We’re 65 per cent done harvest tonight,” Jeff said as he came in the door at 10 o’clock, a trail of durum kernels falling out of the leg of his blue jeans and onto the porch floor.
Elaine’s eyes widened. Sixty-five? She was feeling 100 per cent done these days.
“That’s great,” she said.
Jeff had been working flat out for the past week, leaving the house before seven and not getting in until well after dark.
“I’d better get in the shower,” Jeff said. “Before I get more dust all over the house.”
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The next morning Jeff called from the field. “Do you mind running to the bus depot to pick up a parcel?”
“Do you need it this morning?”
“Yeah, if you can. It’s some important parts,” Jeff said. “For the combine.”
Elaine didn’t really mind. Nobody else had time to make the trip. But she wasn’t sure Jeff understood exactly how long it took to load up an almost two-year-old and a four-year-old for the 30-mile trip to town.
“I feel like a single parent with a job as a courier,” Elaine told her mother on the phone before she left. “Jeff barely sees the kids during harvest. And he didn’t even mention my birthday this morning. All of the Hansons forgot!”
“It’s a busy time,” her mother said. “You knew you were marrying a farmer when he wore a John Deere cap to your wedding rehearsal. What did you think it would be like?”
Elaine didn’t answer. Of course she’d known it would be like this, but knowing something wasn’t exactly the same as living it every day.
“You don’t have it that bad,” her mother said. “A pioneer farm woman would have killed for the chance to sit in an air-conditioned car for half an hour on her way to pick up fresh fruit and a current newspaper on her birthday.”
Elaine gave up trying to wring any sympathy out of her mother and packed up the kids to head to the bus depot.
Connor and Jenny were getting used to the trip. It was their fourth ride to town in three days. Elaine had rushed in for emergency parts for the combine, the swather and one of the grain trucks. While she was there, she’d dropped off the farm’s year-end paperwork with their accountant, signed documents at the bank, picked up cheques at the grain terminal, mailed bill payments, dropped off grain samples and bought a list-full of groceries for her mother-in-law Donna, who was spending most of her time running the combine.
At each stop Elaine had to unbuckle both kids from their car seats, stop them from running out into the street and haul them in and out of offices and stores.
This morning, after she picked up the package at the bus depot, Elaine took the kids to the fuel dealer’s office to pay their monthly bill. “How’s Jeff’s crop coming off?” Ray asked her as he ran her credit card through the machine.
“It’s my crop too,” Elaine muttered to herself afterwards as she buckled Jenny back into her car seat. “Just because I’m not out in the field doesn’t mean I’m not part of the business.”
“Me too!” Conner yelled. “An’ me,” Jenny chimed in.
Back at home, Elaine was simultaneously unpacking the groceries, trying to keep the kids from fighting, and packing lunches for Jeff, her in-laws and Jeff’s grandfather when her laptop buzzed. It was a Skype call from her friend Heather, a friend from Elaine’s university days.
Heather was Skyping from an airport. “Just called to say happy birthday!” Heather told Elaine. “I’ve been waiting here all by myself with nothing to do for three hours. It’s been hell.” Even on her small laptop screen, Elaine could see that Heather was dressed in business clothes with her hair swept up on top of her head and fingernails that looked freshly manicured.
The very idea of three hours with nothing to do and perfectly clean fingernails sounded more like heaven than hell to Elaine at this point.
“What’s going on behind you?” Heather asked, and Elaine looked at the view of the room behind her, as it displayed in the tiny square at the bottom of her screen. She saw a counter stacked with half-unpacked grocery bags, buns, packages of sliced ham, a knife in a mayonnaise jar, sandwich containers and a pile of apples. At floor level, four lunch coolers were lined up. Jenny had unrolled a whole roll of tinfoil and was stuffing it into the coolers, to hear the crinkly sound it made. Suddenly a Nerf bullet flew through the scene at waist height. Connor was aiming at a target on the fridge.
“Just another day in paradise,” Elaine said, trying to make it sound heartfelt instead of sarcastic.
“What are you doing?” Heather said. “Are you running a café?”
“Just making lunch,” Elaine said.
“For the entire province?”
“Jeff. His family. They’re out in the field.”
“They left you alone on your birthday?”
“Somebody’s got to look after the kids and bring all the parts home from town,” Elaine said.
“Somebody who got 87 per cent in third-year calculus?” Heather asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Very funny,” Elaine said. Then she turned away from her laptop. “Connor, stop shooting Nerf darts at your sister.”
“You know, there’s a job in our Regina office. You’d be perfect for it,” Heather said.
“Are you kidding me? I already have three jobs!”
Then Elaine’s cellphone rang. Jeff. She said goodbye to Heather and took Jeff’s call.
“Did you pick up that parcel from the bus depot?”
“Yes, of course I did,” she said, putting the just-finished sandwiches into the coolers.
“Can you bring it out with lunch?”
“Yes,” Elaine said, trying not to sound as irritated as she was getting. Some birthday.
Elaine packed the kids, the lunch coolers and the package into the SUV, then drove seven miles to the canola field. When she parked in the approach nearest the two combines, her mother-in-law and Jeff’s grandpa Ed each slowed their machines to a stop. Jeff and his father drove over in the grain trucks.
Jeff helped the kids out of their car seats, while the rest of the family made their way through the stubble to Elaine’s SUV. Donna was carrying a plastic container she’d brought down out of the cab.
“Did you remember a lighter?” Donna asked her husband Dale.
Dale pulled one out of his pocket and lit candles on a cake in Donna’s container.
Elaine gaped, shocked, while the family stood around her singing “Happy Birthday.”
“I thought you forgot!” she said when they finished.
“We wouldn’t forget your birthday,” Donna said. “Especially after you bought the icing sugar for me!”
“We know how much you do around here,” her father-in-law said. “We just want you to know how much we appreciate it.”
“We had a secret, Mommy!” Connor said.
“You sure did,” Elaine said, trying not to cry.
“Did you bring that parcel from town?” Jeff asked.
“Yes,” Elaine said.
“Well, open it up. It’s your birthday present.”
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews, a playwright and part of a family grain farm in southeastern Saskatchewan.
