Modern Life in an Old Farmhouse

by Charles C. Cole

Robby Lowell was on his own, again. He’d been working weekends and evenings since 7th grade, more interested in affording his college ambitions than socializing, even in high school. He had been accepted to a southern Maine university for a Computer Science degree. And his working-class parents had made it clear — not that it was a surprise — all expenses were his alone.

So, he’d decided it would be cheaper and easier to focus by living off-campus. He found an affordable rental on a bulletin board in a coffee shop: a 200-year old, rundown farmhouse. There was no furniture, unfinished remodeling in the only working bathroom, and an unmistakable creepiness near the door that led to the packed-earth basement, the basement where a previous owner had lain in state one harsh winter.

Why the mess? An elderly relative had died, and the two inheritors with homes of their own were in no hurry or couldn’t make up their minds on the best future: whether to restore a family legacy or replace it with a modern home and sell.

One night, Robby, laptop at the ready, was sitting on a wooden stool at the kitchen counter, the only table-like surface, reading his Intro to Statistics homework. Around the counter and eight feet to his right was the basement door, warped with scratched green paint, always ajar and no way to latch it shut.

Robby’s phone, in his shirt pocket, chimed as it received a text: “Landlord here. Did we tell you to avoid the basement?”

“No, but no problem.”

“You might want to find something from the barn to hold the door shut. Very drafty.”

“Gotcha.”

Just then, the door opened wide with a long creak, gently hitting the wall.

“Drafty indeed,” echoed Robby.

The next afternoon, when he returned from school, Robby walked around the front yard until he found a 6-pound rock big enough to hold the door closed. As he stepped onto the back porch to enter the kitchen, a rusty red pickup pulled up to the house.

A well-kempt woman of about fifty — hair swept up and a simple pearl necklace and cream-colored cardigan — stepped down. “You must be the new tenant,” she said. “I’m Bethany, your landlord’s wife. Surprise.”

“Hi.”

“What’s the rock for? The basement door?” she asked.

Robby nodded, self-conscious. He set the rock down on the porch.

“You won’t need it. And it wouldn’t work anyway. Trust me, that door will never stay closed. Tell me something: are you a cat person or a dog person?”

“Cat,” said Robby without hesitation.

“Perfect. You’ll fit right in.” Bethany looked up at the house and then over at the barn. “The old farm definitely has a quirky personality. It’s a nice place for the money, though. Right?”

Robby nodded.

“You seem like a nice kid, Robby. My husband’s a gentle soul, but he has zero patience for cats, always been a dog person. Dogs do what you want. Cats do what they want.”

Robby squinted, looking for the obscured point of the conversation.

“The place is haunted. We don’t advertise that. You’d figure it out eventually. My husband’s great-uncle buried his cats in the basement. He didn’t torture or kill them; he adored cats, and that was his way of keeping them close. I guess, in return, they kept him company, even after death. They had the run of the house.”

“It’s haunted?” Robby asked.

“By cats. You might see them out of the corner of your eye sometime. They’re on your side. They’ll keep the squirrels and mice away. At our place, we have to deal with raccoons and crows and a Norway rat, like we’re always under assault. Not here.”

“Not an updraft from the basement?”

“My husband didn’t want to scare you. I promise they won’t pounce on you or trip you or yowl at you. We’ve spent many nights here and lived to tell the tale. But, one thing, if you have a really hard day and go to bed sad, you might feel the reassuring weight of one or two beside you, standing guard while you sleep. Feel free to text me.” She shared her number.

Bethany threw some cut firewood stacked beside the barn into the back of the truck. Robby helped, unasked. After Bethany left, Robby went back inside, leaving the crude doorstop on the porch. He kept the basement door open, and the creepy feeling went away.

One day on “the beach,” a gathering area outside the school cafeteria, Robby sat on one end of a comfortable orange couch — “So this is what furniture is like!” — and stared at the C-minus he’d just received for a Statistics exam. Two young ladies with matching purple “helmet” hair, each busy texting on their phones, approached.

“Look out for the stairs,” called Robby. Both girls stopped and looked up and smiled. “The boy in the front row in Statistics?” asked one.

“That’s me,” said Robby.

“That exam was a killer. I’m probably going to drop. I bet you aced it.”

“Not quite,” he said.

“I thought intro classes were supposed to be easy. Doesn’t matter: my parents say if it takes me five or six years, it will be time well spent.”

“If you don’t drop and you need a study partner, I’m available,” Robby offered.

“I have a boyfriend, but thank you,” she said.

Robby walked into the empty farmhouse with the weight of the world on his shoulders. School was hard. Starting a relationship was hard. At his bedroom, he dropped to the floor to re-inflate his air mattress with a foot pump. He drank half a six-pack of beer and listened to the rain hitting the roof. Just as he was nodding off, he felt a small weight against his back. He even thought he could hear purring, but he discounted that as wishful thinking. Still, he felt he wasn’t completely alone, and that was definitely a good thing.