by Toler, B N
She weaved her delicate fingers through my damp hair. “Just tell me, even if it’s only for this very short summer, that you’ll make me yours.”
I narrowed my eyes as I met her determined gaze. We were both so young and I knew on some level we were getting swept up in pheromones and fantasies, but my ability to listen to reason was constantly abandoning me. In the middle of what felt like a downpour of horrendous and unending sadness, Emalee was like the sun, holding an umbrella in one hand, reaching out to me with the other, inviting me to come stand under it with her. It was a relief I had refused to hope for; I knew its shield would only be temporary. But here she was. This beautiful girl with a big heart venturing into the sadness, seeking me out.
“Yes, Emalee. You’re mine. Only mine. For this summer. And for just this summer, I’ll give you every part of me.”
“Like this?” I asked Annie for the tenth time as I lifted, bent, and extended Constance’s frail leg. Annie said the body was made to move and doing this for Constance would help her circulation.
“Just like that.”
I looked down at Constance and smiled, “We’re going to get our workout in today, young lady.” Then I started belting out Let’s Get Physical by Olivia Newton John.
Her oxygen mask was on, but her eyes were laughing. Annie went outside to take a smoke break while I continued to move Constance’s limbs. I was bending and extending the arm she couldn’t move when she started tapping at her device with her other arm. Since I’d started visiting, it had always seemed laborious for her to lift her arm, but it seemed even more so now.
Thank. You. For. Being. Good. To. Me.
Tears slammed the back of my eyes and burned as I fought like hell to stop them. Still holding her arm, I sat beside her on the bed and moved her wrist in circular motions.
“It’s easy to be good to you, Constance. I’ve never met anyone tougher or braver, and that includes those sons of yours. All of their courage and determination…that’s from you.”
When she mumbled something, I lifted her mask so that I could hear her better.
“You’re…brave…too…song…bird,” she managed.
“Not like you,” I sighed. “Are you scared at all?” It was a bold question, one most probably wouldn’t dare to ask, but I wondered if she knew it was okay for her to be scared.
She tapped at the screen again.
No. I’m. Ready. I. Go. Soon.
A tear streamed down her face.
I didn’t want to cry, not in front of her. She was suffering and literally on her death bed; she didn’t need me weeping all over her. But there were so many feelings in that moment. Hurt at knowing what was to come. Admiration for this woman that fearlessly waited for death to take her. And there was love. I turned away from her for a moment, unable to control my expression.
It’s. Okay. Promise.
When I turned back to her, I took her hand in mine. I had been coming there for weeks, entertaining and keeping her company, but she was the one that had given me something much greater. “Thank you for being my friend, Constance,” I croaked out as my eyes blurred. “I think you’re my best friend. Is that okay with you?”
Her eyes swam with tears as another one trickled down her face. When she blinked three times, I knew what she was saying to me. I’d seen her do it with the boys many times.
I love you.
One blink for each word.
“I love you, too, Constance.” I wiped at my face just as Annie entered quietly, obviously realizing she’d interrupted an intense moment. Grabbing a few tissues, she handed one to me, then dabbed Constance’s cheeks. “Emalee, why don’t you take the guys some sweet tea and sandwiches while I bathe Constance.”
I nodded, feeling guilty for being relieved at having a reason to leave for a little bit. I needed to collect myself. Mama had said the Kepner’s needed joy. I didn’t want to burden Constance with my grief.
I met Constance’s gaze. “I’ll be back shortly.”
The much-needed rain had gone on for two days, though its timing wasn’t ideal. It had finally let up that morning. Farming wheat was definitely a gamble when you considered all the variables—man trying his hand at the chance to birth something despite the unpredictability of all the elements that could prevent it. Too much sun would kill or dry out the wheat; too much rain prevented it from drying out enough to be harvested; then there was all the effort to prevent fungi and pests. All of it combined made it seem like the odds were stacked against the farmer. But like any real gambler, they still tried their hand.
The guys were down at the grain bins, scrubbing and preparing them for the harvest. Even Joe had decided to go, claiming he wanted to check the bins for any needed repairs or damage. In truth, I think Joe just wanted to be out in the mix the way he used to be.
The five bins were actually big round hollow metal pillars situated on the far side of the property. When I arrived, Bailor was pointing at something while Joe and Cole looked on.
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” I called as I approached them. “I brought food!”
Bailor looked at Cole, his expression serious. “If you don’t marry her, I will.”
“Not before I do,” Joe added. Bailor and Cole looked at their brother while I grinned and fixed my obnoxious glee-filled gaze on Joe.
“I just knew you loved me,” I told him as I patted my chest over my heart. “Right in here, I knew it.”
He laughed silently before rolling his eyes and returning to his usually broody expression. I handed out sandwiches and the plastic cups I’d brought. As they scarfed down the food, I poured each of them some tea from the thermos. Bailor and Cole were sitting on the tailgate while Joe was just to the side of it, and as I watched them eat in silence, I realized all three were facing the wheat fields, almost smiling as they stared at the amber stalks.
