fiction piece: when the cows come home
a short story from 2021 about grief, nostalgia, and most importantly, cows :)
hello everyone!
seeing as this is a newsletter about my journey writing a book, i thought it made sense to actually start to share some of my fiction writing! this is a story i wrote for a creative writing class early in 2021. i cycled through a lot of ideas before i ended up on this story—originally, it was going to be about an old farmer who thought aliens were speaking to him through music and the stars. it ended up being a piece about a father and a daughter spending an evening together, sitting in grief, and allowing nostalgia.
i sincerely hope you all enjoy when the cows come home.
The sky was purple when John woke up. He stretched where he lay, reached over to turn off the insistent alarm clock, and then slowly got himself out of bed, the blankets only rumpled on the left side. His eyes were bleary with sleep and he blinked a few times to clear his vision before locating his wire-framed glasses on the nightstand and balancing them on the edge of his nose.
As always, he did his best to get ready quickly, but the sky was slashed through with pink and golden hues by the time he threw on his big denim jacket and tied up the laces on his boots. The wood floorboards creaked underneath him as he walked down the hallway, past old wedding portraits and baby photos, dusty curtains, and a faded guitar, headed outside.
The grass was dewy out in the fields, and the mist of the early morning still clung close to the surrounding grounds, creating an atmosphere that would have been almost eerie if John hadn’t seen it nearly every day. He walked to the edge of the first field, pushed open the metal gate, and then winced as it complained loudly. He’d have to oil that later, he thought to himself, maybe check for rust.
As he passed over the cattle guard, he heard the gentle plodding of lazy hooves on soft grass, and looked up to see Daisy being the first to approach him, big brown eyes calm as they always were.
“Hey, girl,” John said, and Daisy blinked at him, her ears twitching to bat away a fly. John decided to take that as a greeting as he pressed forward. The other cows saw him coming, and most stayed where they were. He’d had them long enough now that they knew the morning routine never changed, and so when he needed them for milking, they would come, trodding slowly and carelessly over to the barn where the buckets were waiting. Still, John made sure to say good morning to each of the cows as he passed them on his way to the barn. Rosie with the big patch of brown right in between her eyes that people always said looked like a third eye. Molly and Georgie, standing side by side as always, slowly chewing grass. Jenny, the only cow with black-and-white spots instead of the maroon-brown the rest of them wore. Sophie, who was choosing to lay down in the grass instead of stand and wander. One by one, he brought them into the barn to be milked.
Lunchtime came and went while John was outside working. Refilling the troughs so the cows could eat and drink, pitching out their stalls, lugging the milk pails to where they needed to be, oiling rusty bits. Inside the house, the phone rang, an old-fashioned thing still connected to its receiver by a curly wire, and no one heard it.
It was mid-afternoon by the time John was able to take a break. He washed his hands thoroughly, made himself a sandwich, and went out to the front porch, to eat in silence and watch as the bright sun slowly descended behind the treeline.
The quiet only lasted a few moments. Halfway through his sandwich, John heard the sound of a distant engine rumbling closer, and by the time he’d finished eating, a slightly mud-splattered pickup truck had rolled up to his driveway and parked, and his daughter hopped out and waved.
“Hey, Dad,” Sasha called, before half-jogging up to the front porch. The breeze rustled her sandy-blonde hair, which John could swear was cut shorter than the last time he saw her. He remembered when his hair was that same shade, before it faded the pale grey it was today.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said. Sasha smiled at the name, and sat down next to him.
“I called before,” Sasha started, without any other preamble. “You must’ve been working with the cows.”
“Yeah, I was out there with ‘em all morning, sorry.”
“Right. Y’know, you should come ‘round for dinner sometime,” Sasha suggested, and John hummed vaguely. “That’s why I called. Keisha’s been testing out some new recipes, and I think you actually might like her latest casserole.”
