The Milk Upstream — Hannah’s Diary

My hands were shaking worse than usual the day Todd Schultz first noticed me. Not from nerves, but from the milk. Twenty years of living downstream could do that to anyone.

It all started when I was refilling the punch bowl at the Elkhart Lake community center's monthly dance night when he lumbered over. “I’m Todd. I’ve heard about you.”

“What have you heard?”

“That you're from downstream,” he said. “And that downstream girls know how to keep a man happy. That true?”

I smiled the way that mom taught me, small and grateful. “I guess that depends on the man.”

He laughed too loud then bought me a beer. Later that night, when he drove me home, he tried to kiss me before I’d even said yes. When I pulled back, he shrugged. “I figured you’d be eager.”

His hand stayed heavy on my waist. I let it linger long enough to let him know he had a chance, if he played his cards right, before I slipped away.

The next morning, I dropped by his house to “thank him for the ride,” and drank the glass of milk his mother offered. Drinking the gloriously pure milk, unpasteurized with a layer of cream on top, my hands felt steady for the first time in ages.

Down at our place, Rayburn Rare Earth Processing sat right above us around a bend in the river. Whatever they leached into the water had been leaching into our cows ever since the government declared Rayburn a "vital national asset" at the beginning of the Iran war.

We called it “the curse”. Mom’s fingers trembled when she knit. Dad’s teeth had fell out one by one. But even mentioning the pollution was a crime under some federal statute. It also wasn’t polite to be asking questions about food safety twenty years into the Iran War when the price of ground beef was $100 a pound and farmers like us had plenty to eat.

But upstream farmers like the Schultzes had amazing clean water springing right off Wisconsin’s kettle moraine.

Downstream, no one could sell their land, and nobody even tried anymore.

Todd was rude more often than not. When I took him with me to our usual Sheepshead game at the Johnsons, he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Better not spill anything on the card table with your family’s shaky hands.”

Big Mike chuckled nervously. I laughed along and wiped a spill that wasn’t even there.

Later that night, parked behind the barn, he got handsy again and when I asked him to slow down he muttered, “Jesus, Hannah, I’m doing you a favor. Most upstream boys wouldn’t touch a downstream girl with a ten-foot pole.” So I let him touch what he wanted. The milk at breakfast the next day tasted like absolution.

It was like heaven came down to earth. His family’s milk didn’t taste like metal. Their cheese didn’t make your stomach cramp halfway through the meal. All that comfort at the Schultz’s, and it just made Todd repulsive, with a belly soft as a feed sack, sweat stains under his arms, and breath that smelled like a day-old beer can. But his mother poured real cream into her coffee without thinking twice.

Sometimes, Todd revealed a different side. After I twisted my ankle chasing a loose calf, he showed up at our place with a bag of ice from his family’s freezer. “Figured you could use this,” he said, almost shy. He sat on our porch steps and didn’t paw me once. We just talked about the war, and how it had been going on so long nobody remembered why it started. How the internet had been turned off and the three TV channels were repeating the same cheesy USDA ad with an ancient Timothee Chalamet telling the country to drink Wisconsin milk. We laughed at how downstream milk was being mixed in and the whole country didn’t even know (I had already started seeing myself as upstream). For a few days, Todd seemed almost kind. I told myself this was the version of Todd I was marrying.

Three months later, we stood in the same community center, and I heard myself say “I do” while my mother cried. The wedding cake was made with thick, sweet whipping cream.

The first week of marriage, he was the Todd I dated. Rough around the edges, but tolerable. Slowly things began to change. A dark side appeared. Mornings he’d slam the screen door and bark, “Where’s my coffee, Hannah? Make it right this time.” When I burned the toast once, he threw the plate across the kitchen. “Pick that up,” he said, already stomping out. At night, he climbed on top of me without asking, then rolled over and snored while I stared at the ceiling and reminded myself the milk in the fridge was worth it. My hands hadn’t trembled in months.

One Thursday night at his Poker game, he lost a hundred and fifty dollars and took it out on me the whole drive home. “You probably gave me bad luck. Everything from downstream is cursed.” I kept my eyes on the dark road and said nothing.

I thought I’d done what I needed to. I kept the house clean, cooked the meals, let him on top of me twice a week, like it was payment for the milk. That the trade was fair. It no longer seemed worth it.

Looking for a shoulder to cry on, I went home to visit my parents for the first time since the wedding.

Mom hugged me tight and stared into my eyes as if she knew what I was going through. Filling her in on my burdens would just add more to the ones she was already carrying, so I said everything was fine upstream. When I was leaving, she slipped a brick of cheddar cheese wrapped in wax paper into my purse. “For your husband,” she whispered. “So he knows you haven’t forgotten where you’re from.” The cheese was the color of ivory, with the faint tang I used to think was normal. I almost threw it out on the drive back. Almost.

Instead, I crumbled it into Todd’s scrambled eggs the next morning.

He shoveled it in, chewing with delight. “Damn, Hannah. This is good. Tastes like… I don’t know. Real.” He wiped his chin with the back of his hand and grinned at me with the same grin he gave when he told me downstream girls knew how to keep a man happy. “You’re a good wife, you know that? Most girls would’ve turned mean by now.”

I smiled the same tight smile my mom taught me. “Just trying to keep you happy, Todd.”

After that, I started finding reasons to visit home every few weeks. Mom always had something for me: curds, a wedge of cheddar, a whole wheel of Colby. Being fourth-generation dairy farmers, their bounty was always overflowing.

I told Todd my new recipes were from “the women’s magazines”. The Internet had been turned off now forever, so he didn’t have any way to check. I spent more time alone in the kitchen, slicing the cheese thin enough to hide in his sandwiches.

He started asking for more. “Make me one of those special grilled cheeses, baby.” He’d eat three at a sitting, grease shining on his lips, and then pull me onto his lap afterward, even though I hated the way his sweaty belly felt against me. “You put up with a lot from me,” he’d say, breath already heavy with beer by lunch time. “Most wives would’ve left, but you’re loyal. I’m happy I married you, baby.”

I watched the tremors start in his fingers around the third month. Just a flicker when he picked up his coffee mug. He didn’t notice. He told his buddies at the VFW that his wife cooked better than any upstream girl he knew. I’d even take a bite of his sandwich when he offered them back to me. It was worth it.

Last Thursday we played Sheepshead at the Johnsons’ like usual. Todd’s hands shook as he dealt the cards. He laughed it off and blamed the beer. Under the table, I held his trembling palm with my steady hand. He squeezed back.

Later, in bed, he whispered against my neck, “I don’t deserve you, Hannah. You’re the best wife in Elkhart Lake.”

After he fell asleep, I lay in the dark and listened for hours to the cows, up here, where the water ran clean.