by Erica Boyce
He looked back out the window and said nothing. Shawn stretched awake, spreading his hands across the dashboard. One of his eyes was already swelling up.
* * *
We waited until Shawn had pulled out of the driveway before we went back into the house. My ears felt plugged with cotton, dulling the squealing mating calls of the frogs in the nearby pond. I turned to Charlie, but he walked toward the door, his head down. I followed him into the house and watched him climb the stairs to his room, stepping nimbly over those creaky floorboards. He shut the door behind him, and I stared at it, wondering about all the things I didn’t know.
Behind me, a cough. I spun around in the dark, hands flailing into a vaguely defensive position around my face. Before I had time to consider my next move, my dad’s shape grew out of the shadows, his long legs extending from the living room sofa.
“Did you guys give Charlie a good time?”
“I—I—”
“It’s all right. He needs a break. I won’t tell Mom.” He raised one hand in a truce, and even in the dark, I could tell he was smiling.
I collapsed onto the couch. “He got into a fight.”
He stiffened. “What? Charlie?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t say more. I wasn’t sure how much they knew, and on certain things, my loyalty ran to Charlie.
Dad was silent for a moment. “Is he okay?”
I thought of Charlie’s jaw working back and forth in the rearview mirror, of his hands clenched tight in his lap. “I don’t know,” I whispered.
He sighed. “Sometimes I worry about that boy. He’s not a fighter, not like you.” He patted my knee.
I wish now that I had told him there was more than one way to fight back, that we are, each of us, stronger than we appear. I laid my hand over his, squeezed it, and said, “We’re gonna have to come up with a story for Mom.”
Chapter Twenty
Molly
After the appointment, Sam pulled into the driveway, put the truck in Park, and said, “I’m going to go take the tractor around the fields, make sure you can’t see the markings. Got to check on that rye in the back, too.”
By the time I remembered Dr. Cooper’s warning, he’d already kissed my cheek and left the truck. He walked up to the house and kicked his shoes off on the porch. A moment later, he reemerged in his work boots, leaning heavily on the porch railing as he walked down the stairs. As he moved toward the fields, my hand touched the damp spot on my face where his lips once were. My other hand reached for the glove box, but out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the envelope, wedged behind a seat belt in the back where Sam had tossed it. It shook a finger at me. Shame, shame, shame on you, it said.
I got out of the truck. Sam’s shoes were exactly where he stepped out of them, as if he’d dissolved and they carried on without him. I ignored the twinge in my lower back as I leaned over to retrieve them.
I’ve been meaning to make a casserole for Allison Remy ever since I ran into her at the feed supply store. It’s the right thing to do, the expected thing. So today, I find myself in front of our dusty bookshelf. Instead of pulling out a cookbook, though, I reach for a story to take me somewhere else. I grab a thick paperback of Charlie’s, its spine striped with cracks like scars. A movie ticket stub drifts from its pages to the floor.
Sam has always kept all his ticket stubs. They used to collect in great, slippery piles on his nightstand, falling to the floor every time he slapped at his alarm clock. When I threatened to throw them all away, he started tucking them into books, sneaking one off the shelf and replacing it before he even took his jacket off when we got home.
I kneel down to pick up the stub. It’s for the movie we saw the night Nessa left for college. Ordinarily, in late summer, Sam would go straight to bed after dinner while I washed dishes so he could sleep off one long day and roll into the next. That night, he laid his fork down next to his plate and announced he was taking me out. He wouldn’t even let me clear the table first, just pulled me out the door.
Of course, as soon as the lights went down, Sam fell asleep, his head tilted back against the seat. The theater was mostly empty, so I was alone under the actors’ stares. I wiggled my fingers in Sam’s loose, warm grip and finished off an entire bucket of popcorn by myself. When we left the theater, I felt bloated from the salt and sated for the first time in months.
