They're Only Cattle

The Pit of a Peach

On the day Ethel Barrett turned eighteen, the sun rose over the old Barrett farm with a reluctance that mirrored the mood within. The farmhouse, standing since her great-grandfather's time, caught the morning light in its cracked windows, the barn casting long shadows over the withering fields.

I watched from my bedroom, the peeling wallpaper behind me holding echoes of laughter long silenced. The house had grown quieter with each passing year, as if it were holding its breath, waiting for something to break the stillness that had settled over the land like frost.

In the yard, my mother was hanging laundry, the wet clothes clinging to her like the past we couldn't shake. My eyes lingered not on the woman who had birthed me but on the expanse of land that stretched out behind her, to the fence where our property ended and Dimitri's began.

Dimitri—rich, carefree, with a smile that seemed to mock the Barrett name. He was out there now, somewhere among the apple trees that blossomed without permission and knew nothing of poverty. I didn't envy him; no, envy required wanting what someone else had, and I, Ethel Barrett, wanted nothing. Nothing, except perhaps...

The thought was a whisper in my mind, fleeting like the touch of the great Dane that nudged my hand for attention. I gave it absently, my gaze still fixed outside. Today was my birthday, and yet the day felt like any other, heavy with an expectation I couldn't name.

Breakfast was a quiet affair. My mother said something about town, about the whispers that never seemed to die down. They were like the chickens out back, always clucking over something. I responded with nods and noncommittal grunts, my eyes on the clock. Time was a river, and I was caught in its current, drawn toward an inevitability that had begun to take shape in the corners of my mind.

I stepped outside, the great Dane bounding ahead of me, and made my way to the barn. The cattle looked up as I entered, their eyes wide and unassuming. They knew me as the girl who fed them, nothing more. There was comfort in that simplicity, in being seen for what I did rather than what I was—or what they suspected me to be.

Today, I would make a wish, not upon candles—there would be no cake, no celebration—but upon the very soil that had sustained my family for generations. A wish for something to change, for the pieces of my life to shift into a picture that made sense.

But wishes were for children, and as of today, I, Ethel Barrett, was no longer a child.

As I stood there, in the shadow of the barn, the weight of my newfound adulthood settled on my shoulders like a mantle. The farm, with its endless demands and decaying structures, felt both like a prison and a part of me. I had grown here, amidst the neglect and the wild, my roots entangled with the land's. And yet, I yearned for something more, something beyond the fences that marked the boundaries of my world.

The great Dane, sensing perhaps my restlessness, nudged me again, pulling me from my reverie. I patted his head, feeling the coarse fur under my fingers, grounding me to the moment. We walked together, his presence a silent comfort, towards the cattle who greeted me with mild interest before returning to their grazing.

I filled their troughs, the routine motions familiar and soothing. As I worked, my mind wandered to the townsfolk, their whispers and stares that followed me like shadows. They saw me as an enigma, a girl touched by tragedy and darkness. They didn't understand, couldn't possibly grasp the depth of the isolation that cloaked my heart. They whispered about my past, about the accident when I was twelve, but they didn't know the truth. No one did.

The truth was a thorn in my side, a secret that I nurtured within the walls of the old farmhouse. My mother, the woman who had given me life and then taken away the only person who might have understood me, remained a mystery. Her actions had set us on this path, a path that led to whispered accusations and sideways glances. She lived with her guilt, silent and withdrawn, and I lived with my questions, unanswered and burning.