Fiona was spending a lot of time at Elisabeth and Roger’s, coming for dinner and staying in their comfortable guest room. The reason was simple loneliness, but the election was her excuse. She and Elisabeth had discussed many of the related details, but the first question was how Fiona should announce her candidacy. There was no doubt that news of it would spread like a brush fire, but it would be wise, they thought, to whisper in a few ears, lest someone be offended at not having been trusted with the secret. Together they composed a list of local worthies whose support and wisdom they would seek, and a few friends who would feel wounded at being excluded.
Roger sat nearby for these conversations without comment. The intricacies of social interaction were phenomena he neither understood nor cared about. These were concerns for other people to consider. He was willing to be helpful, but he had doubts about how he could be.
Tonight, as Elisabeth and Fiona talked on, making lists and planning their next moves, he was thinking that Shay’s advice to roll his shoulder blades down had improved his downward dog. Today had been a good class, and Shay’s enthusiasm about his progress had been most satisfactory.
Fiona and Elisabeth were engrossed in conversation when Roger suddenly rose from his chair and bent to the floor, evenly distributing his weight onto his hands and feet in the downward-facing dog pose.
Rocco, instantly intrigued, got up from his place near the hearth. This was something new. Wanting to be helpful, he put his nose on Roger’s upside down face, and licked thoughtfully.
Fiona paused in mid-sentence for only the briefest moment, then, with her eyes on Roger, continued to speak, and with an exercise in self-control that she considered heroic, she returned her eyes to Elisabeth. Elisabeth, with only a glance at Roger, acted as if there were nothing out of the ordinary. It occurred to Fiona that life with Roger must be full of the unexpected. Elisabeth, perhaps, had already grown used to it.
Despite the change in the weather, Ben remained undaunted. His first day of searching had yielded no results, but he was excited to see whether his bait had been discovered. He knew perfectly well that there would be no way to ensure that the animal he was searching for would be the only one to find the food, but he hoped to see tracks or scat, or other signs that would indicate who had been there. There was nothing. After waiting as long as he dared, Ben headed home.
The cold and rain that had come with the shift in weather made visits to the barn more onerous, but it was a part of farm life that could not be shirked. Emily liked to make her first trip out before the children were awake, before the bustle and chaos of school mornings.
On most farms, the children themselves were responsible for these early morning chores, but Emily did not like to delegate what she could do perfectly well herself. In this way, she unwittingly deprived herself of the pleasures of industrious, responsible children, and, instead, had a family who believed that it was perfectly normal to lie on the couch watching television while others worked around them, expected that what they wanted would be given to them, and disdained the kinds of work that might smell bad or make them dirty. All except Noah, the youngest, whose sweet disposition seemed to come from some distant part of the family tree.
On this morning, Emily woke earlier than usual. She had not slept well, in part because the goats had been restless during the night. She had heard their voices several times, and this was unusual, as they were sweet-natured, docile creatures, who generally settled down well for the night.
As she made her way to the barn, it was still dark. She was surprised to find that the barn door was open. She was usually meticulous in these kinds of things. Still, she had to admit, it was increasingly easy to make a mistake these days. There was so much to think about, what with the new farm, settling into a new community, and establishing relationships with the locals.
Her does greeted her with gentle calls, but the bucks stomped their feet impatiently and displayed some agitation. Emily let them out into their pens, and turned her attention to the barn itself, dismissing the open door from her mind.
The goats must have been particularly hungry and thirsty overnight. Every last bit of food and water had been consumed. Emily noticed this, but in the midst of her morning routine she did not think much about it. She was really very busy, after all, too busy to mind trifling details.