Sweet Home

People who have never experienced the beauty of the wilderness are denying themselves the very essence of what it feels to be a man. To be alive, even. There’s something so moving about waking up in the cold dew of morning and breathing in the crisp air that makes your soul feel like it’s on fire. Your lungs burn, your eyes water and in that moment, you know that you are human. You know that you are an animal in it’s fiercest stage of life, capable of things you’ve never dreamed yet restrained by the checks and balances that are nature. The natural order of things, the patterns and systematic repetition of it all binds you; you are small, insignificant, yet defined. A great man would crumble under the pressure of Her, of nature, it humbles even the bravest of souls. 1

The ’94 Ford Pick-up rattled down the driveway towards a white picket fence. Bouncing from pot hole to pot hole, it never once settled in for a smooth ride. The fence approached the vehicle, and it seemed to swallow the red hood of the truck and spit it back out on the other side. Coming into Sweet Home Ranch was like entering a new world. It was not quaint, or homey, like the name made it sound; no, it was sterile and sharp. It contained two large buildings; the first a white house and the second a large barn. The house was so big it couldn’t be called anything less then a manor. You could see the row of third story bedroom windows from miles away when they were lit up at night, the white siding standing harshly against the deep blue sky littered with bright stars. There was something about Sweet Home that made you want to turn around and never come back. Maybe it was the smell of sickly sweet honeysuckles in the air, maybe it was the intimidating home standing in all its glory, or maybe it was just the fact that Shy had told himself that he would never come back here again.2

When he was fifteen years old, Shy lived at Sweet Home with his Father, Mother and two older sisters. He was the youngest of the family and the scrawniest. He was shunned by his father for not being the toughest boy in school, not joining the football team, not being seen with the petite blonde cheerleaders at the drive-ins on Friday nights. His father frequently told him he was the kind of kid that he had beaten up in high school to “knock some sense into them” always followed with an insensitive chuckle of reminiscing. His mother took the brunt of these insults worse then Shy himself, and took to pampering him and spoiling him after each attack. He remembers the long nights when he would lay in bed listening to them fight about how his father treated him, the tears that would always come and how the inevitable slap of hand-on-skin would reach his ears when his father had had enough. He hated his father more then anything those nights, wished he could hurt him as badly as he hurt his mother, wished he could be anywhere but there, wished he had someway of protecting the only person who stood up for him. But he couldn’t. He was a scrawny fifteen year old boy with nothing to lose and not much to gain either. His sisters were fairly separated; they didn’t associate with him outside of their home, and didn’t claim him as a sibling when his name came after theirs on attendance sheets. That was fine with him; they didn’t mean anything to him anyways. Once, when he was little, his eldest sister Mary took to tormenting him with every trick in the book. Eventually she got tired of watching him cry and let up some, but the damage was done. He couldn’t, wouldn’t trust anyone in his family. Not his sisters who could care less about him, not his father who badgered him relentlessly, and not even his mother who he had learned from experience will eventually do whatever his father says. She was weak, weaker then even he was, and he wouldn’t fall into that trap.3

Shy and his father went on an annual hunting trip together, and even though it pained both of them to spend a few nights alone together in the woods, it was something that they packed up for each spring no matter what. Shy had just turned fifteen before there latest trip, and time, as his dad said “To become a man” which really meant to shoot, to kill. Shy had always been the one in charge of setting up camp, gathering the fire wood, cooking the meals. The grunt work fell to him, and he didn’t mind it so much. It kept him busy and if he did everything just as his father wanted he would gain a discreet nod from him. He wasn’t a total screw up when they went out there, he had some know-how and he knew that if he worked hard he could keep his father at bay at least until they returned home. This year was different, and that scared Shy. He had no idea what jobs fell to whom, how he was supposed to act and most importantly he didn’t know how to shoot a gun. He knew his father was going to be disappointed in him when he found out that Shy couldn’t shoot a gun to save his life, he knew that he would use this as more ammunition for his already full artillery against Sky. He wanted nothing more then to sink into the walls of his home when it was time to leave on that trip; he wanted nothing more then to disappear into nothing.4