“You guys should see yourselves right now. You’re looking at those fields the way every woman wants to be looked at by her man,” I joked. Then in my best sultry voice I asked, “Should I head back to the house so you boys can be…alone…with the wheat?”
They chuckled and Bailor said, “A big crop is damn sexy.”
“So…when will you harvest?”
Bailor squinted as he looked up at the sky. “Soon if the rain will stop and we can get some sun.”
“How do you know when it’s ready?”
Cole slipped off of the tailgate and jutted his chin for me to follow as he chewed the last bite of his sandwich. At the field line, he plucked a grain from a wheat head and handed it to me. Then he picked another for himself.
“Put it in your mouth and bite it.”
I grimaced. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” He bit his and looked at me waiting for me to follow. I tentatively bit down and it squished between my teeth. The texture was odd. His eyes sparkled with amusement at my expression. “Kind of soft, right?”
“Uh huh,” I managed before spitting it out.
“That means it’s not ready. It’s almost there though. If you bite into it and it’s hard—it’s time to harvest.”
Glancing back, I realized Bailor and Joe had finished eating and were off toward one of the bins. When I peered back at Cole, he was still staring at the field, something that almost resembled pride in his gaze. “You know, all this time I thought you really hated this. Farming,” I clarified. “But right now…you look almost…tranquil.”
He shrugged before turning to me. The purple around his eyes had faded mostly and the swelling of his nose had decreased. Even with evidence of his injury still painted over his features, he was handsome. “I do hate it sometimes because it feels like it’s taken things from me…from all of us. Like my father and my choices. But the truth is, even if I’d gotten to finish college, I probably would’ve ended up back here. My family’s blood and sweat is in this land.” His mouth lifted softly. “One of my earliest memories is of my father letting me sit on his knee and drive the tractor around. The start of the harvest
isn’t a fixed date, it ebbs and flows based on the weather, and when the wheat was ready early, my brothers and I got to miss school for the start of the harvest, and we’d take turns riding on Dad’s knee as he determined the order the fields would be harvested. So you see, I’m tied to this land…there’s no choice to it really. This crop looks good, which it makes me think of my dad and how much he loved looking at a big crop.” His eyes creased as he smiled. “He’d sit there and just stare at it like it was the best thing he’d ever seen.”
My father’s comment about the Kepner’s possibly losing their farm played in the back of my mind. I’d wondered why, if they really were so overwhelmed by it, they didn’t just let it go, but now I understood. Wheat wasn’t the only thing being grown on this land—a family had grown here too. Generations of family. The very fabric of their existence was sewn into this land, and if they lost their farm, they’d lose themselves.
When Cole shifted his adoring gaze from the field back to me, his mouth quirked up in a half-smirk as he said, “I like looking at it only a little more than I like looking at you.”
I let my shoulders sag dramatically. “I thought we agreed you’d refrain from attempts at goading me.”
He chuckled. “Now, now,” he went on. “No need to get jealous.” He pulled me to him, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. “The wheat is only slightly sexier than you. Not much though.”
I rolled my eyes playfully. “Cole Kepner, I think I’m rubbing off on you.”
He pressed his forehead to mine, his gaze serious. “There’s no doubt in my mind, Emalee. You’re definitely leaving your mark.”
The harvest began about a week after her birthday, and in that time Emalee had learned first-hand that romance wasn’t exactly my forte, but I did my best. In the evenings after dinner, we would take walks and drives. Sometimes we’d go into town for burgers. A couple of nights we had dinner at her house with her mother. Mostly, we curled up on a pile of pillows at the foot of my mother’s bed and watched some of their favorite classic movies.
On one of the days during the harvest, Annie and Emalee had managed to get Mom in her wheelchair and bring her out to watch us as we cut down the wheat. I suppose in a way we should be thankful she had been fairly stable during those weeks. We needed our harvest to be epic if we were going to manage to hold on to the farm.
Almost as if she’d been holding on so we could focus on our work, just after we’d finished the harvest and sold the grain, my mother took a turn for the worse. Emalee walked in one morning and stopped short when she saw me and my brothers around her bed.
Her uncertain gaze darted between us as she asked, “What’s going on?”
Mom was sleeping and I held a finger to my mouth indicating for her to be quiet. I walked her out to the porch and sat on the banister.
“What’s going on?”
“She can’t move her arm anymore. And her voice…I’m sure you’ve noticed she can barely whisper.” I scrubbed my face with both of my hands.
Emalee’s eyes dropped and her features went slack. “I noticed her arm, but I thought…I don’t know what I thought.” She shook her head. “I should’ve said something.”
Reaching out, I grabbed her and pulled her to me, letting her rest her head in the crook of my neck. She let out a wavering breath as she sought comfort in my arms, completely unaware of just how much holding her comforted me.
My mother hadn’t reacted when it was apparent she could no longer use her arm. Instead of grief or despair in her eyes, a quiet acceptance had resonated. She’d been slowly losing the use of her limbs over the course of the last year, and she’d become used to it. In a way she almost seemed relieved, and it wasn’t hard to fathom why. She was in the final stages—she was close to death. Dying was the only way she’d ever be set free from the prison of her body, but I didn’t share any of that with Emalee, wanting to spare her from the morbid truth as much as possible. “There was nothing you could’ve done. As much as we all want to, we can’t stop this from happening to her.”
