Second Winter: by Sophia Soames

This book deals with grief, death of a loved one and feelings of loneliness. Please read with care if these themes may affect you.

Spring had been wet and miserable, and my best pair of work boots were giving up the ghost. The squelch of my socks inside them made me grimace in disgust as I crossed the farmyard heading back for my morning break.

Break, and break. It was coffee and cramming random food down my throat while I sorted through emails and made a few notes in my messy diary with some misguided hope of being organized for next week.

I was usually organized. I wouldn't be running this farm if I wasn't. But things were stupidly busy, and setting aside time to order a new pair of boots hadn't been on my agenda. It was now, though, since there was a visible gap between the soles and supposedly waterproof uppers of both boots. No surprise my socks were soaked. Kicking off my sad excuse for footwear, I hung the socks over the porch railing and stood there, shivering, in my bare feet.

This place. Home. I'd been born here, in the front room, too impatient to meet the world. Mum was too far gone to wait for the ambulance, nor had there been any time for Dad to take her to the hospital. That was me all summed up from the moment I was born. Apparently, I was a handful as a child, then I morphed into a lazy teen, only to emerge in my twenties as someone my dad had been immensely proud of. He'd always told me.

My mum? I didn't remember much. Not from before. I remembered too much from after—all things I didn't want to remember. I'd only been small, and my dad being who he was…

I shrugged off the darkness and smiled at the flock entering the farmyard and Flora, right on time, driving the bleating critters toward the back pen—she had another load in her truck, ready to move into the field at the back of the bogland. She raised her hand and waved; I mimicked her movement.

We didn't need words out here. Modern communication was a fabulous invention, and anything important was sent over WhatsApp, email, or the local online landowner forum.

I went inside, shutting the door behind me. Peace and quiet at last. It was what people usually associated with farms in the middle of nowhere, but the reality still hit most of them square in the face when they rocked up here. This was a working farm, but I didn't have cattle of my own. I grew Christmas trees, pine to be precise, and tendered large paddocks of farmland to sheep, cattle, and all things that paid their way.

We'd once been on the brink of disaster because a tree farm was no longer a viable business. Timber was a long-term investment, and we'd needed cash faster, as the bills were mounting. Never one to give up, my dad dug in his heels, we both had, and spent months trying to figure out solutions, find good stable investments that meant we could keep our home.

Now we hosted the local farming college full time, with their huge sheds and classrooms, gleaming tractors whizzing up dust outside my kitchen window. The college focused mainly on crops here, with several large greenhouses further down the road, and solar panels along the treeline, beyond those the never-ending lines of green pine, my view as far as I could see.

I'd been so proud of my dad. I was proud of myself too, even if that wasn't a very Swedish thing to feel. It was definitely something you didn't boast about, but I knew my dad would have been equally proud. I could almost feel him sitting next to me as I poured myself a mug of coffee and watched Flora stomp across the yard, waving her arms and shouting loudly. Bloody sheep.

"I know, Dad," I said, smiling, like he was still here. "And nope. No."

He'd always teased me about Flora. We'd spent all our time together as kids on neighbouring farms, been the best of friends at primary school. Then we'd grown up and she was still here. So was I. It was…complicated.

I sighed, my attention drifting to my overflowing inbox. Invoices. Sales pitches. Equipment we'd never be able to afford. Did I want to purchase some prefab holiday homes? Nope. This was a noisy place full of flies and mosquitoes, and the local lake was pure bogland. No one in their right mind would choose to holiday here. Also, I wasn't sociable. I didn't do well with humans. Well, non-farm folk. We sometimes got city folk, who wanted to shake hands and talk about the weather, but they soon got with the programme and would just nod and grunt the next time our paths crossed or, better still, send an email and not cross paths at all.

At least the students here were mostly local kids destined to go down the same path I had. They already had the knowledge and manners and understood the life out here. It was a good life, simple, honest, their family farms a warm, comfortable noose around their necks…just like this place had been. Now I had settled in, I was happy here. Content.

