I’m sweating profusely and wrestling with a stubborn fence slat and a stripped screw head. I don’t hear her approach until she’s right beside me.
“Derek, what are you doing?” She’s got a Thermos of coffee and a paper plate piled with scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon, all covered with plastic wrap.
I move away from her. She’s too close — makes me nervous. She smells good, some faint perfume. I risk a glance at her as I finally wrench the old board free. Hair the color of sunlit honey, loose and brushed to a shine, hangs in waves around her shoulders. Eyes a pale blue, just a shade darker than the color of the sky above. She’s wearing a red V-neck T-shirt, jean shorts, shin-high black Bogs for the mud from yesterday’s rain.
I lift up the screw gun. “Fixing the fence.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “Needed doing. I was up.”
“Did you sleep okay?” She shifts from side to side, eyes flicking nervously. “I should’ve brought you a pillow last night. I’m sorry I didn’t. I just—by the time I got Tommy in bed….”
It’s a lie. I can tell by the way she won’t look at me. I remind her of Tom. What she lost. I’m here and he’s not, and the lie covers the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to see me again.
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it. Slept worse places than on fresh hay.” That statement ends up being way more loaded with meaning than I intended.
She does a duck-her-head-and-nod thing, lets a thick pause hang between us. “You should eat,” she says eventually, lifting the plate.
I take the plate from her, take a seat on the lowered tailgate of the truck. “Thanks.”
There’s a metal fork on the plate, held in place by the plastic wrap. I peel away the Saran wrap and dig in, forcing myself to eat slowly. My instinct is still to wolf the food down as fast as I can, but I don’t let myself. I have to do everything I can to distance myself from being a captive. I might have hated the gradual reintegration program the military doctors forced on me, but I recognize the necessity of it. I’m not okay. I’m not comfortable around people. I have flashbacks. I get violent when I’m startled, suffer bouts of rage that don’t make any sense. Little things. Like that board just now. If I hadn’t gotten it off….
I don’t go there. I have to learn control.
I take careful, measured bites, chewing slowly and thoroughly. Hold the fork like a civilized man, between my index and middle fingers and thumb, rather than in my fist. Reagan slides up onto the tailgate beside me, and my chest tightens. It’s hard to breathe. I stop eating, turn and look at her. She’s on the far side of the tailgate, leaving a good foot between us, but it’s still too close.
People get close to me and I tense, expect violence subconsciously.
She unscrews the top off the Thermos, pours black coffee into the top, hands it to me. I take it, careful to keep my fingers away from hers. Sip the coffee. It’s thick, black, strong. She just sits quietly while I eat, and, slowly, my tension fades. I know, mentally, she poses no threat, but my reaction to people, to anyone, is automatic, unconscious. I can’t help it, no matter how hard I try.
When I finish the huge mound of food she brought, she takes the paper plate, folds it up, tosses it deep into the bed of the truck. I hold onto the fork, poke my fingertips on the grease-shiny tines. Silence, long, awkward, delicate. She lifts one hip, produces the letter. I glance at her, see the chain of the dog tags against her tanned neck. My gaze focuses on the letter.
She’s going to ask me a question.
“He didn’t read the letter until you and he were—” She cuts off, won’t say the word.
“Captured,” I fill in for her. “No, he didn’t.”
She doesn’t respond, but seems troubled. “And by the time you read it to him, he was already” —another pause where she has to summon the word, force it out— “dying.”
I can only nod. I think I know what she’s getting at. And I know for a fact I absolutely cannot handle this conversation right now. Not now. Maybe not ever. There are some truths that are too potent to speak of, too damaging to reveal. To guilt-freighted to see the light of day.
I hop off the truck, toss the fork into the bed. “I should go.” I grab my shirt from the cab. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“You—you don’t have to leave, Derek. I’m sorry I asked. I know it can’t be easy for you talk about…what happened. I just—”
“You have questions. Shit only I can answer. I get it. It’s fine. But some stuff…there’s some shit I just can’t talk about yet. I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “I should go. I don’t belong here. This is his place.”