“Well, I do enjoy your wife’s cooking,” John said. “Still, I—running this all by myself can keep me pretty busy, so I’ll have to see what I can do. There’s a traveling farmer’s market coming through next week, so maybe after—”
“I’ve told you I would come help,” Sasha reminded him, cutting through his words. “I mean, I grew up milking these cows.”
“And I’ve told you, I’m not pulling you away from your life just so you can help your old dad and the old family farm. I’m managing just fine.”
“Are you?” Sasha asked, and John didn’t respond, so she pressed forward. “Look, I know it’s been rough without Papa. You’re allowed to ask for help. You’re allowed to ask me for help.”
“I know, Sash,” John muttered. He ran a wrinkled hand down his face. “I am doing alright, just—still just adjusting to it. I’ll come by for dinner soon, I promise.”
“Alright,” Sasha said. She leaned back. “How are the cows, by the way?”
“Heh. Same as always. Molly and Georgie are inseparable, Sophie’s lazy, and Daisy’ll eat as much food as you’ll give her.”
Sasha snorted. “Sounds about right.”
John smiled and stretched in his seat. “Look, I have a few more things to attend to in the barn, but if you don’t got any plans tonight, you should stay for dinner, see if your wife wants to come as well. Marjorie from down the street gave me a few jars of her homemade soup yesterday, and I figured I’d have those tonight.”
“Did you get to talk to and catch up with Marjorie from down the street, or did she just drop them off at your front door?” Sasha asked, and John frowned.
“I’m gonna go grab my boots, and then we can head to the barn, okay?” He stood up and turned to go inside.
“That’s not an answer!” Sasha called after him.
It was nice to have Sasha visiting, John thought. It was good that she hadn’t moved too far away to begin with, and it was especially good now that he was on his own. Good to hear another voice in their creaky old house that wasn’t his own. All the same, though, she had her own life to lead, even if the cows did really like her.
They were both in the barn by then, and John was refilling water troughs while Sasha gently petted the soft nose of Sophie, the smallest of the herd and the biggest admirer of Sasha. As Sophie mooed happily, a muffled ding! came from Sasha’s pocket, and she dug out her phone, the screen shining bright in the dim light of the barn.
“Keisha can’t make it tonight,” Sasha said, turning to John. “I forgot, she’s meeting a friend from college for dinner at some fancy restaurant.”
“Just the two of us, then,” John said, and Sasha nodded, turning her attention back to Sophie, who was eager for more pets.
Dinner was rather quiet. The homemade soup delivered by Marjorie from down the street was quite good as always, and John mostly listened while Sasha rattled on about the latest dramas and dilemmas at her job, in her town, and so on. Still, as much as she may have complained about the one annoying guy from the accounting department or the fact that the town council had yet to fill in the pothole that was directly in front of her driveway, John couldn’t help but note that she seemed happy. She was complaining, sure, but it was more of a companionable commiseration, boring and everyday adult problems that John would just as easily be able to relate to. Sometimes he forgot just how grown up she was now.
By the time they’d finished dinner, night was falling, but despite the changing of the seasons into an early autumn, it wasn’t too cold out yet, so John laced his boots back up and Sasha slipped into her sneakers to return to the fields.
“Looks like a pretty clear night,” John said, peering out a nearby window. “We could do some stargazing like we used to, if you want.”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Sasha said. She turned and John saw as her eyes snagged on something by the door. “Um, would you—d’you want to bring out his—?” and she pointed at the guitar leaning against the wall.
“Papa’s guitar?” John asked, and he leaned forward to pick it up gingerly. “If you want to, yeah, we can bring it out.” He tried to offer it to Sasha, but she shook her head.
“You were always better at playing it than I was,” she said hastily.