Living.

I had no idea how to live outside the fences that penned me in. I just did what I always had. I got up in the morning, these days with an alarm on my phone instead of my dad bringing me a cup of strong black coffee in bed. I took my clothes out of the tumble drier, stuffed my limbs into my dark-green overalls, and stuck a piece of buttered bread in my mouth before I donned my work boots.

Boots. Damn, I needed to shake myself out of this, whatever it was, and get the jobs done.

Sometimes I'd catch myself sitting in the kitchen like this. In the winter, it would be dark, and sometimes I would pick up the matches and light the candle that stood on the table, like I had the night Dad passed. I'd sat here in numb shock as his body lay cold in the over-complicated bed in the living room.

That bed was gone now, but most things were just the same, including me. I still sat here with a cup of coffee, the soft whirring of my laptop joining the symphony of sounds outside. Tractors trundling back and forth. People calling out to each other. Students milling around. Sheep bleating. A fly buzzing in the window.

Okay. Boots. I had an email somewhere. Discount codes of some sort.

Most of the messages I deleted right away, but there was one that caught my eye, my breath hitching and a mouthful of coffee totally missing its mark. Fuck. I clumsily wiped my face with the back of my hand and felt the hot liquid soak through my overalls. Whatever. It wasn't like weren't dusty and covered in dirt to start with.

I couldn't stop staring at the name on the screen.

It was a group email, but his name was the first. I dry-swallowed, instantly getting whooshed back in time. Senior school. Graduation.

School Reunion!the subject line shouted, filling me with unease. I'd liked school, been rather good at it too, but…that was in the past. I really had no interest in seeing any of my former classmates again. Half of them had stayed local, but I only really knew them by their email addresses or WhatsApp handles. The names of their farms. Old farmer Johanson's place was still called Johanson's, but his son ran it now, same as me with this place. Dad may not be here anymore, but his name still carried clout. I was just the caretaker, the one people needed to speak to because he was no longer here. I didn't mind. I wished my dad was still here, of course I did, but it would take decades for me to grow into who I'd become, until my own child would take my place.

I smiled, shook my head. I would never have a child. Never have someone else here again. There was too little oxygen for me to breathe as it was. There would never be enough for anyone else.

That was the grieving idiot inside me talking, I knew that. I could go out and find myself a partner. What the hell would I do with a partner, some stranger messing around in my house? It gave me anxiety even thinking about it. Nope, not happening.

I didn't watch TV, but I'd heard people talking about some show called Farmer Seeks a Wife or something like that. Someone had laughed and suggested I should apply. I'd grunted and walked off. I bet there was no Farmer Seeks a Husband show I could go on. That wasn't the done thing. Or maybe it was, and I'd just not paid attention. The world was constantly evolving, right?

I wasn't going to go to any damn school reunion, spending an evening with a bunch of people I had nothing in common with. Those who were like me would be about as interested as I was in partaking in the ‘sumptuous buffet' or ‘toasting with the local beer' down at the community hall.

They could have tried harder, maybe hired a nice restaurant in town, and not just gone with the tired hall that still smelled of the Scout meetings of my youth and badly executed birthday parties. That place carried no fond memories, and neither did school. Not really.

Liar!that name on the email screamed at me.

Ned Anderson. An American exchange student who'd rocked up in our last year and stayed long enough to graduate with us. A strange, lanky bloke with weird hair, who spoke bad Swedish with a questionable accent. He had family here. Lived with his aunt Violet.

The things I remembered.

He'd been different from any boy I'd ever met, not that we'd been friends, Ned and me. We'd barely spoken, but after Ned had gone back to America, I acknowledged Violet Anderson when I saw her in the supermarket, waved if I passed her standing on the forecourt to her farm. She was in the WhatsApp group, and she was doing well, despite her old age. She had a team of workers who ran her large cattle farm, and she still chaired the community council and was active on the landowner forums.

