Their Memory

For twins, they couldn’t be more different. Sam and Hugh waded through the tall grass; Sam with the ease of an athlete, Hugh with the difficulty of an arthritic old man. Their wavy auburn hair, bold freckles, and blue eyes were the limit of their resemblance.

Sam halted a few metres from the derelict 1970’s two-tone van parked beside the deserted back shed of their grandfather’s former farmhouse. “What made you think this wreck was going to be driveable?”

Hugh leaned into the breeze. “Mom said I should take it. I just drove it a few years ago.”

Sam surveyed the panoramic view of the unremarkable fields of green hay and browning barley, interrupted with an occasional sturdy tree or shrub. From this point they could just barely make out a sliver of Lake Huron over the brow of the next hill. 

Sam observed his only sibling, noting the scruffy two-day growth around his double chin, his rheumy squint against the light of a dull day. Hugh doesn’t smell like booze. I wonder if he really has stopped drinking like Mom thinks. “Drove it a few years ago, like maybe twenty?” He tried to sound disgusted, but there was always that shimmering of affection for his twin he couldn’t shake. “Well, I suppose we’re this far we might as well investigate it–and the shed.”

Hugh smiled. “I’m sure it’s worth trying to get it to go.” He started forward, encouraged.

Sam shook his head. At the very least the front windshield would have to be replaced. He followed the beaten path his brother made through the grass, past the old shed, a ghost space of many strappings by grandpa. Boy, were we trouble makers. No wonder Gramps got so angry with us. He went over to the backdoor of the shed to try the latch, but rust had jammed it shut. 

“Remember how mad Gramps used to get in the summers we came to help? The strappings we had in here.” He almost chuckled recalling his grandfather thwacking them across the backside, not always ineffectively. Even when they were sixteen. He turned to find Hugh staring at him.

“I don’t recall any strappings from Gramps. I ‘member he had trouble eating his soup ‘cause of his shaking. Mom’s the one who got cross. Remember the time I swore and she smacked me across the mouth with a wet dishcloth?”

Sam frowned. “No, she didn’t.”

“You were right there, laughing at me.”

“No, I wasn’t. I’d remember something like that.” Hugh’s memory is slipping. “You do remember leaving me to bleed to death when I cut my foot on some glass at the lake.”

Hugh tapped the hood of the van. “Solid.” He ran his hand under the edge, feeling for the release latch. “Mom found you on the beach, crying like a baby. I wasn’t with you. You were with that Timmy Dodds. He must have left ya.”

Sam thought back to his childhood friend. He had been with Timmy? “No, we three were together. You both left.” He pictured it through his eight-year-old eyes.

“Naw, didn’t happen that way.” He popped the hood open a crack as it grated on corroded hinges. “Here we go. Help me lift this Sam. I want to check the motor.”

Hugh moved to the side and Sam stepped over to help. Even their combined strength was tested as it groaned to half open. The black hole yawned empty.

Sam laughed in relief. “There’s no motor.”

Hugh stood motionless, in shock. His mouth gaped. “I swear, I drove this thing not that long ago.” He swung his head in all directions, as if searching for the culprit who had removed the motor.

Sam walked around to the far side and peered into the side window. “Remember the time we camped, all four of us in here. Dad was alive then, and you and I thought it would great to sleep in the reclining bucket seats.”

“That I remember. It was really awkward trying to sleep without my rear beeping the horn.” 
Hugh shook his head. “Who could have taken the motor?”

“It was me who had to sleep in the driver’s seat.”

Hugh poked his head around the hood. “It was me, I’m sure.”

Sam stared and shrugged. What did it matter anyway? It had been darned uncomfortable and he hadn’t slept a wink. “Do you have a cigarette with you?” Sam couldn’t read the look on Hugh’s face. “What? Are you out?”

Hugh frowned. “You haven’t smoked since you were in hospital–decades ago.”

Sam studied his right hand fingers. No nicotine stains. What prompted the urge to smoke? He glanced over at the shed. One of the reasons he had been strapped. Grandpa never allowed smoking anywhere on the farm and he’d been caught more than once. Grandma died in a barn fire before we were born. “Right. The barn fire.”

The hood screeched as Hugh fought to close it. “What barn fire?”

Sam stepped closer to his brother. All the family knew about Grandma trying to save the horse and getting caught inside the blazing barn. “Are you telling me you don’t remember hearing about the fire that killed Grandma?” He planted fists on his denim-clad hips.

Hugh faced his brother and squinted. “Let’s go over and look at the barn. The motor might be in there.” He hobbled up the gentle slope toward the building. Sam followed, his right hand digits twitching fiercely. 

Hugh stopped outside the barn and flung his hand at the decaying structure. “More than a hundred and twenty years old.” He looked at Sam. “There was no barn fire here. You’re losing it, man.”

They cracked open the ancient doors and Hugh hooted to see the mound under a dusty tarp. “It’s here. I can drag the body inside and use those beams to hoist the motor up. Up and in. Slick.”

Sam sniffed. Why could he smell smoke? “I swear there was a barn fire.”
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