Universal Harvester

by John Darnielle

“How can you stand it!” she said. “Put yourself in her shoes,” Jeremy said evenly, and it felt like a knife pushing through his chest from the inside, because he knew Stephanie would not be able to understand—Stephanie, whose mother and father lived together in a house less than a mile from the apartment she rented, whose parents would grow old together and someday be buried next to each other in a plot in the Nevada City Cemetery, their children and grandchildren gathering to honor two lives well lived.

“OK.” A silence. Lisa looks at the lens, waiting. “OK, then. Why do you make these movies?” Over the years, she has taken great pains to hide the face of the child she once was. She does it by trying to feel older than she is. She began this practice when she was young; it made her feel better the first time she tried, so she kept at it. Over time it has been a great comfort, this discipline of imagining herself alive and intact, safe on the other side of years she might otherwise have had to live through, uncertain of where they would lead. The camera catches her out now; there’s a part of her that never left Crescent, that still waits there for someone. “For my mom,” she says.

“You shut up,” said his sister. “That stuff was fucked up. She hit that boy hard enough to leave a bruise on his face. You could see his cheek turning red.” Her voice caught in her throat when she described it; she hadn’t been able to look away. Ed felt so proud of his daughter; someday she’d stop seeking the high ground all the time, and she’d be happier for it, but it would mean that the child he’d known so long ago was finally gone forever. It gave him such joy to see her putting that moment off for as long as she could.