Anyway. Work. I wasn't going to go to that reunion. With a sigh, I deleted the email, closed my laptop, and sipped my now stone-cold coffee.

My place was here. And the work wasn't to get itself done, was it?

The stifling Arizona heat was getting to me, but it shouldn't have. I'd grown up here, and it was embarrassing that when I got out of my car I almost passed out, burning my hand on the sleek, hot body work as I tried to steady myself.

I wasn't good with the heat. I wasn't good with a lot of things. I went to the gym. Ate well. Worked hard. Played when the urge came on. I'd played tennis with my dad that morning, in fact. My parents lived up in Flagstaff. They had a small house nestled in the cool, leafy shade, far away from the red Phoenix dust and overwhelming, unbreathable air. As if the emphasise the point, I once again lifted the hem of my T-shirt and wiped my face, leaving a rusty smear across the fabric. I still needed to fill my car up with gas and get more water.

This was my life. Work. Drive. Sleep. Drive. Work. I didn't like work. I liked the cool inside my car. I liked my air-conditioned condo…on a normal day.

This hadn't been a normal day. And all because of that damn email.

You see, a lifetime ago—well, what seemed like a lifetime ago, but I'd been, what…seventeen?—I'd gone on an exchange year. It felt like it had all taken place on a different planet, which it shouldn't because, I, Ned Anderson, was one true, full-blooded Viking. My parents were from Sweden, not that there was much Swedish left in them, apart from the stupid traditions and the Swedish flag they displayed on their porch. They'd moved to Arizona before I'd been conceived. So I was born here, and Mom and Dad were as American as pie and Twinkies. We'd visited Sweden when I was a child, happy vacations spent running around barefoot in the grass, swimming in lakes, eating weird flavours of ice cream, and scratching mosquito bites.

The exchange year had been my idea, thinking I needed to do something cool before college. A year abroad to get my head screwed on straight. Or not straight, as it'd had a lot to do with coming out to my best friend, who told his parents, who told my parents, and then everyone at school knew, and suddenly I was some kind of pariah and my whole social circle had fucked off to God knew where.

I'd refused to complete my final year and finish high school. So Sweden it was, and being who I was (read: loser and king of impulsive, bad ideas), I'd called my aunt Violet. She'd enrolled me at the local school and made up her guest room, and before I knew it, my tearful parents had sent me on my way to the high Nordics.

It was not as farfetched as it might seem. I had a Swedish passport—dual nationality—and I half-heartedly spoke the lingo, thanks to Mom and Dad. I also had something I knew how to use. Charm. Teenage gusto. I suppose I'd been brave—braver than I was now.

Welcome to the Class of 2004 Reunion! the subject line declared in bold capitals. Who the heck SHOUTED in emails these days? But maybe I should'nt have been surprised, since the organiser was Pernilla, who'd always been an attention-getter deluxe.

My first thought had been HELL, NO! But then…

The year before Sweden, I'd been walking on burning embers, struggling to even breathe, and I wasn't talking about the stifling Arizona heat. The year in Sweden, it was the first time in my life I felt free, felt like I could function, as if the cool air and open landscape with the constant breeze and the stench from Aunt Violet's cattle and…and…

I wanted to cry, give the guy behind the counter hell as I paid for my gas and another oversize bottle of water, because that email was forcing me to look back. To remember.

I'd been happy, free of all the expectations and burdens and a future I hadn't wanted. A college degree. A job. Yeah, Mom and Dad had worried about my safety and sanity—everyone had been concerned, and not in a supportive way.

That year had changed everything. Not only had I fucked off to the other side of the world, but Mom and Dad had gone through some kind of mid-life crisis without me there. They'd quit their jobs, sold my childhood home, and moved to Flagstaff, where they opened a Scandinavian-style yoga retreat. Definitely not my kind of thing, but it was miles better than having to return to the place that had filled me with nothing but anxiety.