There’s probably a ticket in every book on this shelf. Small slips of paper holding small, quiet memories that I will find in the years to come, wandering over to find one of Nessa’s old picture books or a mystery Sam used to read over and over, gasping at the plot twists every time.
I stand up. Reach for another one. Pause, and then another. And tear them all down. I am an earthquake, a thunderstorm, a tornado, ripping handfuls of books from the shelves and throwing them to the ground. The tickets try to flee, fluttering from the pages in a gentle flurry. I bury them with more books until finally, the shelves are all empty, and I join the books on the floor, my face in my hands.
* * *
The children were small, and I had just put Nessa down for a nap. Sam and Charlie were sitting on the floor together, Sam tapping his chin as Charlie detailed all the wrongdoings his plastic dinosaurs had exacted on each other. Sam heard me in the doorway and winked at me from over Charlie’s head.
And something in my chest finally twisted and tore.
“Charlie, sweets. It’s time for your nap.” I laid one hand on his shoulder, the bones under his skin no bigger than a chicken’s.
“Okay, Mama.” He hugged me briefly and firmly, as if more for my benefit than for his, before scampering upstairs to his room.
Sam’s eyes widened. “Well, we did something right with that one.”
“I’m not sure we had anything to do with it,” I said, sitting down next to him. Charlie was born quickly, obligingly, his eyes wide open and mouth shut tight. And then we were three, him and Sam and me.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said, staring at the thin, worn carpet.
“Okay, sure,” Sam said when I didn’t continue. His voice shaking a bit, he said, “What is it? Did something happen with Nessa?”
“No, no.” I looked up in time to watch relief clear his face. I didn’t give myself a chance to think then, just pushed the words out like afterbirth. “I was with someone else. Another man.”
He froze. He blinked. It occurred to me that in all our time together, I had never seen Sam yell, not at swerving drivers or stray plastic dinosaurs. I straightened my shoulders, waiting for it now.
When he spoke, it was quietly. “When?”
“It was years ago, before we moved here,” I said quickly. It was eight years, three months, and two weeks ago. “It meant nothing, Sam. You and the children, you’re all that matters to me.”
“Now,” he said. “We’re all that matters to you now.” That something in my chest began to bleed. “Why are you telling me this?” His mouth trembled at the edges.
I knew my mouth was open only from the air scraping over my tongue. I clamped my lips closed. “I couldn’t bear it, you not knowing, not anymore. I’m so sorry,” I said, because I realized then that I hadn’t said it yet. I reached for him.
He stiffened and wrenched away.
“What was his name?” he said to the wall.
“It doesn’t matter, I hardly remember—”
“What. Was. His. Name.”
I didn’t recognize his face, all sharp corners.
There was a dried fleck of Play-Doh ground into the carpet, falsely blue and bright. I picked at it with chipped fingernails. “His name was Thomas Grossman,” I whispered.
He stood, his knees cracking. I stayed cross-legged at his feet like a child. When I looked up, he was gone, the screen door swinging shut behind him.
I don’t know how long I stayed there on the floor.
The room turned golden with the setting sun, then darker with the dusk. I tried to imagine where I would go if he never came back, what I would do. It was like turning the key with no gas in the engine, turning and turning with no movement.
The door wheezed back open, and Sam stepped inside. His face was sweaty and smeared with dirt. He stared at me. “How long has she been crying?”
And for the first time, I heard it, Nessa’s wails tumbling down the stairs. “I—I don’t—”
He took the stairs two at a time, his boots thumping on the wood. I ran up after him, the bannister skimming under my fingers. He threw the door open, and there she was, clutching the top rail of her crib, her face red and raw, her mouth hinged open.
Sam ran to the crib and scooped her up with one arm. His hand smoothed circles into her tiny back. Her cries eased down to a shudder and a hiccup as she laced her fingers through his beard. He swayed back and forth, bending his head toward her and crossing his eyes. She giggled.
I backed out of the room. Nessa was born screaming, her face almost purple with it. They handed her to me with her hands in fists, and though I could barely see her through the fog of exhaustion, I knew she was perfect. When Sam eased her from my arms, she fell silent.
