Far from Here

by Nicole Baart

  There was no point acting like she wasn’t home. Dani was standing at the counter, staring at an apple in her hand and coming to the sad realization that she hadn’t eaten all day. Her stomach rumbled at the heft of the fruit in her palm—a sign of life—but the mottled bronze-red flesh was wrinkled and soft. She was so disappointed, she could hardly bring herself to acknowledge Benjamin’s presence.

  “Hello, Danica,” he said through the screen. “That apple doesn’t look so good anymore.”

  She nodded and dumped it in the garbage can under the sink without so much as glancing at her neighbor.

  When it became apparent that Dani wasn’t about to respond to him, Benjamin pushed the door open cautiously and took a single step into the kitchen. He stopped just over the threshold. “I don’t mean to disturb you,” he said. “I’ve been trying to decide if I should come over at all.”

  Dani turned her gaze to the man before her, but her eyes held a faraway look. She still didn’t say anything.

  “It’s just that I’m mowing my lawn, and I was wondering if you’d like me to cut yours too.” The request was almost hesitant, but Benjamin’s gaze was steady, direct. “It’s getting kind of long.”

  One look out the back door was proof that Benjamin’s tiptoe-soft personality made him prone to understatement. Dani’s backyard was a wild, weedy wonderland populated by grass so long that it fell down on itself in coils of defeat. Etsell would have been appalled. His yard didn’t have to be perfect, but he liked it tidy.

  “Actually, I should have mowed it a long time ago, but I didn’t dare to do it until I could ask you in person. I mean, what if you didn’t want me to?” Benjamin cupped the back of his neck, and although it was obvious he was uncomfortable, he resolutely stood his ground. “I’d like to do this for you, Danica. All you have to do is say yes.”

  Dani blinked hard a few times, trying to disentangle her gaze from Benjamin’s direct stare. She noticed for the first time that his eyes were an unusual green—the color of pond water and smooth stones and the line of narrow trees that topped the mountains she had flown over in Alaska. It was disconcerting. His eyes were as beautiful and unusual in his face as his pale arms in a battered football T-shirt. He didn’t look ecclesiastical; he looked sweaty.

  “Yes,” Dani said softly. “Of course. I mean, please. It would be great if you’d mow.”

  Benjamin’s smile was quick and brilliant. “Do you care if I park my truck in your driveway? I’m going to have to bag it since it’s so long, and it would take me double the time to trek back and forth to my house.”

  “Okay.” Something about the ordinary, everyday nature of Benjamin’s simple kindness made Danica feel off-center. Had he even mentioned Etsell? Her trip to Alaska? Of course he knew about it. The whole town did. The local paper had even featured a short column about her so-called heroic efforts to locate her missing husband. But Benjamin wasn’t looking at her like she was a candidate for the mental health ward. He seemed concerned only with her lawn. It was sweet. Uncomplicated.

  Dani brushed her palms together as if wiping them clean of some invisible contagion, then dropped them carefully to her sides. Some latent civility inside of her yawned a little, giving her manners a drowsy nudge. She asked, “Can I help?”

  For a second it looked like Benjamin would decline, but he appeared to think better of it. “It’s pretty warm out there,” he told her. “But I know better than to argue.”

  Dani was taken aback that he would accept her feeble offer, but now that the words were out of her mouth, and he had so guilelessly consented, she didn’t see any way to back out. “It’s been a while since I’ve mowed,” she fumbled.

  “Oh, it’s easy. Like riding a bike.” Benjamin smiled again, a small tweak of the corner of his mouth that conveyed much more than she would have thought possible. He seemed inordinately pleased. “Many hands make light work.”

  “Is that in the Bible?” The moment Dani spoke, she wished she wouldn’t have. She hoped she didn’t sound sarcastic.

  But Benjamin didn’t seem upset. “Nah. The book of Nana Sue. My grandmother put everyone around her to work so that she could play at the end of the day.”

  The whole conversation felt surreal to Dani, surreal and impossible. Yard work and overused clichés and Benjamin’s nana. “I should change,” she said absently, glancing down at the pair of cut-off sweatpants she had been wearing for two days straight.

