by Erica Boyce
I push the driver’s seat back into a recline and reach for the envelope, turning it over and over while the seat belt clasp digs into my hip. Every time I see it, I remember learning about Schrödinger’s cat in an entry-level philosophy class I took in college. I leave it closed. Even if the letter was an acceptance from the development organization, there’s not much point in pursuing it now.
During his midmorning break, he checks his email on the computer. I hear the printer whirring away and smile—Sam never did get used to reading messages from his friends on the screen. He prefers to print them out and hold them between his hands. He slowly sits down at the kitchen table, his eyes fixed on the stapled pile of papers he’s carrying. “Nessa just sent this to me,” he says. He presses one trembling finger to the paper.
I lean over his shoulder to read. There’s a lengthy news article copied and pasted below Nessa’s message. She writes, Hey, Dad! Wasn’t sure if you were following this story or not, but it had Daniel pretty worried for a while there. Thought I’d send it along to you to let you know it’s all been handled. All systems go! xoxo. The article’s headline, in big, bold print, is “Local Eccentric Responsible for Rash of Crop Circles.”
“Well,” I say when I’ve finished reading. “It sounds like that man was a real—” I stop myself before saying “kook.” After all, I remind myself, his claims of a secret society were all true. “A real blabbermouth,” I finish. “Good thing no one seems to believe him.” I start to step away.
“What if they all laugh?” he says. He looks up at me and bites his lip. “What if this article gets popular and then everyone in town assumes our circle is just another one of his—another prank from this, this ‘eccentric’?”
I pause and run through the article again, then point triumphantly at a line toward the end. “Look at what she says here, though, about all those damages he might be liable for. No one in their right mind would keep making crop circles if they knew they’d have to pay for it. I bet you no amateurs would want to start breaking into new farms, either. Which means”—I nudge his shoulder and cock one eyebrow—“something more mysterious must be at play out in our cornfield. Maybe even something from another planet.”
“You’re right,” he says. The relief in his face is so like Nessa’s every time I soothed a worry that I turn away and begin washing the dishes from breakfast.
A few moments later, he says, “You know, you don’t have to watch me while I’m out there.”
I freeze, my hands buried in the hot, soapy water. Fleetingly, I wonder if I’m caught. Did he see me from afar through the windshield, wasting time? When I turn around, though, there’s no reproach in his face. He’s only grinning.
“Oh, I don’t, do I?” I say. I whisk my hands through the dish towel and grasp at the box of fentanyl, though I don’t need to read it to know what it says. It’s a prop, and I hold it out toward him. “Side effects include confusion, weakness, dizziness, and shortness of breath. It’s bad enough you insisted on working through the chemo, with all the side effects of those pills. What if something happens to you out there?”
“Then at least I can say I went down doing what I love.” It was his standard response in our early days, when I kept him up at night asking about machinery, imagining the great, heavy gears and wheezing exhaust pipes, the many ways I could lose him. He always followed it with the same teasing smile. This time, though, his voice is sharper, and his smile is thinner and falls away quickly.
He sighs, pulling me into his arms, into the spot where my head fits just exactly. I listen to his breath rattle up through his ribs. “Listen, honey,” he says, patient and low. “I need it to be normal for just a little while longer. Okay?” He dislodges one arm, reaches for the lacy curtain above the sink, and draws it closed. Of course, there are plenty of other windows I could watch him through, but I don’t say so.
“All right. Fine,” I say, though of course it isn’t. I pull myself upward and shake out my shoulders. He is gone, out the door.
It almost works, our day of pretend. I quicken my step every time I walk by the window. When I see him sit down on the porch steps at lunchtime, I carry his sandwich out to him on a flimsy paper plate. I even manage a convincing smile when I sit down next to him. For a moment, we stare out at the farm together, at the green corduroy rows of corn, the soybeans just a blur behind them, and the clouds’ shadows skidding across the mountains beyond.
Sam’s hands are unsteady as he reaches for the sandwich. When he looks up, his face is drained and drawn.
“What is it?” I say.
He puts the sandwich back down and buries his face in his hands.
I set my hands on the step on either side of me, splinters of wood digging into my palms.
He looks up at me. “I’m not sure,” he says, and my throat jams shut. I scan his skin for cuts and damage. “I was sitting on the tractor, and next thing I knew, I—wasn’t.” He spreads his hands open on his lap, palms up, as if he’s asking for something. “The tractor wasn’t moving. I’d just put it in Park. Since I landed with such a dead weight, I think the worst I’ll see is just a nasty bruise.”
I can’t say anything. There’s an apology in his eyes. I lay my hands over one of his.
“I think it’s time for us to call Nessa,” he says quietly, looking at our fingers.
I pause to let myself catch up. “She’ll be home soon. We should wait until she gets here.”
He sighs. “She’s going to need some time to deal with the news.”
“You’re right,” I say, though I wish he weren’t. I wish we could continue putting off and pretending. “I’ll do it,” I say, and the words hit the ground like round stones, lying there.
