Sommerville, Dorthy

Dorothy wakes up out of a dead sleep. Startled, she's unsure if it was a nightmare.

She breathes upright for a few seconds before calming down. That's unusual, she thinks. She almost always wakes to use the bathroom in the early morning, but the bedside clock reads 1:48. She lumbers out of bed and dons her robe. Probably just my bladder, she dismisses. Did I drink too much water before bed, she questions. I don't think so, she answers to her brain.

The floorboards in the hallway creak as she steps out of the bedroom. This farmhouse is so old, she wonders, that it's unimaginable when these planks were actually last a tree. Her husband's family settled here, and for generations they'd farmed and lived. There's even another, smaller house out back they built when the clan got too large. Kids and kids' kids running around in the estate's heyday. Morphing over the years into a place summer help would stay, or extended relatives for their huge holiday celebrations.

As the families got smaller and more offspring was branching out across the country or to college, the junior house got emptier and emptier. Now it's just filled with her extra knick-knacks, seasonal decorations, and dust.

She's standing at her husbands office now, almost to the bathroom and stuck in the groggy past. The half-light from the hallway frames the room with a certain sadness. The massive, kingly oak desk that belonged to his grandfather — or his grandfather's father, or whichever weathered man in his lineage — exudes that same drama.

Or maybe she just misses him.

He's been gone six months. Thirty years together and somehow that half of one feels longer. She remembers him taking meetings in here, trying to save this family farm. It was always just the two of them. She could never have kids. They tried many, many times but never even got close enough for a true heartbreak. Just a slow, unrelenting march of defeat. A veil of gray over their lives for decades.

So he couldn't pass the property down how they wanted. The game was ending with the two of them regardless. She could never sort that part out and, to be honest with herself, avoided bringing it up. Naturally, that means they never really talked about it. A duty to his father? Or grandfather? Maybe them all. The decision most easily assigned to this ghostly familial pressure, she always thought.

Dorothy helped how she could around the estate, and even got good at certain things, but it was broken in ways she didn't have the tools to remedy. His brothers weren't helping and Michael Sommerville V had all the generational weight. He didn't need to bear it alone so much, and she asked and asked to help, but he was farm-stubborn.

"You do all the work past quitting time," he'd say. "Just keep that up and keep being your beautiful self. I'll handle the farm."

Guess it didn't take, she finalizes as she stares at tired eyes in the bathroom mirror. She tries to remember the last time he said that to her. Or the last time they danced, or worked in the barn. You never realize it's the last time, she thinks. Meeting after meeting he'd have with all sorts of people. Some wore suits, some had nice cars, some looked like bankers, some didn't. He even took a last meeting.

She knew he was suffering, she admits while finally arriving at the toilet, but she admired Michael in those trying times. Grinding all day out in the fields, then turning around to beg for money in his own house. He had pride but knew when to apply it.

"The soil is no good anymore, Mr. Sommerville," she overheard a suit say to him one day. How would he know? Her husband was the one with it caked on his clothing. Under his fingernails. In his bones after all these years. How can this man judge soil when he sees it from the 10th floor of an office building?

It got to a point where Michael was even venturing into the city to beg. Leaving work early and getting back late. His dirty work truck logging more miles in those months than it had in all the years before. She hoped the highway wind would clean the old thing up a bit before cityfolk would see it. Make it more presentable. But she rationalized it didn't make much difference. Work trucks struggle to hide their purpose in this world.

He'd get back, sometimes just hours before the next day was to begin. And she'd stay up every time to make sure he had some hot food when he got home. She'd knit, or get things done around the house, or even call her sister if it was early enough. But she always felt too guilty to watch the TV while he was out there working, so mostly she just waited. Even fell asleep at the kitchen table a few times. Cat naps, at most. She found the biding sort of eerie, and never quite got used to being alone on the estate. Scared her for that while, the stillness, but not really anymore. More of a general unease, as certain nights these past few months have felt awfully quiet. In her pajamas, her knitwear with her on the couch as the grandfather clock in the downstairs hallway soundtracked the night. She still couldn't turn on the TV.

But Michael would always return, every night, no matter what. Until he didn't. And for what, she questions to herself. To struggle some more? Break his body in another place? Make just enough on this crop to get by? They only finally got some money when the life insurance kicked in after he died. So much, she nearly laughed when they told her the amount on the phone. The cruelty of it, she thought. She was a god-fearing woman, but the holy ghost would have to answer for that one when her time comes.

BANG!

Her mind leaves the past and slams her into the present. That was downstairs, she thinks, her lower body numb on the toilet seat. The fridge slamming, she guesses, her entire upper body rigid. She's heard that noise thousands of times. That's got to be it, she reassures herself. Inch by silent inch, she stands up and tiptoes to the hallway. She looks out the window for some merciful evidence that she's hearing things, but it's pitch-black on the Sommerville farm. The barn light and front door sconce she always leaves on are both off, dark as the fields beside them. She creeps into her dead husband's office, not even sure why. It feels automatic, out-of-body. Her mind sprinting so fast she's barely registering her movements towards the oak desk: carefully opening and closing drawers, scanning towards the door every half-second as she panics.