  “Good idea. I’ll meet you outside.” Benjamin turned to leave, but he paused with one hand in the air. A thoughtful look clouded his features and tilted his chin a little. “You know, Danica, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

  Suddenly her blood ran icy. Finally. All Benjamin’s normalcy was a prelude to this. Was he going to offer his professional services? Maybe a few sessions of counseling or a memorial in honor of Etsell? Dani knew the things they said at those somber funerals, those so-called celebrations of life. They didn’t feel like celebrations at all. Instead, the pastor always read the same sad passage, the elegy about dust and ashes that was supposed to make those mourning feel as if death was not only inevitable, it was somehow poetic. Dust to dust . . . She wondered if Benjamin realized that someone as golden as Etsell bespoke the breath of God infinitely more than the ash of the earth. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but it was too late.

  “I don’t know if you’d be interested or not, but I’m digging up a few plants behind my house to make room for a new patio. If you’d like, I can transplant them somewhere in your yard. I mean, I don’t really even know what they are, but they’re pretty, and it seems a waste to just throw them away.”

  Dani hoped the relief she felt wasn’t too obvious. “That would be nice,” she managed. “Maybe beside the garden wall. I don’t think my hydrangea made it.”

  “It didn’t.” Benjamin winked. Hooking a thumb over his shoulder he said, “Hey, why don’t you move a few of those plants while I mow?” Dani shrugged and he appeared to take her neutrality as consent. “I have some dug up already. Take what you like.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll just pull the truck around. Meet me outside?”

  Dani watched Benjamin leave, his long, loping stride stretching into a light jog as he crossed her backyard. Then she shuffled to her bedroom to put on a pair of jeans and socks. She felt slow and foggy, but she knew she couldn’t do yard work barefoot and bare-legged. Her only intent in changing clothes was to protect herself from flying debris, and yet once she was in the bedroom she hazarded a quick peek in the mirror over her chest of drawers. The woman she saw there was pale and gaunt, hollow-cheeked and almost frightened-looking. Her eyes were wide and haunted, her skin gray. She hardly recognized herself.

  Passing her hands over her face, Dani leaned in closer to the mirror and studied the fine lines that had bloomed around her mouth. Were her lips so downturned as of late to accomplish this subtle aging in such a short time? The thought made her smile sadly at the unfamiliar reflection. A part of her wanted to stay here, to commiserate with the lonely girl in the mirror. But she had told Benjamin that she would help, and even now he was pulling the lawn mower to her house, expecting her to work alongside him until they both smelled of sweat and fresh-cut grass. It felt strangely intimate.

  It was hotter outside than Dani expected it would be. Her house was shaded by two enormous sugar maples that glowed like embers in the fall and cast shadows over the small rooms of her home during the summer. There was a light, constant breeze that whispered through her windows, but standing in the middle of the yard Dani realized that it was a strong wind. A stiff, hot blast of air beneath a fierce sun that was gloating in anticipation of midsummer. It would be a banner season, off the charts—Dani could feel it in the air, the promise of blistering weeks to come.

  Benjamin was already mowing, and since he couldn’t take his hands off the machine to wave to her, he merely inclined his head and gave Dani the same insufferable smile that had flickered across his fa
ce in the kitchen. Then he went back to his work as if everything was right in the world, like there was nothing more meaningful for him to do in this one moment than cut her grass and allow her—brokenhearted and abandoned as she was—to help him dispose of a row of withering perennials.

  Danica picked her way through the long grass and cut across Benjamin’s oversized lawn. There was a pair of gnarled apple trees in the very corner of their lots, angled in such a way that it was impossible to know whose trees they really were. By unspoken agreement, they had always shared the produce, picking only off the side that bordered their respective yards. One year, in a rush of domesticity, Dani had decided to make applesauce of the knobby fruit, and Benjamin had happened upon her filling a five-gallon bucket. They weren’t even particularly special apples, but she felt caught in the act of committing a heinous crime against her neighbor—she was taking far more than her share. But apparently Benjamin wasn’t concerned with her lack of scruples because he pulled down branches for her, picking everything he could reach and filling her bucket to overflowing.

