Written in the Scars(65)

The equipment is still running, barking and howling, a hellish sound that makes perfect sense for the setting, once we hit bottom. Reluctantly, I part my eyes and let them adjust to the absence of light.

Climbing out of the cart, I nod to the next four to leave from the first shift, my boots sinking in the mud. It squishes around my weight, sliding up the bottom of my bibs.

“Fuck,” I hiss, looking up to the Yoder, the foreman just getting off. “It’s wetter than f*ck down here.”

“Yeah,” he says, his face so black from the soot and mud that I can only see the whites of his eyes. “It’s really f*ckin’ damp. I called up a few hours ago because I’ve not seen a hole this damn wet in my whole life.”

I pick up a boot and the mud falls off in globs. “This is gonna be fun.”

“But hey,” Yoder says, smacking me on the back, “we’re back to work.”

“Yeah,” I say, letting out a half-laugh, “we’re back to f*ckin’ work.”

Yoder goes off to wait for the buggy to come back down to pick up him and the last three guys. I find the Dinner Shack—a picnic table on a sled—and lay out my report. Ignoring the shrill of the machines and the dim light and the putrid smell of coal, I study our objective.

“It’s gonna be hell,” Jiggs says, clasping my shoulder with his hand. “You ready for this, Bossman?”

I just nod. Because there’s no other way to put it: four-hundred feet below ground is a hell all of its own.





ELIN


Forty-eight.

Forty-nine.

Fifty.

I watch as each minute ticks by, the clock primed to roll over to four a.m. My lids are heavy, my eyes burn, but they refuse to close.

It’s adrenaline, I’m sure. Ty didn’t call once he left the house, although I was sure he would. He’d usually send a text from the Bath House before they went down. But tonight, he didn’t.

I went to Lindsay’s earlier in the evening and she made nachos and we ate them in the nursery while we chose a paint color. I was surprised she is going to do a nursery with the way she’s been talking about Florida. But I needed the distraction so I didn’t ask questions. Jiggs has no opinion on decoration, only that the baby has a framed photo of his baseball hero, Lincoln Landry, on the wall somewhere in the room.

We chose a really pretty dove grey and a pale yellow that will be beautiful whether it’s a boy or a girl and easily accented with blue or pink, as required.

“I love this,” I say, holding the winning color sample against the wall. “It’s going to be perfect.”

“I love it too.” She brushes a strand of hair off her shoulder. “I know I’ve been a little crazy about moving and stuff.”

“Yeah, you have. Why, Linds?”

She shrugs, her lips dipping. “I just want what’s best for this baby. I don’t want to leave you . . .” Tears well in her eyes. “I don’t want to leave Blown or Ty or Cord. But I’m afraid we’ll stay here and not be able to put food on the table and we can’t afford to take risks like that. Not anymore.”

“Will you just think about it? For my brother?”

She smiles through the tears glittering down her cheeks. “I will. I just feel like this is what I have to do. You understand, don’t you?”

I smile back, but don’t answer because even though I get it, I don’t.

A smile touches my lips as I think of how Lindsay’s belly is beginning to round. She’s slathering on cocoa butter and praying for no stretch marks and I just laughed. But, in reality, I’d give anything for them.

I think to how Ty and I might’ve done our nursey and how big my belly would’ve been. I wonder what names we’d choose and if Ty would’ve rubbed my feet every night the way Jiggs does Lindsay’s, even when they’re fighting.

“Maybe someday,” I whisper, rolling onto my side and closing my eyes.





TY


“You don’t know half the shit you think you know,” I laugh, tipping my beer at Jiggs.

“Well, that’s half again more than you, f*cker,” he jokes.

Cord shakes his head. “If either of you two knew anything, that truck would be fixed. How long y’all been working on it?”

“Too damn long,” Jiggs groans.

Cord and Jiggs get into the details of the truck in the barn out back. I bow out of the conversation and settle into the recliner in the middle of Jiggs’ living room.

Elin and Lindsay sit in the kitchen, hovered over a computer screen. A pile of brownies sit in front of them, the whole house smelling like baked goods.

This is how it should be. My friends giving each other shit about life, a game on the television, and my wife sitting at the table with her best friend, talking babies while she wears my shirt and her hair is still ruffled from the quick make-out session we had in the garage. Every once in a while she looks over her shoulder at me and catches me staring at her. We share a smile, one of those that half promises something more later, because f*ck if she’s not the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen and half makes me feel like a teenager scoping out my crush.

Taking a sip of my beer, I hear my name spoken beside me and I glance over at Jiggs.

“Did ya hear any of that?” he asks me.