* * *
I wait until Sam’s asleep that night. I wait much longer than that, really. I sit on the couch and stare at the phone, and for a brief, shameful moment, I wish I were calling Charlie instead.
Nessa was always like her father, all emotion and action bundled together by translucent skin. She’s a cluster of raw nerves shooting pain and joy alike straight to her heart, and it was my job to sheathe them all, to shield her. Charlie kept his reactions close to the bone, balled up like wadded tissue.
Or he used to anyway. When he was with us.
I rub my chin once, vigorously, the friction pulling me back, and dial her number. As the phone rings, I wonder what on earth I’ll say.
She picks up on the fourth ring, and her voice is light and easy. She’s had a good day, and I’m glad for that.
“What’s up, Mom?” she says, and almost, I tell her not much, that this call is no different from the thousands we’ve made before, exchanging weather reports and dinner recipes.
Then, with a start, I remember where she is and why. Those plans we made feel like another era, though it was less than two weeks ago we huddled around the kitchen table. A small flame of hope flickers near my breastbone. “Have you seen Charlie yet?”
“Yeah.” She sighs, and the flame puffs out. “He’s not coming home.”
I bite my lip, chewing off a flake of skin there. “It’s okay, sweets. Thank you for trying.”
There is silence for a moment, as if she’s allowing me time to collect myself. Then, quietly, “How’s Dad?”
“He’s not so good. The doctor, he said the chemo’s not working this time.” Her breath stutters, and it’s my turn to pause. I consider stopping altogether, but then, she’ll find out for herself soon enough and will only be angry with me for keeping it from her. I remember the last time. “He doesn’t want to try anything else. And the doctor said—he said he’s in a lot of pain.”
I brace myself for her tears, spilling straight from the phone down my ear canal and into my chest.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” she says instead.
“Okay.” I don’t protest. My voice would trip and hitch too much. I hang
up the phone before it gets worse and toss the receiver toward the other end of the couch, away.
I walk toward the kitchen and whip the curtains open again. The tractor sits in the middle of the field, a black lump accusing me of something. We’d had a banner year when we bought it, sun and rain together coaxing the corn and beans from the soil, the cows more productive than we’d ever seen. Sam’s smile was so wide the first time he drove it that I almost forgot our truck was rusting out and Nessa needed braces. The kids scrabbled up the tires and into his lap. We were happy, the four of us.
That boy will be back soon, bending the field into something else altogether, some shared vision of his and Sam’s, no longer what we made of it. I shut my eyes and close the curtain again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nessa
The lights of the city flash endlessly around me from the balcony of our hotel room, bright, relentless colors not found in nature. I press my hands to my face, my exhales condensing hot on my fingers, but they’re still there, insisting on Technicolor. My phone is on the table in front of me where I dropped it. I know I need to call Charlie. I know my mom doesn’t have it in her.
The door slides open behind me.
“You were right. The reality show about out-of-work rodeo clowns was just as boring as it sounded,” Daniel says, laughing. “Want to pick something else?”
“Sure,” I say, and there must be something not quite right in my voice, because he steps out onto the balcony.
“Was that Charlie?”
“No.” I pick up my phone and let it dangle from my fingertips, swinging back and forth. Its glass face catches the flashing lights and makes them flicker. They’re almost pleasant that way, like Christmas decorations on a white picket fence.
He sits on the metal chair next to mine, not saying anything.
“The treatments aren’t working. He’s dying,” I say.
“Shit,” he says, and something else too, probably “sorry.” He runs one hand over his face.
I stare back out into the city, its swinging doors and swinging hips and neon drinks. This place I dragged us to, so far from home. I’ve never gambled, never got so drunk I couldn’t see, and I wanted to find out if I could lose myself to the lights, become wide open with laughter. If, for once, I could lose the mask.
“Let’s go back inside,” he says, plucking at my arm. “I’ll find us something dumb to watch.” He leads me through the door with his hand on my back, and I can feel its weight between my shoulder blades.
He sits next to me on the hotel couch and flips through the channels. It’s surprising to me how much it helps, getting lost in the lives of strangers who don’t matter. Scott the forager exclusively watched late-night cartoons starring talking meatballs that made me feel slightly unhinged. He sneered at reality TV, and so did I, but now I found it soothing, the problems packaged neatly into thirty-minute story lines.
During a commercial break, Daniel darts off down the hallway to the vending machine, returning with an armful of brightly colored junk food. The fake cheese and salt is sharp, numbing my tongue.
He falls asleep at hour three, but I can’t bring myself to turn it off. I can’t be alone. So instead, I study his face, pale in the pulsing glow of the TV. Asleep, he is peaceful, empty of his quiet, jumpy energy.
My dad never liked any of my boyfriends. There were a couple in high school with long hair who would take me out into the field and try first to tell me about the stars and second to stick their hands up my shirt. Before they could do either, though, they had to sit on my parents’ couch while my dad sat across from them in his armchair, his legs spread wide. He asked them about their parents and their farms and how school was going. Charlie would smirk supportively from behind Dad’s back, shaking his head while he made himself a sandwich.