I stepped softly down the hall to Charlie’s room and peeked around his door. He was squatting on the floor, waging quiet battles with his dinosaurs. He looked up at me with wide, worried eyes. “Are you sad, Mama?” he asked.
“No, Charlie,” I said, and he hurtled toward me, throwing his arms around my knees. “Everything is just fine.”
“I changed Nessa’s diaper,” Sam said behind me. When I looked up, he was already gone, his footsteps echoing down the stairwell.
I unlaced Charlie’s arms and sent him back to his toys before I followed Sam down. He stood in the kitchen, his hands on the counter, staring out the window.
“Sam, I—”
“Don’t,” he said. He did not turn around.
It was like that for three days, hot anger radiating from him every time I stepped near him. He smiled for the kids, holding Nessa close and listening patiently to Charlie’s stories. He would not look at me. I moved a pillow and a blanket down to the couch without saying a word and lay there every night. I stared at the rust-colored water stains on the ceiling. At least he’s still here, I told myself and picked at a fraying seam in the blanket. At least he hasn’t left yet.
On the fourth day, I woke to find him sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee cupped between his palms. There was a second cup steaming feebly in front of the chair across from him. I sat down.
“There was no one else?” he said.
I shook my head.
“And it was just once?”
I nodded. “Sam, I was just lonely and confused and lost. I didn’t know that this was what it would be like, that I would love it this much.” I touched his arm, and though he still would not look at me, he did not move away.
Finally, he turned to me, and I forced myself to meet his eyes, so painfully green. “I will forgive you. For her sake.” He pointed to the bulky plastic high chair looming at the end of the table. “For both of them.”
“Okay,” I said and tried not to smile, tried not to cry.
* * *
I’ve made a mess, the books flayed open, the tickets scattered. With the bookshelf empty, I can see the cobwebs stretched in its corners. Sam will be back any minute now from his morning rounds. I reach for a stub, this one for a movie we saw just last week, when all we felt was so much promise. I lay it in an open book, slap it shut, and slide it back onto the shelf. And begin again.
We eat dinner in silence, our silverware scraping and clicking against our plates. Sam pauses every once in a while to stare over my shoulder and out the window, chewing slowly. I can’t think of anything to say.
A knock comes at the door. Sam glances up as I push back from the table. It’s possible he smiles, but I turn away before I can see. The knock comes again, more tentative this time, a tapping of fingertips as I reach for the doorknob.
“Yes,” I say loudly through the closed door, then, pulling it open, “What is it?”
Lisa Zinke stands on the doorstep, her hand slightly raised, looking somehow surprised to find us there. She’s wearing a T-shirt advertising some small local brewery, and their big golden retriever lunges toward our driveway from the end of the leash in her hand. The Zinkes are one of the few summer families in Munsen, driving in from Manhattan every June to rent the McManns’ old farmhouse.
She collects herself, tucking some hair behind her ear. “Oh, hi, Molly,” she says. “I hope this isn’t an awkward question.” She stops, and I clutch the edge of the door. She knows, somehow, about Sam. Maybe she saw him walking through the fields today and could tell from the slope of his spine what was amiss.
“I was walking by with Henry here. I usually take the main roads, but I figured we’d try a different route,” she continues. As if on cue, the dog snaps at a passing gnat, his teeth clacking shut. I blink against the zinging of my thoughts. “He stopped to go potty at the edge of your field—sorry about that, but no permanent damage, I’m sure. So, anyway, I was standing there staring into your field—off in the distance, you know, not anything creepy.”
A mosquito bites my ankle, and I brush at the sting with my other foot. Now that it’s clear this isn’t about Sam, I want to beg this woman to get to her point.
“Anyway, I couldn’t help but notice there are some weird-looking sort of glowing dots out in your field, and I was wondering if you knew they were there and also what they are?”
