Captured(31)

So, yeah, I don’t do sit-down dinners. I sometimes sit in the open door of the haymow, feet dangling out over space. I can just barely see through the front window straight through to the kitchen table. Reagan sits on the left side of the table, Tommy beside her closest to the den. Ida beside him, and Hank opposite Reagan. They’re not blood relations, but they’re a family. Ida spends her day here, watching Tommy while Reagan works. Hank’s farm is a good bit smaller and more manageable, so he gets his chores done and then helps Reagan, although since I’ve been here, we haven’t needed his help as much. I’ve actually ended up at his place a few times, helping him. We don’t talk much, Hank and I. Don’t need to. He’s an old soldier; he gets it.

Although, one evening Hank and I are spreading hay in his barn, and he rests on his pitchfork, glances at me. “You got a plan, Derek?”

I hate that question. I ask it of myself every day. I shrug. “Not really.”

“Probably will need one, eventually.” He nods his head in the direction of Reagan’s farm. “That situation yonder. Ain’t gonna last forever.”

I nod. “I know.”

“Reagan is a strong woman, but she’s been through a lot.” He goes back to pitching hay. “She ain’t got much more she can give.”

I blow out a breath. “I hear you, Hank.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nods. “Just so we understand each other.”

He wasn’t warning me off. There’s nothing to warn against. I’m just helping out until I sort my shit out. But I do need a plan. Somewhere to go. Something to do. It’s obvious I can’t stay here forever. It’s not my place. Not my family.

But….

I don’t want to go.

I like it here.

I wave off Hank’s offer of a ride back to the barn, choosing to walk through the gray-blue of twilight. In this part of Texas, half a mile away is considered a close neighbor, so it’s a decent walk, but a peaceful one. Crickets sing, swallows dart, and bats swoop. An owl hoots somewhere. Churned soil and bits of root and stalk from the hay harvest are underfoot. The soil gives off a pungent smell, still warm from the day’s heat. I walk and watch the stars prick the sky, twinkling to life one by one, until suddenly there’s a hundred and then a thousand and then too many millions to count.

The stars were one thing I could count on when I was a prisoner. Afghanistan is a wild, rugged, rough, unforgiving land. Huge skies, vast lifeless plains, high bare mountains, and sharp rock peaks. The stars are bright and numberless. If I could see them, they gave me hope. Cracks in the door, high windows, distantly seen from deep within a cave. I would try not to breathe too loudly and watch the stars come out, watch them brighten and move and fade.

Now the Texas stars are something I can latch onto, some kind of continuity in my life. There were bright stars growing up in Des Moines. Impossible millions in the desert of Iraq. Countless billions in Afghanistan. Now here are those same stars, equally bright and innumerable. Something to anchor me while I struggle to find my way in this confusing post-war, post-captivity life.

Watching the stars instead of where I’m going, I end up off-track. Instead of the barn, I find myself angling past the house, walking behind it. The grass is a dark swath before me, separated from the harvested fields by a fence, which I duck under. There’s a pond back here somewhere. There, behind the trees. Oak, cottonwood, a few willows. A short dock, just barely visible through the branches of the trees, is barely a ten-foot length of aged wood. I can see it from my vantage point on this side of the pond.

I duck beneath a low-hanging oak branch and push through the still strands of a willow. I strip my boots and socks off, roll my pant legs up and sit, dangling my feet in the lukewarm water. I watch the waxing half moon reflect on the gently rippling water, soaking in the silence and the peace.

I close my eyes and drowse, for how long I don’t know.

My senses prickle, and I open my eyes. Reagan stands on the dock, limned in silver starlight. I’m obscured by the willow strands, and I watch as Reagan sits on the dock, slips off her shoes and socks. The pond is barely a hundred feet across, so I can see her clearly, bare feet, toes wiggling. She stands up, turns to glance at the house, watching, listening. A pair of headlights backs away, turns, and vanishes; Ida and Hank are going home.

Reagan is motionless, watching the house. Listening to make sure Tommy is asleep, I assume.

After a few moments, she seems satisfied.

My heart seizes and my mouth goes dry and my hands curl into the grass at the pond’s edge; she unbuttons her khaki shorts, unzips them. Lets them fall to the dock.

I should go. I should look away. Alert her to my presence.

Asshole that I am, I do none of those things.

I watch as she grabs the hem of her shirt, arms crossed, and peels it off. White bra, red underwear. Long, strong legs. Taut stomach, muscular arms, slim shoulders.

God, so beautiful. I can’t look away; I’m caught up, hypnotized.

She just stands there in her bra and underwear for a few minutes, breathing, staring up at the sky. Counting the stars, maybe.

Eventually, she pushes her underwear down past her hips and steps out of them. She reaches behind her back and unhooks her bra, shrugs out of it, sets it on top of her clothes. She’s naked, stunning, breathtaking. Her breasts are full, round, pale in the starlight. I can just make out the peak of one of her nipples in silhouette. She presses her palms to her stomach, smooths her hands upward, lifts her tits and rubs the undersides before letting them fall with a beautiful bounce.