Late at night, though, when I was back in bed and the boys had driven home, I could hear Dad talking to Mom downstairs. His voice rumbled up through the floorboards, a low growl. It would go on for minutes at a time, sometimes, before my mom piped in. Eventually, I turned on my side and crammed my quilt up around my ears into a cushioned cave.
Two photos from my parents’ wedding hung in the stairwell of the house. One was the formal portrait, his hand resting stiffly on her waist, in a fancy gold frame that my mom had long ago given up on keeping clean. It was a gift from my grandma—not Dad’s mom, pillowy, Midwestern—the other grandma, the one we saw twice a year, all sharp angles, her face pinched with worry.
The second photo was smaller, in a thin, wood frame. It’s from their reception, in some church basement with tulle draped behind them. Dad has his arm laid across the top of Mom’s chair, and he’s staring at her, smiling like he can’t quite believe it. Her hand is spread across her chest, her fingers splayed across her lace neckline. Her head is thrown back in laughter, her mouth open with it.
It’s this second picture I used to touch gently, like a good luck charm, on my way downstairs to breakfast. They were just abstracts to me then, shinier versions of the same people who packed my lunch and helped me with my homework. It wasn’t until recently that the picture would stop me in my tracks. How young they were, how happy and complete.
* * *
The sky is growing gray again by the time I stand up from the couch and walk out on the balcony, wincing as the door squeals closed behind me. Charlie will be awake by now. It takes a few rings, but he picks up, grunting a little from his lunges, in the middle of stretching for his preclinic morning run.
“Dad’s dying,” my voice says before I can stop it.
He’s silent. “What do you mean?”
“Mom called me yesterday. The chemo’s not working.”
He catches his bearings. “Okay, so they’ll want to try immunotherapy, then. Or maybe surgery. There’s been a lot of progress in—”
“She says he doesn’t want to try anything else.”
He clears his throat.
“Okay,” I say, pushing forward. “I just thought you should know.”
“Yeah. Thanks,” he says eventually, his voice rough.
Daniel is awake when I open the door. “How’d it go?” he says.
I stop, not really sure what to say or how to describe it. I stare at him for a moment, the circles under his eyes, and imagine what my dad would’ve thought if I’d brought him home. Would he have admired him, called him a hard worker as he does now? Or would his voice still hum as deep as bedrock through the floorboards of my bedroom?
“Should we see if they’ve put breakfast stuff out?” I want to sound cheerful, but it comes out wrong, all flinty.
Daniel smiles anyway and heaves himself up from the couch. “Sure,” he says, holding his hand out.
I take it in my own, because I’m not sure what else to do.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Molly
Somehow, still, the cupboards go empty, and the refrigerator goes bare and stale. The meals are a blur of sandwiches and leftovers, sometimes ferried up to bed and sometimes eaten quietly at the table. Eventually, the grocery store becomes inevitable.
“Sam?” I say. He takes his fentanyl before anything else in the morning, his head still on the pillow. He smiles up at me, and I could almost convince myself it was the same old smile, save for that silly white stick poking out of one corner.
“I’m going to run some errands,” I say.
“Maybe pick up some low tunnels and fabric? I want to try to build a winter garden.”
My fists clench, nails biting into the pads of my palms. Is this it? Has the cancer started nibbling at his brain, made him forget? He winks, and I slap him lightly on the shoulder.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” I say on my way out the door. “Call me if you need anything.”
The grocery store is so very bright, unchanging with its scuffed tile floors. I find myself lost in the cereal
aisle, a song from when the kids were in high school tinkling over the loudspeaker as I pick out the sugary flavor that will make Sam smile the widest.
I read an article in a magazine once where a woman was describing what depression felt like. She said it was like being suspended in a cold, cloudy pond. You could see the sun shining, but from far away, a place you cannot reach. I stare at the cheerful cartoon frog on the box in my hands and wonder where the line is between grief and depression. Or if it matters.
“Hello, again.” The voice is far too close, and I jump, the box falling to the ground with a thud. She bends over to pick it up, and her red ponytail shifts sideways.
“Hi, Allison,” I say, managing to smile as she hands the box to me. It’s dented now, the frog’s face distorted, but Sam won’t mind. It might even make him laugh. I slip the box into my cart.
“I know it’s only been a few weeks, but I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” she says. “We’ve just been so busy with the girls home and everything. Speaking of which, I heard Nessa was around for a while. Must have been so nice to see her.”
“Yes, she just surprised us with a little visit,” I say.
“And rumor has it she stole the Shannons’ farmhand.” Her eyes crinkle merrily.
“Oh, well.” I look down at my cart, nearly empty. “She told him they were dealing with an early frost at the farm she used to work at, and he wanted to lend a hand.” The story sounds untrue even to me, but Allison turns and runs her fingers over a row of cereal boxes, tap-tap-tap, already moving on.
“Listen,” she says, “I was serious about wanting to help with your garden. I know it’s not the right time of year yet, but maybe we could get together soon and start planning? I really do miss it.” Her face is bright and hopeful, verging on begging. I can barely remember being embarrassed by things like the state of our front lawn.