I freeze, the toes of one foot pressed against my ankle bone. The circle markings. Now that Lisa’s finished, she stands there with her head slightly tilted to the side, the perfect picture of honest curiosity. I consider telling the truth: that my husband hatched an eccentric plan and is carrying it through, despite the many other things on our plate. Perhaps she would find it funny, in a small-town sort of way, and we could lean toward each other from either side of the threshold and laugh.
“That’s a good question, Lisa.”
Sam’s voice startles me, and I turn to see him lumbering toward us. He shoots me a glance that begs me to play along. I step to one side to make room for him.
“Have you heard about the cutworms we’ve been dealing with out in the cornfields this year?”
Lisa nods eagerly and steps closer, one hand on the doorjamb.
“They’re nasty things, but I hate spraying for them, so I thought I’d try something new. See, I’ve been painting my stalks at the first sign of damage, and I’m hoping to find some sort of pattern to where they pop up.”
“Ah,” Lisa says, her face bright. “And the paint is glow-in-the-dark, it looks like? So you can see it at night?”
“That’s right,” he crows, and she looks like she’s won a trophy.
I smuggle a smile behind one hand. This is an absurd story, a strategy that would never work on a full-scale working farm. Lisa is all too willing to believe it, though. By the time the crop circle is finished, she will be gone, and this will become one of the charming rural stories she tells her friends back home. Sam steps outside to scratch Henry behind his ears and ask her how her summer’s going. I touch his shoulder as he passes and close the door gently behind him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Daniel
We pass through Nevada, billboards for casinos sprouting up from the desert. Nessa curls and uncurls herself, legs folding and unfolding, shifting back and forth. By the time we get to California, she crouches with her feet under her, tapping a quick, steady beat on the window. At night, the sheets and comforters rustle for hours on her double bed. She apologizes in loud whispers whenever I clear my throat or show any other signs of life.
“Things you should know about Charlie,” she says now, drumming on the steering wheel in th
at same rhythm. She turns her head to make sure I’m listening, and I scan the road for oncoming traffic. “He can be kind of standoffish. Usually Zach does most of the talking. God help you if something vaguely medical comes up, though. That’s the only time he’ll really talk your ear off.”
She rattles on. Really, I’m listening, but as I stare out the window, all I can think about is Sam’s circle. On cue, my phone starts buzzing, Lionel’s number scrolling across the screen for the third time today. I hit Ignore again. This trip was a huge mistake. I was supposed to finish marking the circle within a couple of weeks and then do all the pressing right away, in one night, before anyone noticed the markings. That was the process I agreed to with Lionel when I said I’d be doing it alone. Has anybody seen the markings yet? Have they wondered why some of Sam’s cornstalks look a little off? Are they talking about it?
Uneasily, I think of our last circlers meeting. It was two months ago, in Ohio, yet another church basement. It’d been a slow season for us, so almost everyone was there. The overhead fan couldn’t keep up with the accumulated heat of all thirty-five of us. Becca was sitting next to me, the evening agenda folded accordion-style into a fan, flapping frantically at her face. In front of me, the Mason twins were arguing with Wilson Davis, a retired lawyer who was spending his golden years as a circler, combining his two biggest hobbies: dirt and geometry. The twins were fresh out of college, and no one knew exactly where they were from or what their long-term plans were. What we did know about them was that they actually believed in aliens. They became circlers so they could make their own evidence to support their theories.
“Don’t you see?” one of the twins said to Wilson. “The CIA’s instructions could only be meant for taking photos of UFOs.”
Wilson smiled and shook his head. “I suppose there’s no way for me to win this one, is there?”
“What a couple of morons,” Ray said, just loud enough for them to hear. He was sitting behind me, leaning forward between the chairs. The twins glanced over at him, but they knew by now to ignore him. Ray had been showing up for some of the projects in the region for the past year or so. He never helped much, just asked questions from the sidelines and refused to whisper. “Who’s really gonna hear me out here in the middle of nowhere?” he’d say.