  Etsell had loved that applesauce. It was pink because Dani had been too lazy to peel the apples before she cooked them, and when she pressed the soft fruit through a sieve, the flesh was stained the color of wild roses. It tasted like fresh air and the sleepy sunshine of a warm and lingering fall. Dani had meant to bring a jar to Benjamin, but she forgot. She wished for a moment that she had something to give him, something she could place in his hands for a change.

  There were four plants dug up beside the house, their root balls moist and sprouting slim, white rhizomes like strands of overstarched yarn. As far as Dani could tell, Benjamin had extracted a pair of impressive hostas with variegated leaves, a bleeding heart that was done blooming, and a twisted mass of creeping phlox that would take over her yard if she let it. She decided to leave the phlox.

  It had been a long time since Dani had stuck her fingers in the earth, but when she stole a peek at Benjamin and saw sweat darkening his shirt, she felt the least she could do was try. The hydrangea that hadn’t survived the winter was brittle and dry as dust, but the roots were gnarled and woody. It took her fifteen minutes of hacking with the spade just to rend the bulk of it from the ground, but the soil still bubbled with buried threads. Dani dropped to her knees and attacked the roots with a trowel and hedge clippers. By the time she had cleared a space, her forehead glistened. It was with a certain satisfaction that she leaned back and surveyed the earth she had prepared.

  Dani was no gardener, and though the extraction had been a sort of frantic labor of love, she more or less plunked the exiled plants into the ground and smoothed dirt over the top. She found a bag of potting soil in the shed and sprinkled that over all, then finished off her project with a hefty scoop of molding Miracle-Gro and a generous dousing from the hose. Benjamin was done with the backyard, and she was grateful that he wasn’t around to see her being so careless. It had felt good to be outside for a while, to forget that grief still cloaked her in a fever dream. But the spell was wearing off. Dani had a headache. She wanted to go inside. To be alone.

  The neighborhood was quiet when Dani put the last of her gardening tools in the shed. The lawn mower was silent, and Benjamin was obviously done with his altruistic chore. Dani wondered if she was beholden to make a pitcher of lemonade or resurrect a can of pop from the unused recesses of her refrigerator. Would he expect a few minutes of her company? Small talk?

  Dani gathered a steadying breath and tried to soldier her remaining decorum. Somewhere inside was the beauty shop owner, the woman who laughed easily and actually enjoyed listening to people’s stories. At the very least, she should be able to muster some genuine gratitude.

  Their voices were apparent even before Dani crossed around the side of the house. Benjamin said something indistinct but cheerful, and a woman responded less enthusiastically and with a bit more volume. At first Dani suspected that Char had stopped by, but then the woman snorted and her identity was obvious even though she was still out of sight.

  “I’m going to hire someone,” Hazel was saying when Dani stepped onto the driveway. “I’ve told you that, haven’t I?” She shot a hard look at Dani, expecting her to confirm whatever she was saying but not waiting for a response. “It’s true, Danica needs someone to take care of a few things around here. But it’s not your responsibility, Pastor.”

  “It’s not a responsibility.” Benjamin smiled. “It’s a privilege. And you can call me Benjamin.”

  Hazel narrowed one eye and studied Benjamin like she was appraising a bull. “I’ve been to your church, Pastor.” It sounded like an accusation.

  “I remember you. You wear a blue dress and sit in the back. It’s nice to finally meet you properly.” His hand appeared before her like magic. It seemed to Dani that it had always been there, waiting, outstretched, reaching for Hazel as if he truly did mean what he said.

  After a moment the older woman took Benjamin’s hand and gave it a good, hard shake. The sort of shake that was meant to intimidate. “Fine,” she said. “But you don’t need to be mowing Etsell’s lawn. We’ll take care of it.”

  “Just trying to help.” If Hazel’s prickly reception bothered Benjamin, he did a remarkable job of hiding it. He appeared more amused than put out, and Dani couldn’t help but notice that he seemed almost relaxed around the obviously antagonistic Hazel.

