The Old Man(61)

“Fort Meade, Maryland. Drive in the Reece Road gate and tell them your name and that you’re expected at military intelligence. Anytime today will be okay.”

“I won’t be there. I have a previous commitment.”

“You want me to tell them that?”

“Yes,” Julian said. “I’m not a soldier and I’m not an agent. I’m an independent contractor.”

“All right. But I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you very soon,” Harper said.

“It won’t be today.”

“I’ll make your apologies for you, Julian,” Harper said. “But don’t lose your phone.” He hung up.

Julian drove out to the farm. When he turned onto the long gravel road to the farmhouse, he could tell that nobody else was up yet. Getting out of Ruthie’s house without letting the phone wake her had forced him to get out the door without breakfast or even brushing his teeth.

He parked his truck out of the way beyond the barn and walked to the house. He used the key that was up on the lintel to open the front door and then replaced the key. He turned on the kitchen light and began to make coffee and a large pot of oatmeal.

Coming home was not only to arrive in the house’s space. It was also to arrive in the house’s time, an unchanging moment around his eighth birthday. The thick china plates and cups all looked as they had when he was a small child, and the pans were heavy black iron and ageless.

When he had some oatmeal in a bowl and a pot of coffee made, his mother came in. “Good morning, Julian,” she said. She stepped up and kissed his cheek. “It’s so nice to have you around messing up my kitchen again.”

“It’s nice to be here.”

“You know, if you want to be with Ruthie, you could marry her and stay here with her. You wouldn’t have to drive all the way into town.”

“But she would. She has a job.”

His mother shrugged. “I’ll bet she’d think about saving on the rent if you offered her a ring.”

He laughed, and then began to eat his oatmeal while she packed lunches for the day in the fields. After another minute Leila came downstairs, kissed her mother, took a bowl and filled it with oatmeal, and sat with her brother. After a few seconds Leila’s big eyes moved to the side to hold him in her sight without moving her head. “Julian, you’re looking a little peaked. I hope you haven’t been staying awake too late and missing your sleep.” She asked her mother: “Doesn’t he look skinny and tired?”

Her mother said, “Mind your own business, Leila. You don’t hear him complaining.”

“Oh, he might be. We just can’t hear it because he’s too weak.”

“Thank you for your concern,” said Julian.

“Concern about what?” Noah and Joseph were coming in the doorway. They picked up bowls and went to the stove.

“About nothing,” their mother said. “Leila is just being Leila.”

“She does that a lot,” said Joseph, and sat down to eat.

“All day long, practically,” Noah said.

Julian finished the oatmeal and coffee and stood up to rinse his bowl. When he’d set the cup and bowl in the sink, he took his lunch box and said, “I’ll drive out there and get the crew started on the broccoli. Did I see the baskets already in the stake truck?”

Joseph said, “Both stake trucks. We stacked them up so they’d be ready to go. We’ll take the other truck and meet you out there.”

“Good.” Julian went out and took the keys off the hook on the wall by the door.

Julian drove out of the yard and down the farm road to the broccoli field. He could see in the predawn haze that the broccoli was ready. The buds were firm and tight, but none of them was already in flower. It was a good crop. There would be side shoots to harvest for weeks.

Julian’s arrival caught the attention of the work crew, and they got out of their cars, took baskets and big knives out of the back of the truck, and went to the broccoli field. Julian joined them to help set the pace.

From long practice he took a single hard slice through each stalk at an angle and put the head in his basket as he moved to the next stem. It was smooth, flawless work. When the basket was full he loaded it on the truck and took another.

His brothers and sister arrived in the second truck within minutes and went to work around him. About once every two hours his cell phone would vibrate in his pocket a few times. He would take it out and look at the screen and then put it away unanswered.

They worked until the truck was full, and then drove it back to the barn and unloaded the baskets, placing them in neat rows. Then they got more baskets and drove back out.

At lunch Leila kept coming up with more and more outrageous theories about who Noah’s secret girlfriend was, ending up unable to decide between Mayor Constance Wittles and Judge Joan Harker. Noah asked Joseph whether the new aftershave he’d been wearing had been inherited from the world’s oldest lady, who had died in New Orleans at the age of 114 a week ago, or was a concoction of his own. Joseph told Leila that the pastor was collecting votes to move the church across town so Leila couldn’t sing in the choir, because her voice made the children cry during services. The only one everyone left alone was Julian.

He barely noticed. He worked with an intense concentration and speed that the Carsons usually adopted only when a frost threatened a crop. He worked tirelessly and spoke little. Every time his phone buzzed, the others watched his expression as he looked at the number and put it away.