So they trudged outside, John holding onto the old guitar, and Sasha carefully watching her step to avoid any muddy areas. When they both settled on an appropriately dry section of grass, Sasha laid out a thin blanket, and they both sat down, propped up on their elbows to gaze upwards. It really was a gorgeous night, John thought, and then he thought of someone else who would have loved it as well, and something in his chest ached. Above them, the sky had appropriately deepened to a rich violet, and the stars twinkled in clusters of bright pinpricks above them. If John squinted, he could even catch the faintest glimmer of celestial clouds weaving their way in between the constellations, the Milky Way doing its best to make its presence known.
Off to the other side of the field, the cows grazed, unaware of the view above.
“Remember any of the constellations Papa taught you?” John eventually asked, after the two of them had spent long enough quietly drinking in the sight of the heavens. Sasha gave a soft chuckle.
“Right there’s the Big Dipper,” she said, pointing to the very recognizable scattering of stars lingering above the horizon. “Over there, to the left-ish, is Hercules. And over to the other side is, uh… the Little Dipper.”
John laughed quietly. “Not bad,” he said. “Up above Hercules is Lyra, and to the right of the Little Dipper is actually the queen Cassiopeia, and then, if you look all the way back—” he demonstrated, tilting his head back at a rather precarious angle— “is Cygnus the Swan, flying right above them.”
Sasha copied her dad and tilted her head back, humming appreciatively. “Been awhile since I’ve gotten to see these,” she mused. “Lot more light pollution where me and Keisha are living, now.”
“I can imagine,” John said, and shifted slightly on the blanket before something else caught his eye. “Oh, alright, now, if you look just up there, past the treeline—that’s an alien, I’m thinking.”
Sasha followed his pointing finger and laughed, eyes following the small blue dot crossing the sky. “Pretty sure that one’s a plane, Dad,” she said, “but maybe a drone, if you’re lucky.”
“Definitely not a plane,” John decided, pretending he was fully aware of what a drone even was, and Sasha snickered.
“If it’s really an alien, why don’t you play her something on the guitar?” Sasha turned to glance over at John, a familiar teasing glint in her eye. “Just like how Papa used to play for those stray cats—see if we can’t get her to come down and say hello.”
“Oh, I will,” John said, and sat up, pulling the guitar into his lap. He took a moment to fiddle with the tuning keys and the strings, getting them all in order, and then played an experimental chord. It sounded melodic enough, so he switched over into some simple finger-picking, a quick four-string tune that was easy and repetitive enough to play mindlessly as he got into the rhythm of it. The music played out sweetly over the fields, the tune just a touch louder than the hum of the insects and lowing of the cows around them.
“Do you think it’s working?” John whispered conspiratorially, after a few moments of quiet playing had passed, and the little blue light continued on its path along the horizon.
“No,” Sasha whispered back in the exact same tone, and then let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like trying to keep a laugh in. It didn’t last long, though, as soon she was shaking with barely-controlled giggles, and John couldn’t help but see the outline of a very familiar little girl in her place.
“I think it’s working great,” John said, just as the little blue dot disappeared behind the trees, and then he was laughing, too, the music stopping somewhat abruptly as he released the guitar strings. Beside him, Sasha flopped back onto the blanket.
“I have really missed this,” she murmured, half to herself, as their laughter died down.
John turned to fully look at her, an eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”
Sasha nodded, her gaze on the sky. “Everything is just… a lot more peaceful out here, I think. Don’t always realize how crazy everything else is, sometimes. You can really just breathe out here, I think. It’s… it’s nice.”
“Sash, everything… everything is okay, yeah?” John put down the guitar. “With the job, and-”
“Yeah, no, it-” Sasha sat back up. “It is, I promise. The job is fine, and Keisha is—great, it’s just… I’ve been realizing more and more that I do actually miss this, you know?” Sasha twisted a clump of grass between her fingers, pulled at it hesitantly. “I just remember how excited I was to get out of here when I was a kid, how much more I was ready to experience, and I have done that, but ever since Papa… I don’t know. I think about this a lot more, I guess. How much of this I didn’t appreciate when I was younger. How carefree I was able to be, just—just me and my dads.”