  “Hello.” Dani waved her hand unnecessarily—there was no way either of them could have missed her presence. “Thanks for doing the lawn,” she told Benjamin, ignoring Hazel. “Would you like something to drink?” It almost hurt to ask—she was so afraid he’d say yes—but she had practiced the line on the walk over and she dashed it out before she could change her mind.

  Thankfully, Benjamin was shaking his head no before she even finished talking. “I’ve got a meeting tonight, and I’d better get going. You got the plants?”

  She nodded. “Three of them.”

  “Let me know if you want more.”

  “Thanks.”

  Benjamin dipped his head toward Dani, and then again to Hazel. It was a slight, almost chivalrous bow that left Dani fearing for his safety. Hazel didn’t go for that sort of thing, for anything that smacked of pretension, and she was downright rabid when she caught a whiff of duplicity. But Benjamin’s gesture didn’t seem pretentious to Dani; it fit somehow.

  She watched him lift the lawn mower into the back of his truck and didn’t move from her spot as he drove away, because she didn’t want to face Hazel. It was tough enough for Danica to spend any amount of time with Etsell’s surrogate mother after their failed trek to Alaska, but she feared that Benjamin’s assistance had grated on the other woman for some inexplicable reason. She didn’t feel like explaining, and she certainly didn’t feel like defending.

  But Hazel didn’t give her a choice. “What was he doing here?”

  Dani sighed. “Mowing my lawn. Isn’t it obvious?”

  “You don’t need him to mow your lawn.”

  “I wasn’t doing it.”

  “I can do it. We can hire someone.”

  “He was being nice. It’s what neighbors do. It’s what pastors do, apparently. You know, good works and all that stuff.”

  Hazel grunted. “That man wasn’t interested in good works. Not this afternoon.”

  At any other time, Dani would be utterly bemused by this sullen interpretation of Benjamin’s simple act of charity. But Hazel seemed genuinely upset. “He cut my grass, for pity’s sake. Why are you being so weird about it?”

  Hazel’s gaze traveled the path that Benjamin’s truck had taken only a minute ago. She stared at the spot as if discerning his intentions in the final wisps of exhaust smoke. “I saw it,” she said finally. “When you came walking up. I saw the way he looked at you.”

  Danica

  They say that men are prone to infidelity. That the ubiquitous seven-year itch is simply a part of married life. But Etsell didn’t cheat on me. I cheated on him.

&
nbsp; It wasn’t a physical affair—in fact, it had nothing to do with sex or even attraction. Instead, my adultery was purely emotional, an interlude that made me feel desired again. The saddest part was, I never meant for it to happen. Etsell and I were doing fine, but suddenly fine didn’t feel good enough. There was something stirring just beneath the surface, a swirl of emotion that flickered like mercury—slippery and elusive, impossible to pin down. I didn’t even realize that we were sinking in quicksand—that I was unhappy—until I opened my eyes one day and saw a stranger smiling at me. He wasn’t even handsome, not really. But it was obvious that he thought I was.

  After the fact, I tried not even to think of his name, because it was a touchstone of sorts, a way to conjure up all the times Etsell and I failed each other. All the times we fell short. A few brief weeks in my life contained all the guilt and condemnation of the places where my marriage crumbled beneath the mundane weight of the everyday. It was a laundry list of all the small things—the way we started to take each other for granted, the sharp words, the nights we forgot to touch, even if it was only for a moment—but they added up to more than I could have imagined.

  It was such a simple thing. I walked into the hardware store and he smiled at me. But it was more than that too: a burst of recognition, a look full of so many things I almost felt affronted by the force of it. I paused in the doorway beneath the fading jingle of the welcome bells and prickled at the surprise of him standing there, watching me like I was more than myself. He drank me in. It was a fleeting touch, a first kiss, the hint of a promise. It didn’t hold the same mystery and wonder as the first time I saw Etsell, but that had happened so long ago, I could hardly be asked to compare.

  The look passed as quickly as it flitted across his face, and then he called to me across the empty store. “What can I help you with?” He was new to Blackhawk, I had never seen him before, and it seemed odd to me that he didn’t know what I wanted. Didn’t everyone know what I did in the hardware store? The sheets of sandpaper, the glosses and stains and squat cans of varnish? They seemed an extension of me.