The fact that I moved back to Phoenix makes zero sense, but I did. I enrolled in classes, graduated, found a job, a nice place to live. Became a full-fledged adult with new friends and carved myself out a little life—a life that had never quite been enough, because here I was, still yearning for the way I'd felt ten years ago.

I knew how pathetic it was, but there had been something magical back then, something I'd lost growing up. Perhaps it was just that bravado and impulsiveness of my youth. Perhaps I thought more about things now. Or maybe it was down to one simple truth.

I wasn't happy.

I earned enough money to support myself, having worked my way up from a lowly assistant to one of the main recruiters for a large consultancy firm. I knew what I was doing, but it was a dead-end job. There was no way forward within the company. I could've used the tools at my disposal to find a better position years ago. Why hadn't I?

I didn't really understand that myself, because I was worth more than this. Monday to Friday, up at the crack of dawn, in bed by midnight. I went out with my friends, occasionally got laid, and then I'd go back home to my bed, feeling empty and weirded out. I had no idea how to be happy. Because people were supposed to be happy, right?

There was nothing joyful between my four walls at home. No bright sparks to be found in my cubicle at work. I drove a piece of junk that had seen better days, and I kept wondering if things would ever change, but nothing ever did.

My dad suggested I go enrol for some community college, get a fancy degree. I couldn't think of anything worse. Perhaps I was lazy. Perhaps I was just…slow. My friends told me I was stuck in my ways, that I'd become a grumpy old man at the tender age of twenty-eight, but I didn't feel old.

I just felt tired. Sad.

That email was haunting me, as cheerful responses kept it at the top of my inbox, names I vaguely remembered, faces flashing before me to go with the names—people who would have aged in the ten years since I'd last seen them.

Most of them had been friends. Some had kept in touch for a while afterward—one had even visited me here—and some had found me on social media, but apart from that, I hadn't spoken to any of them for years.

Part of me yearned to go book a ticket. The other part recoiled in fear. Returning to the person you'd once been never went well. I knew that.

The weeks passed like dredging mud, the email still sitting there with my fingers refusing to do my bidding. I didn't want to respond, couldn't, and was doubting my sanity, stressing over something as harmless as an invite. I wasn't usually this riddled with anxiety, and there was an easy solution to all the mess festering in my head.

Delete.

I still couldn't make myself do it.

So when I went to see HR over a totally different matter, the words just slipped out of my mouth. Can I take a couple of days' leave? I regretted them as soon as I'd said them, but I didn't take them back.

The phone call to Aunt Violet was curt and awkward. She tsked and ticked me off for not having called or visited in ten years but finished by saying of course I was welcome. I'd half hoped she'd tell me to get lost and refuse to entertain my idea of a weekend visit.

Halfway around the world for a couple of days? What was I thinking? Not only would I be stupidly jetlagged, but add a couple of strong Swedish beers and I'd be gone with the wind, spilling truths, being stupid…

Having fun?

I wasn't sure I remembered how to have fun.

I couldn't even remember how I booked the ticket, but it was sitting in my inbox having an anxiety party with the school reunion invite.

I hated myself.

So I dealt with it the same way as usual. Got myself laid by a stranger who fucked me vigorously while I stared at his bedroom wall and wondered if I'd gone completely mad.

I probably had.

Then suddenly, it was a Thursday morning in June, and my weird-ass self was wandering through the threadbare carpets of Phoenix airport, obligatory coffee in hand and my rucksack slung over my shoulder. I hadn't bothered bringing a suit. It was a high school reunion in a godforsaken small town where most people were full-time farmers. I was pretty sure my check shirt and slacks were up to the job. My shoes were polished and my hair fell just the right way around my shoulders—a little bit too long, the way I liked it.

I looked fine.

I didn't feel fine, though. I felt like a walking meme for regrettable life choices. Even my parents had expressed doubt at my seemingly rash decision to spend an obscene amount of money on a weekend trip to Scandinavia.

I wholeheartedly agreed with them and wanted to scream as the plane hurtled down the runway, but by then, it was too late.

Far too late.