The drive out seem to go quicker then it did all of the previous years. They were at their usual campground a little after lunch, and set to work right away. Shy noticed that his father did half the work now, and they set up camp quicker then every other year. The job of collecting firewood still belonged to Shy, and he set out on his task almost immediately after his father barked the orders to him. Quickly and quietly he scanned the forest floor for good, dry sticks. He looked back at the camp every couple hundred yards to make sure his father wasn’t looking or criticizing him. Soon, he looked back and could only see the very tip-top of their forest green hunting tent and he knew he was in the clear. He took his time now, bundling up the best wood he could find as well as scoping out the area. It was big. Spacious. Beautiful. The trees that surrounded him were hundreds of feet tall, each full of lush green pines. He stared upwards and got dizzy from the immensity of it all. He could hear the gentle lull of a stream running somewhere near by and followed his ears to the source. The water was clear and inviting on the warm day, the sun peeking through the branches above and illuminating the water until you could see the bottom of the stream. Shy set down his bundle of wood and perched himself on the bank, looking into the clear water. He dipped his fingers into it. Cold. He splashed it on his face, the temperature shocking him but relieved him in some way. He washed up quietly in the stream, then sat back and lingered a moment longer in the sun. He heard the rustle of bushes and opened his eyes quickly. He knew he had taken too long; it was probably his father coming to find him, to yell at him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a slight movement and turned his head slowly. It was a Doe. Not twenty feet from him, a Doe. It appeared to not have noticed him, how fitting he thought with some bitterness. He stared in amazement at this creature so close to him, not wanting to move, not wanting to breathe less it hear him and run away. He let out a slow breath, careful to keep it even and quiet. The Doe shifted so it was no longer hidden from the bush and to Shy’s amazement a fawn fell out from the other side of the shrubbery. It was so tiny, so small, and so vulnerable. He only got to glimpse the small creature for a second before her heard another rumble through the forestry on the other side of him. It was his father crashing through the leaves and branches, coming closer to him and yelling his name. The Doe perked her ears up, looked alarmed and for the first time noticed Shy. It didn’t look surprised to see him there, rather assured. The Doe made eye contact with him and held it for what seemed like eternity, filling him with warmth and security. His father let out a rather angry yelp that ripped Shy out of his silent reverie; Shy scanned the area where he heard his dad and saw his red cap bouncing above an over sized bush. He turned his head back to the Doe and her Fawn, but they were gone. There was no trace of them ever being there aside from the heat Shy felt inside of him, the safety. His father finally made it out of the bushes and looked shocked to see Shy sitting down. The yelling didn’t seem to stop until they had finished eating dinner back at camp and were asleep in their tent. The next morning dawned bright an early on the two, and they set out with packs of food, guns, equipment. Everything they would need for a day out of camp. And then they hiked. And they hiked some more, and hiked a little more until his father seemed satisfied with the location. They set themselves up, his father showed him how to load and hold the gun, and then they waited. Perched up against a wide tree stump, they sat in silence for an hour. And then another hour. Guns at the ready, eyes scanning. There was no conversation, just silence, just watching. And then it happened. The Doe appeared again, this time further away, but Shy knew. It was the same one. His father made eye contact with him, signaling that he should take the shot. This is what Shy had feared, what he had dreaded. He didn’t want to shoot that Doe, it had a child, it had a life, and it had those sad, full brown eyes the seared right through Shy. He lifted the gun up and caught the Doe in his sights, nervous and shaking. And the Fawn appeared. He risked another glance at his father; his expression had not changed. He expected Shy to shoot this Doe no matter what; even the precious little Fawn playing at his mother’s feet could not deter him from his prize. Shy felt nauseous. He mouthed a plea to his father for the Doe’s life; it went unregistered in his father’s stoic face. This was it, then. The moment of truth. He knew if he shot that Doe, he would gain respect from his father. But he also knew if he shot that Doe he would lose all respect for himself. He took a breath out, thinking of all the pain his father had caused and how quickly he could be rid of it, how all he had to do was shoot this Deer. One, two, three, he took a breath out. He squeezed the trigger and a thundering boom cascaded through the forest filling his ears with the sound of disappointment. He had pointed his gun upwards, towards the leafy canopy of the tall trees. The Doe and the Fawn had disappeared from sight at the sudden noise. He did what he had to do, and he didn’t risk a glance at his father. Instead, he packed up his things, put his gun away, and made his way back to camp leaving his father laying on the forest floor in a stunned silence. 5

Later that night, when his father finally came back to camp, Shy received the harshest beating he had ever experienced. The entire time, his thought stuck with the Doe and her Fawn, and he pulled through without shedding a single tear. His father was shocked. They left early the next morning, a day early, and returned home with no game. Shy opened the door to their house and walked up the stairs to his room and his father turned the opposite direction. It was the last hunting trip they ever went on together. 6

It was 25 years later to the day that Sky returned home for the first time since he was 18. His ’94 red pick-up rattled down the drive and to the front of the house. His mother greeted him at the door, dressed all in black with tears leaking out of her eyes. He unlocked the car and slid off the seat, carefully shutting the door and walking around the bed of the vehicle- slowly, with ease that he had learned away at college and then perfected when he opened his own law firm in New Hampshire. His mother waited for him to mount the stairs before taking his face in her hands for the first time in almost two decades. She kissed his cheeks, and then turned to hug him. And he hugged her back. He held her still for a few minutes before releasing her. Shy wasn’t who he had been when he knew her, the distance seemed like a gaping hole that neither could find the words to fill. So they didn’t. He led her down to his shiny new truck and opened the door for her. She got in with some difficulty and with a lot of help from him, and he shut the door gently behind her. 7

The ride to the Church was a short one, filled with silent apologies from Shy to his mother, from his mother to Shy. He parked his car on the side of the old brown building and helped his mother out of the car. She looked old now, more frail and scared. He walked her into the church and they took their respective seats in the first pew. His sisters were already there and he nodded silently to them. After a gentle smile his way, they looked forward at the ornate oak coffin sitting in the front of the room. Shy noticed it was adorned with flowers of all different kinds, and a picture of his father looking accomplished with a dead Buck under his feet and a gun in his hand. Just how Shy remembered him. The room was filled with tears and anguish as the pastor spoke his words, Shy was unmoved. He had the eyes of the Doe in his mind and nothing else. Later, he followed the burial procession to the towns’ one and only graveyard in a daze. He was silent as everyone paid their final respects, silent as his mother wept in his arm, silent as they lowered the casket deep into the ground. One by one, people left the gathering until he was the only one remaining. The Doe’s eyes still vivid in his memory, he thought of how that moment changed his life. How his father had shown him exactly what he never wanted to be, how no matter what Shy was the one who beat his father by not shooting that Deer. He had won, he had gotten out and he had made something of himself when his father had said he couldn’t. He won. Shy picked up a shovel and began lifting dirt from the pile and tossing it into the gaping hole. He didn’t stop until he was done. 8