She stops. Was that another noise? From the hallway? Or was that her? The hamster wheel in her head at warp speed as she moves back towards the hallway, her hand gripped on something in her robe pocket. Think Dorothy, think, she repeats in her head. Cellphone? Never any service out here, she retorts to herself. Landline? Car keys? Downstairs, she quickly shoots down. The truck, she remembers. Her husband's truck keys are still on his nightstand. And the porch roof outside the bedroom window is low enough that she can jump.

Plan realized, Dorothy is suddenly cognizant that she is still frozen to the office door frame. Foot lifting just inches off the ground...a little forward...the ball of her foot hitting the ground like a feather. Each step glacial. Each movement noiseless. Her ears are hot and she can feel her own heartbeat in them. Another step. She's getting close as a foot lifted gently touches down and —

CREAK...

The floorboards. It's like glass shattering in a library. She stops dead, body frozen and eyes clenched vise-tight. Trying to force this reality into being a dream.

She stays unmoving for what feels like a lifetime before another glass shatters:

"Why don't you come down?" a voice questions from below.

Ears now hotter, foot still on the creaking floorboard, she thinks about Michael and how massive his void feels in this moment. Not because he'd handle this or any other protective reason, but because she's scared. She's never been this scared in her whole life. He would always hug her tight after a nightmare. Sometimes until she fell back asleep. Sometimes until morning.

She stares at the bedroom a few footsteps away. The half-light from the hallway only getting so far into the room. Surrounded by shadow black. So dark, she thinks. Her head finally moves, turning towards the stairs. She's waiting for the real version of herself to wake up. And for a hug to slam her into something different.

Dorothy Sommerville exhales low and slow before her body turns towards the stairs. Each step down heightening her breathing pattern. The thud, thud, thud heartbeat in her head interrupted by what sounds like soft music. She stops at the bottom of the stairs, trying to place it. She knows the tune well. A nanosecond of optimism as she stares up at the swinging door to the kitchen. Soil be damned, she thinks, before pushing through to see a man at the kitchen table.

He looks up to her but doesn't move. She stands, one hand frozen on the door and her body still under the doorframe, staring at this stranger as Jack & The Mods plays from the record console behind him. He seems familiar, but not in a real way. His dark clothing contrasting with a glass of milk in front of him.

"Hello, Dorothy," he says. "Have a seat."

She stares at him. Looking for something, anything. He simply unlinks his hands, gesturing one gently towards the seat across from him. She doesn't speak, just a small nod before pulling out the chair with a shaking hand.

"Sorry," he says, pointing to the rotating music behind him. His stare unmoving. "I usually play it on my phone but there's no service out here."

"It's okay," she chokes out. "Having some car trouble?"

"Not really," he says casually. "Sorry if I woke you."

Dorothy gulps. "No, no," she lies. "I'm not the best sleeper."

The man lets that sit. No real reaction. Just that peculiar stare while the "Don't Wake Me Up" record spins behind him. Look natural, she commands to herself, because she knows she looks anything but. Back too straight, right hand gripped too tight, left arm too rigid on the table to even flirt with casual.

The house cat, Elvis, sweeps by her leg and night gown. She looks down for a millisecond. The man very slowly leans to his side, tracking the feline as it walks into the laundry room. Why didn't they get dogs, she asks herself.

"We do have a landline," she says, voice cracking it out.

"You do," he answers before taking a big drink of milk. "I helped myself. I hope you don't mind. Not many opportunities to have it this fresh."

"It is," she says with confusion. "Can't go back to the standard thing after having it."

"Indeed," he agrees. "You can't go back."

She sees a glimmer of a smile come across his face.

"And what is this?" he asks, gently pointing up.

"This was our — It's one of my favorite songs," she responds.

He closes his eyes and nods along with a few notes. "I like it."

She nods, pushing down any emotion. It was the first time she'd heard it in months. Michael specifically wanted it played at his funeral, and a few of his family members enjoyed the irony. But it was more than that. To her and to him.

"S-So..." she stammers, looking around for answers. "Dark out there."

"It is," he measures, that glimmer coming back.

Her song ends. It's quiet, save the static skip of the record spinning and the ticking of the hallway clock. The audio crackles hang in the air as the two of them stare at each other. Neither moves.

"If you are lost or got lost. Or are having car trouble or —"

"Do you know why I'm here?" he interrupts.

Dorothy Sommerville gulps in as she blinks repeatedly. "I have an idea."

"And do you have something of mine?"

She thinks for a long moment. Of the family at Christmas, and everyone coming in from the fields at lunchtime, and Michael laughing, and Michael looking at her, and Michael. It is so far past quitting time.

"No."

The man pauses and looks at her for something. He adjusts his head, but still gets nothing back. He squints at her, measuring his words before saying them and shattering a final glass.

"Aren't you going to scream or something?" he asks, setting a garrote on the table.

"This is a farm. There are no neighbors," she laughs back.

"Collins farm is right down the road?" he quizzes, still looking for the other answer.

"True," she agrees. "And if our barn out there started on fire, I know Ed would run over. He's a good man. And I know he shoots birds in the fall. I hear the shots. So he'd come running if that happened here, too, because I don't hunt. Never have."

Dorothy looks at him, her breathing calming down. The man squirms in his chair a fraction of an inch.

"But if I screamed," she says. "I mean really, really screamed the devil out of me...He wouldn't come. He wouldn't know. There are no neighbors out here."

He smiles again. This time big, real. A brief moment of searching at her before he grabs his tool and gets up.

She stares back, finally matching his smile before clicking back the hammer on the gun gripped in her right hand.