The Lost Husband by Katherine Center Read Free Book Online Page B

on it before you slide it back.”
    I pushed on it, but no luck.
    “Push,” O’Connor said again, as if I needed clarification.
    “I am,” I said.
    “Harder,” he said.
    “I am!” I said.
    Finally his hands couldn’t stand it. He put one on top of mine and pressed down on my thumb with his thumb—so hard that the clasp slid right away.
    “Ow!” I said.
    He let go, and I shook out my hand.
    “Sorry,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just replace that one.”
    “No,” I said, following him through the gate and watching as he latched it again one-handed. “I’ll just do some”—I hesitated—“some thumb exercises.” The words sounded even stupider out loud than they had in my head.
    From the pond in the back field, we could see the whole farm—the heavy woods on the hill behind us, the pastures Jean leased to cattle ranchers down below, and the farmyard. It was lovely. Just green against green as far as I could see.
    Something about the houses and fences and buildings in the city must kill off the wind. Because that was the thing I noticed most about being out in the country—the constant sweep of wind against your skin. It rustled tree leaves and clanked windmills. It swept over the long grass. It was a force, something alive, something more than just air.
    I closed my eyes, but when I opened them, O’Connor was halfway back to the farmyard, on the other side of the relatched gate. I trotted after him, but rather than try to work the latch again, I just climbed over.
    Back at the barn, the goats nudged their heads up under our hands until we petted them like dogs while O’Connor showed me what I needed to know. The old barn with the rusty tin roof had been a speakeasy in the 1920s. Now it housed hay and chicken roosts and barn cats. The new barn was sharp and clean, powder-coated a rain-cloud gray. One side was surrounded by a pen, and as we walked, O’Connor said, “That’s where the goats wait to be milked.”
    “Do they like being milked?” I asked.
    “They don’t dislike being milked,” he said.
    Inside, he showed me the platform the goats stood on, the metal bars that closed around their necks to hold them in place, the buckets of treats they got, and the milking machine.
    I was a little disappointed to see the machine. It wasn’t quite as Heidi-esque as I’d been expecting. “We don’t milk them by hand?”
    “Hell, no,” O’Connor said. “That would take all day.”
    The milking machine had long plastic tubes with suction cups and a motor like a vacuum cleaner. O’Connor had already done the milking that morning, so he didn’t demonstrate, but he did show me what things were for. When we got to the suction cups, I said, “And this part goes on their …” but then I faltered. “Their, um … nipples?”
    O’Connor put his hands over his eyes. “Animals don’t have nipples,” he said. “They have teats.”
    “Same idea, though,” I said. “Right?”
    “Same idea,” he conceded. “Wrong word.”
    I noticed a little radio on a shelf, but then I wondered how anyone could possibly hear it over the noise of the milking machine.
    O’Connor saw me looking. “It’s broken,” he said. “We just make our own music.”
    I looked over. “How?”
    He tilted his head at me. “By singing.”
    “You sing?” I asked. He seemed too cranky to sing.
    “Sure,” he said. “The goats love it. Sometimes they join in.”
    Our next stop was the cheese kitchen, the room next door in the milking barn. We had to change shoes on the way in—into the Crocs that were piled up just inside the doorway—because this room, unlike the milking side, was scrubbed down and squeaky-clean, with stainless counters and restaurant-grade cooking equipment: big sinks and sprayers, a work island, tubs and pots hanging from a rack on the ceiling, and, over in the corner, a walk-in fridge.
    “Be careful of this thing,” O’Connor said, gesturing at the fridge. “Something’s wrong with the door