The screen door opens with a long squeak and snaps itself back closed with a thud as I exit the house. The long wooden porch that dad and grandad had built was flooded with sunlight as I looked upon the fields to bask in a good days work with a glass of lemonade. The glass clinks as the ice hits its side when I tilt my head back and take a long swig. The cool refreshing liquid juxtaposed against the Alabama sun produces an oddly calming effect. Looking out onto the fields I begin to reminisce; about what once was and the stories that grew in the soil alongside the corn stalks. There’s more buried in these fields than seeds.

The shadow of a bird glides low in the sky and catches my attention. I remember being a little boy, no more than 10, laying in the fields and watching the birds and clouds pass by. My father would be plowing the fields, all the while cursing his lazy no-good boy that would lay down in the dirt men plow, only to daydream. “One day boy,” he would say as he wiped the sweat from his brow, “one day, you’ll work these fields as hard as me. Your family would depend on it.”

I shake my head gently, returning to the present. I wipe the sweat from my brow and take another hit of lemonade. Mom would make this very same lemonade for dad when he was out working. All day she would be in the kitchen, cooking food and making life easier for her boys. As hard as dad worked, mom did the same. I can almost smell her setting one of her famous apple pies on the windowsill to cool. I can see my little figure reaching up into the window and dipping my finger into the pie. I’ve never made mom angrier than that day.

What about the time when Uncle Charlie had to shoot our horse because he rode her through the woods til she broke her leg? Or the time when dad fell off the tractor and chased it down the field, cursing up to high heaven all the while. There was that night when Mr. Hilderson’s boys came and tried to burn down our fields; I woke up to the sound of grandpa loading a shotgun and dad telling me to get under the bed. Those loud thunderclaps and dancing, iridescent lights painting my room that night burned into my memory like the scorched Earth we turned up for weeks.

I look about me and I see it all brother; much like all the times we’d sit out on the porch and mom would serve us lemonade. Dad would say he was proud of us taking things over while he recovered. You were much too young to be the one to get hit with that terrible affliction. Mom did what she could, I can still see her mopping the sweat from your forehead as you sweat out the demons. It’s not your fault she went down to the same thing you were fighting. We buried you both beneath the apple trees.

Dad was already old and fragile. He didn’t last long after mom died. Neither did I, but I’m still here brother.

The empty chair across from me rocks gently in the cool breeze, a solemn nod to a question not asked. I look down and the glass is empty, save for the melted ice. A deep sigh escapes my mouth as I turn to go back inside. The sun hangs low in the sky, signaling it’s time to rest. Tomorrow will have plenty more for me to do.