Sitting in the passenger side of Lochlan's truck as we make our way East, I am struck by a barn in a field way back from the road. It's grey, weathered, abandoned but not, as witnessed by the single glass light over the wide double doors. The light is lit, it is golden hour and it looks like the saddest, most homesick and yet peaceful place I have ever seen. It reminds me of sleeping in the hay bed in the house by the river, counting the swallows queuing up on the power lines between the house just below my window and the hay loft window on the barn across the yard.
I used to hate those swallows and their golden-hour sounds. I felt so alone, dumped at the farm for the summer to do hard labour and be emotionally abused and ridiculed and sunburnt from such a young age I still dread the onset of summer, deep down, and yet now I wish I could have had Adult-Bridget there to appreciate the peacefulness of the nights. The simpleness of a plank-salmon supper on cedar boards, my grandfather manning the barbecue for the volunteer fire department and the church ladies (including my grandmother) making salads and squares and doing all of the cleanup while the men talked crops and industry.
The wood mill up on the other side of the river dominated the whole village, and the talk never stopped. I was woken up every morning by the chainsaw sounds, as they worked somewhere off up in the hills, and the rushing river that was too violent to cross or swim in. Instead we would drive to the lake for an hour in the afternoons, and I would soothe sunburn and then wade out and Bailey and I would pick the leeches off our legs and eat freezies while sitting on the picnic table, still in the godforsaken sun. Bailey tanned beautifully, a brown summer child while I remained a sore red-faced baby, loathe to let the rough cotton sets my grandmother sewed for us to wear touch my skin because everything hurt. She was too tough to care about my feelings, no doubt lost in her own regrets, stuck in that town her whole life.
But also maybe not. What a beautiful barn at twilight.