He put on one of his flannel shirts, buttoned halfway up, and greeted his Greek chorus. One of them, Matilda, named by his nephew after his favorite book, seemed to shake her head at him.
“Don’t pack a sad,” Liam told her. “I didn’t wish Kelly a happy birthday.”
He patted Matilda’s distended belly. “It’s almost that time, isn’t it?”
She let out a short bleat and walked away.
“Don’t be embarrassed! You’re glowing! You’re all glowing!” he called out to his bevy of pregnant sheep. “Lambing season is just around the corner.”
He knew on some level that animals were not this perceptive, but when you worked with sheep all day, every day of the year, you started to wonder.
The sheep continued baaa’ing, though. Usually they stopped when he approached, but their noises still rang with desperation.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. Like with any relationship, over time, he’d become an expert at deciphering what sound meant what. And he recognized this baaa. “You’re hungry?”
Liam ambled into the hoof house, which was a large greenhouse-looking structure with a half-moon roof where the sheep ate. It reminded him of those large tents under which he’d attended weddings with Kelly or craft beer festivals with Craig. He mixed together the feed. Every spring, he mowed the grass when it was most nutrient rich and saved it for the rest of the year. Dozens of sheep watched him with anticipation. He poured the food into the feed troughs, and they descended upon him like he was their god.
Liam had a small farm of about eighty hectares. When his parents passed away, he and his four older brothers inherited their much larger farm, which was divided equally, King Lear-style. Minus the murders and intrigue. Three of his brothers rented their land to other farmers with dreams of selling, while his oldest brother Mark lived on his share in their parents’ old house.
Liam had originally thought of selling, too, but held on for years even as he worked as a visual effects artist for movies and lived in Wellington. He had always looked up to Mark, who was twenty years older, and Mark wasn’t selling, even though he wasn’t a farmer. Something inside Liam told him not to sell, that it was his birthright.
It turned out to be fate when he decided to leave the bustling metropolis of Wellington behind a year and a half ago to get away from his breakup. Mark let Liam use his land to expand his farm. He used his savings and took on freelance graphic design projects to supplement his income until the sheep farm turned a profit, which other farmers warned him could take years. Liam would wait. He had no intention of going back to the city. Kelly and Craig could have Wellington. He preferred sheep.
* * *
Liam had builtan outdoor shower attached to the shed to avoid tracking dirt into his home. He let the water cleanse him after another long day in the fields. Every muscle inside him cried for mercy. He had to work double time in anticipation for lambing season in July, which was only a few weeks away. He had barely survived his first lambing season a year ago and wanted to be more prepared, repairing the sheds and equipment, making sure he had enough supplies.
He washed the smell of mud, hay, and sheep off him as best as he could, though after eighteen months of full-time farming, it was baked into his natural scent.
He put on clean clothes and walked across the field to his brother Mark’s house. It was nice having family just across the field, and in a bigger, more updated house for those rare times when the shed got to be claustrophobic.
“Gidday, how ya going?” his niece Franny said to him when he arrived. He remembered when she was a little girl, screaming his name and running into his arms whenever he came over. Now she barely looked up from her phone. We were all teenagers once, Liam thought.
“How is my favorite niece?” He mussed her hair, which he knew she hated. Mark bemoaned how much time she spent in the bathroom every morning.
She smoothed her thick waves of brown hair back into place. Franny had the tall, gawky look of puberty. She was becoming a woman, which was so strange to the uncle who held her in his arms when she was born.
“You can’t say that, Uncle Liam. You can’t pick favorites!”
“Says who?”
“It’s the rule.”
“Weren’t rules made to be broken?” He sat down on the tan couch; its weathered, lumpy cushions could put him to sleep faster than his own bed. Franny hopped on, too, though she was too old for his lap.
“Uncle Liam!” Walt ran in and punched his arm a few times. With his bright red hair and pale skin, he reminded Liam of a lit match, which was an appropriate description in more ways than one. At ten, Walt was at the age just before it became uncool to like your family.
Liam hauled him over the couch and lobbed soft punches at him.
“Uncle Liam, can I help you when you shear the sheep?” Walt asked.
“You’re a little bit too young, but maybe next year.”
“I’d be really good at it. I cut my own hair!” Walt pointed to his head and uneven lops of hair missing. He was at that age just before he thought about trying to look good for girls. Liam remembered those high school mornings where he put a gallon of product into his bushy black hair.
“Dinner will be ready in five,” Mark called out from the kitchen. “Walt, why don’t you set the table tonight?”
Walt hit Liam once more in the stomach, with more force than he was expecting, and buzzed off to the kitchen.