Pulling away from me, she peered into my eyes. “How are you holding up?”
I ran my hand through my hair, stalling to answer because I wasn’t sure. If I really thought hard about it, I supposed I was still standing, still moving, so that was something. The weight of it all hadn’t crushed me yet. There was sadness, for sure, but mostly I just felt powerless. I couldn’t stop this from happening. Between the long days, the hard work, and the reality of it all pressing down on me, the powerlessness was the worst of it. “I wish I could just…” I let out a groan as I stood and crossed my arms, turning to stare out at the fields. “I just want to make her happy, you know. And that seems impossible, really. I mean…look at her. She’s trapped.”
A moment later she pressed her body against my back, wrapping her arms tightly around my shoulders and planting a kiss on my neck. “She only needs to see the three of you happy, Cole,” she said. “That would make her happy at the end.”
I closed my eyes with her words. “She knows us too well for us to fake it. How do we make her think we’re happy when we’re so sad she’s dying?”
Emalee was quiet for a long moment then said, “Joy. You all need to feel joy, even if it’s only for a little bit.”
“I don’t know how we do that.”
Her hold on me tightened slightly and I felt her inhale deeply. “Cole,” she said hesitantly.
“Yeah?”
“I know you probably don’t want me to know this, but I know you guys are having trouble…with money.”
I moved to step away from her as shock and embarrassment slammed into me, but she hugged me tighter, refusing to let me go. “Please don’t be mad. I just want to help. I don’t know how much you need, but I have some money saved up. Close to twenty thousand dollars. My mother made me save every dime I ever made. Let me give it to you. Let me help you.”
I pried her hands from me and took several steps away. When I looked at her, she was biting her lower lip, her expression taut. It pissed me off that she’d known about our troubles… that meant people were gossiping about us, but it really made me angry that she thought I was the kind of man that would just take money from his girlfriend.
“I don’t want your money, Emalee. This is our problem. I don’t need my,” I gestured at her, “whatever you are to me to give me her life’s savings.” She blanched, the pain from my words seizing her features. I knew she’d meant well, but a man had his pride, and all that. “Do you think we’re some charity case here? Come take care of the sick lady and sing her some songs, and give your rich-girl life savings to save us impoverished folk so you can feel good about yourself?”
Her eyes swam with tears. “I just want to help,” she rasped, emotion thick in her voice. “I lov…” she halted and jerked her gaze from mine, shaking her head.
Was she about to say she loved me?
“I gotta get back inside,” she finally managed, bouncing her stare at anything, and everything, but me.
I dropped my head back, hating myself. I’d just been such a dick and all she’d wanted was to help me. “Em,” I called out, but she slipped inside the house, ignoring me. Stomping off the porch, I went out to the barn and started moving stuff around—or more accurately, aggressively flinging stuff around.
What a joke. It seemed fitting, considering the endless misfortune our family had had, that of course, I’d find a beautiful talented woman who loved me and would do anything for me at a time when I was so fucked up, I couldn’t be the man she deserved. I hated feeling like a victim, but sometimes it truly felt as if life was always giving my family the big middle finger.
She might have meant well, but she had overstepped. Still, I needed to apologize. And soon. Heading out to the truck, I grabbed the yellow legal pad and a pencil we kept in a bag tucked behind the seat and sat in the driver’s seat with the door open. I was no poet or expert writer, but I did my best to tell her how I felt, and that I was sorry.
Ema
lee,
I’m sorry for how I acted and the things I said. You were offering help and instead of graciously refusing it, I lashed out at you.
I know you meant well, but please do not ask or offer money again. There are some things my brothers and I need kept to ourselves. There are some things that are meant for us, and only us, to handle.
You are a good person and I’m grateful for how much you care. I hope you’ll forgive me.
~Cole
PS—After reconsidering, you might be a tad better to look at then a nice crop. But only slightly.
It was no Shakespearian love letter, but I cherished it as if it was the greatest gesture of affection I’d ever seen. The folded note had been tucked in Pinky’s basket when I went to leave. I’d read it before I pedaled off, but hadn’t seen Cole to offer my own apology. I felt terrible about how upset he’d been when I offered him money. My heart had been in the right place, but my mind apparently had not. I should’ve known better.
When I got home, my mother was seated at the kitchen table sipping a glass of iced tea and reading a magazine. My father had left after breakfast on my birthday weeks ago and Mama hadn’t mentioned him since. He hadn’t called me, so I could only assume he was still upset about finding me in the bed of the truck with Cole.
“Hey, Em,” Mama greeted me with a forced smile when she saw me enter the kitchen. I knew her too well not to notice the dark circles under her eyes, even after she’d used coverup to hide them. Daddy may have left physically, but whatever was going on between them remained. “How was Constance today?” she asked gently before taking a sip from her glass.