“You’re always welcome here,” John said. “You know that.”
Sasha gave a small smile. “I know. And you know that you can always ask me to drop by to help if you need it. ‘Cause it’s not just I’m worried about you, although, don’t get it twisted, I am, sometimes. This is a lot of work for just you. But you don’t need to worry about pulling me away from my ‘real life,’ or whatever, ‘cause I do have the time, and ‘cause I think it’s good for me to come back here, sometimes. I miss it, and—” she took a deep breath— “I miss him. I feel him here, more than anywhere else.”
Sasha was right about that, John was sure. He felt him everywhere here, too, but more specifically, felt the carved-out space his husband had left behind; in their now half-empty bed, in the once-lively, now quiet kitchen, in the way the cows would often look past him, as though expecting someone else to walk out behind him. John felt him when his hands grew cold while he was out working early, and there was no one to grab them and rub warmth back into his fingers with a small grin. But he also felt him when he caught a particularly beautiful sunrise, or when a stray cat would purr after John fed it some scraps, or when Sasha would snort in laughter just like he used to.
John twisted the simple gold ring on his left hand, and sighed. “I really miss him, too.”
“And I don’t—” Sasha shook her head. “I spent a lot of time away from here as soon as I could, and I don’t think I want to do that anymore.”
“Alright,” John said, his voice carefully soft. “Alright.”
Sasha gave a quick nod, and looked back up at the horizon, still missing the little blue light. “He’d hate us trying to lure aliens down here with his guitar, though,” she commented off-hand.
John ran a hand down his face, a half-swallowed chuckle rising in his throat. “God, he would.”
“He’d probably start going off on the statistics of aliens even existing, let alone appearing above our old barn.” Sasha grinned. “Tell us we have no sense at all.”
“He would,” John repeated, then passed the guitar off to Sasha. “C’mon. Your turn.”
Sasha rolled her eyes, but accepted the guitar, hands shakily landing over taut strings. “Doubt I’ll have much more luck than you,” she said, but she began playing right away, falling right into the old lullaby John used to hear drifting from her childhood bedroom years and years ago, when it was her papa’s turn to tuck her into bed. Something tight clutched near his heart, and he turned his gaze up, choosing to look back at the stars, seeing what else the sky had to offer.
He didn’t see any shooting stars, or aliens, or any other sort of special sign from above, any sign that someone was listening in or watching over them. He didn’t really see anything out of the ordinary at all. But that was alright. He had Sasha, and their music, and the cows, and the view, and right then, he didn’t need anything else.
hi again. i hope you all liked this story!! as a thank-you for getting this far, a picture of the cows who live behind my house & inspired this story:
i had a lot of fun writing this story a few years ago! the original draft i presented to my class was similar, but with a few key differences—mainly that i purposefully was much more vague about who ‘papa’ was to john and sasha. i’d left a few key hints in there: a half-empty bed, wedding portraits in the hall, john’s gold ring, and most noticeably, never mentioning sasha’s mom. that being said, the majority of my creative writing class assumed that ‘papa’ was not john’s husband, but rather his father, and sasha’s grandfather. only one other student in the class actually picked up on my hints, and asked about it at the end of the critiquing section—which was very fun, as after sitting through comments and critiques mentioning sasha’s grandpa, i finally got to have my big reveal and say ‘actually! yes. that was her dad.’ so, for my final draft, i made it very clear who ‘papa’ was—a father to sasha, and a husband to john.
this story is, at this point, more than three years old, which i find hard to believe sometimes. i am very proud of this story, but can also recognize that my writing style and skills have evolved and are different today. however, i held back the urge to edit this story before sending it, and am presenting it in its unaltered, february 2021 version.
if you have any thoughts or comments, please let me know! it’s a little scary putting original fiction out like this, outside of a classroom setting, but i’m determined to try it out, seeing as it is my goal to one day be a fully published author.
thank you so much for reading. i’ll see you soon!
becca 🐄
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