Captured(23)

Carl Barrett just grunted, nodded at me, and said, “Welcome to the farm. Y’all can take the spare bedroom. Just don’t keep me awake at night.” He then brushed past us on his way to his tractor, swigging from a flask.

He died a little more than two years later, but I’d spent those two years while Tom was in Iraq getting to know Carl, learning to love him like a parent. He was gruff and taciturn, but he was always kind to me. I’d grown up on a horse ranch, so I wasn’t out of place on the farm, and Carl appreciated the help I gave him. When Carl died, I’d made all the arrangements. Tom came back for the funeral, and again between each tour for a few months at a time. Once he was back almost a year before they shipped him back to Iraq, and that was, honestly, the best year of my life. Farming with Tom, riding the north pasture with him, making love in the tall grass, our tethered horses grazing nearby. When he was gone, I learned to manage the farm by myself for the most part, with a lot of help from Hank and his bevy of grandsons.

All that time, in eight years of marriage to Tom, and the three years since, the bedroom where Tom grew up has stayed the same. Gathering dust, except when I can summon the courage to clean it. I know for a fact Derek won’t stay in there. He wouldn’t be able to set foot in that room. I barely can.

Derek has been here for a week. He’s repaired every single foot of fence, fixed the porch steps, and he’s now working on painting the barn. He works like a man possessed, up and working before dawn and staying out until past dark, sometimes working by the light of the truck’s headlights or the lantern. I usually end up bringing food out to him. He refuses to eat with Tommy and me. He avoids Tommy like the plague, actually. Won’t go near him, won’t talk to him. If Tommy’s around, Derek vanishes. I’ve stayed true to my word and haven’t asked any more questions, although they’re burning a hole inside me. There are so many things I want to know.

Today, I’m driving the tractor, towing the baler up and down the last few rows. It’s near dark, and I’m itchy with sweat, exhausted, ready to collapse. And then the tractor quits. Rumbles, slows, then dies. It’s been on its last legs for years now, and this isn’t the first time it’s quit on me. I want to scream. Cry. But I don’t.

I hop down, stomp through the lowering darkness, cursing under my breath, trying to find a center of calmness. The barn is a hulk in the darkness, the shape of a ladder visible against one side, part of one long side wall ready to be painted. I don’t see Derek on the ladder. I hear the creak of the well pump out behind the barn, assume he’s back there washing the paint off his hands. There’s a refrigerator in the workshop, and it’s got another one of my dirty little secrets in it: a secret stash of beer. I never drink at the house or around Tommy. But sometimes, after a hard day’s work, I sneak in here, sit at the workbench, and drink a cold beer. Sometimes two, before I head up to the house.

I need one today.

I pull open the fridge, grab one, and pop the top on the bottle opener mounted to the workbench. I plop down on the stool, hold the sweating bottle to my forehead for a second, then take a long swig. I don’t think twice about pulling up the hem of my T-shirt and wiping the sweat off my forehead. So, the shirt is up, my entire torso bared, when I hear a step and a creaking floorboard. I drop the hem and catch Derek’s gaze at the same time.

He was looking at me.

He backs away. “Sorry. Sorry. Thought I heard someone in here, and I came to check it out.” Scratching the back of his neck, he turns away.

“It’s okay.” It’s not. I felt his gaze on me, on my tight red sports bra, my sweat-covered stomach. I don’t know how I feel about it, how he feels about it. Or what I’m supposed to say, or do.

“Everything okay?” he asks. “You don’t usually come in here, that I’ve seen. In the last week, I mean.”

I shrug, take a drink. “The tractor broke down. I keep some emergency keep-myself-sane beer in here. I was almost done baling the hay, and now it’ll be days before Hank can fix the tractor, so…emergency beer.”

“I can take a look at it in the morning if you want.” He’s determinedly not looking at me. His gaze is on the floor, on the Little League and high school baseball trophies.

Silence.

“Want one?” I gesture with my bottle.

He hesitates. “Um…sure. I guess.”

I take one from the fridge, open it, and hand it to him. He holds it, stares at it for a long, long time.

“It’s just beer,” I say, confused by his reaction.

“Yeah, I know. But I haven’t had a drink in…a long time. Since before.”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have offered if—”

He waves. “No. Nothing like that. It’s not a problem. It’s just been a long time.” He lifts the bottle to his lips, takes a small, measured sip. The look of rapture that crosses his face is priceless. “God, that’s good. I’d forgotten how much I liked beer.”

A few minutes pass in a not-entirely-awkward silence. Derek stays in the doorway, standing.

“There’s another stool, you know,” I say. “You can sit down.”

He eyes the stool, crosses the room, pulls it out, and sits on it. It doesn’t escape my notice that he moved it so he wasn’t too close to me.

He’s not wearing a shirt. I can’t help eyeing his torso, his scars. He’s gained weight in the last week, put on some muscle, a little much-needed body fat to cover the bones. He’s not anywhere near where he used to be, but he’s not gaunt anymore. His hair has grown out, and he’s let the beginnings of a beard cover his jaw.