. And, she had me as a sister and I was angry that she turned out to be alive. Still, I was jealous of the good fortune that she did have.

I was also a bit worried. I had disbursed money from the trust on the assumption that she was gone forever, even though they make you wait seven years before officially declaring the missing person dead. I wondered if she was going to be upset about my having paid off my student loans using her money after she was missing only six months.

Why do they make you wait seven years? Seven years. It’s so arbitrary. And so long! How did they pick that number? A person could walk from Alaska to Argentina in seven years. Maybe that’s it. Anyway, I was going to have to explain the money. Plus, there was the locket.

Bud had mailed me the locket three months before Hannah returned. We had talked on the phone several times, and I explained the significance of the locket, so he relented and gave it to me. Now, with Hannah alive after all, the locket really wasn’t his to give. I would have to give it back. How did this get so complicated? Of course, I would give it back. But it had come to symbolize my reconnecting with my younger self, when I was open to love.

I had really shut down during “the Hannah and Devin years.” I had avoided intimate connections that might lead to heartbreak. I was not going to allow myself to be hurt again. Of course, I wanted to open up again. But my heart had refused. Somehow, when I put that chain around my neck again and the locket fell against my chest, it felt as if my heart began softening again at long last. I feared that giving the locket back would somehow reverse the progress.

When Hannah finally called, she didn’t mention the money or the locket at first. She wanted to know how I was doing. It totally confused me.

I had always cast Hannah as a self-centered ne’er-do-well. Here she was, reaching out with kindness. What did she really want? I played alone with the “two sisters connecting emotionally” game for a while. Then, I slid in my burning question. “Do you know if Devin might have survived as well?” I tried to ask in a way that might seem like I was inquiring about Hannah’s well-being. I guess it didn’t work. “No,” she said, icily. “I watched him go under for the last time, right after the ship disappeared. He’s gotta be dead.”

For some strange reason, I suspected that wasn’t true, but I let it go.

“I see that you disbursed money from the trust while I was gone.” She offered it casually, without any accusation. “When I thought you were dead, yes.” There was a long pause.

“Should I ask what you spent it on?” I let the question hang in the air a bit. She hadn’t asked about getting anything back. She hadn’t even asked about the oddly specific amount I had withdrawn, $74,912.64, the exact payoff amount for my loan, down to the penny. It was a curious number. “I paid off a loan. My student loans.” I thought maybe I sounded defensive when I said this, but she dropped it.

“Bud says he gave you the locket.”

“Oh, right. The locket. It’s no big deal. I’ll send it back to you.”

I wasn’t going to press my luck. If she was going to let me keep the money to retire my student loans, the least I could do was send the locket back. Who needs an open heart, anyway.

“Did you like the painting?”

“That darned barn painting? Yes, love it,” I lied. “It’s hanging over my fireplace.” When she turned up alive, I’d pulled it down and returned it to the basement. I would pull it out if she ever came to visit.

The End (for now).