I’d forgotten my scars. I can feel her eyes on me, on my shoulder, on the twin puckered and pinched scars. Doctors say I was insanely, incredibly lucky to have survived my wounds. Movies make it look like a “real hero” can take bullets to the shoulder and keep going, act like it’s nothing. It’s not like that. I should have had surgery. Could have lost the arm. Could have bled out if the bullets had hit an artery. Any number of could’ve scenarios, but somehow I pulled through. There’s a loss of motor control, even still. You get shot, you’re damaged. Plain and simple. But mostly, I’m fine. I forget the scars are there, especially when I’m alone, and then I was focused on my discomfort at being around Reagan. Now she sees the scars. Her eyes move, search. Find the scars from Iraq, shrapnel scars to my back and legs from the grenade. Cut on my bicep where a bullet sliced me, rescuing Hunter.
That grenade really did almost do me in. That was luck, too. Fortunately, the corpsman got to me pretty fast, patched me up and got me to a field hospital. Lost a lot of blood, took some time to heal, but no lasting damage, cycled back to active duty soon enough.
That was then, this is now. Now? I won’t be going back. I can’t. Won’t. I’d rather fucking die than ever lift a rifle again. Than ever see another Afghani face.
I shrug into my shirt, covering the scars.
I don’t want to leave; I like it here. Texas is peaceful, quiet. Open. I feel like I can breathe out here.
But I have to get out of here: Reagan is a potent presence, reminding me of Tom, of the letter. Of the self-serving lie. I see her, and I hear the words of the letter. Thomas, my love….
Shit. I think I whispered those words out loud. She heard; she’s looking at me, staring, eyes curious, shocked, brow furrowed.
“What…what did you say?” she whispers.
“Nothing.” I stop breathing, hoping she’ll let it go.
I’ve mostly stopped reciting the letter, but it still comes out sometimes. The words are burned into my soul, and I just can’t help it. But she can’t know that. I feel this odd, penetrating shame about it. Like I stole something sacred of hers, of Tom’s, like I appropriated something private.
I move away, stepping through the tall grass at the fence line. I walk as fast as I can, my fists clenched. I concentrate on slowing my breathing. I focus on each step, each breath, on the blades of grass, the grain of the wood, the boards sliding past like train tracks. There’s the driveway. Finally. Duck through the lower and middle rungs, jog toward the road. Flee.
Run. Lungs burn, heart pounds. Legs hurt.
God, I’m so fucked up.
The blue Ford rumbles up behind me, past me, brakes squeal. Reagan kicks open the door, leaves it open, crunches through the gravel toward me. “Why—Derek, why’d you run like that?”
So many questions, none of which I can or will answer. “I don’t know. I’m messed up, Reagan. Obviously, I’m not—I’m not good to be around. You have a kid. I don’t belong here. I did what I came to do. That’s it.”
She drags a hand through her hair, a light, hot breeze ruffling the honeyed waves. She’s agitated. At a loss for words. “You have nowhere to go.”
It seems like a non sequitur to me. “So? Not your problem.”
“Tom would’ve made sure you were taken care of. That you had somewhere to go. I can’t just let you wander away alone like this.”<
br />
“Tom’s dead.” It comes out flat, harsh.
She flinches. “I know that.”
I scrub my scalp, inch-long buzz tickling. “Sorry. Shit, I’m so sorry. That came out wrong.”
She shakes her head, turns away. The sun is heating up. Dandelions at the side of the driveway sway in the breeze, send white seeds tumbling. “Look, how about this: I need help. On the farm. The fence you fixed? I’ve been meaning to fix it for months, but I just can’t get ahead enough to do it. There’s so much to do and I—I just can’t do it all. And you have nowhere to go. You were like a brother to Tom, and that means—it means you have a place here.”
I don’t know how to answer. She’s not family, but I don’t think I can go back to my own in Iowa. My parents wouldn’t be able to handle me like I am now. They visited me at the Army hospital in San Antonio. But I was so obviously fucked up that they didn’t stay long. They said I’d always have a place with them, but…I knew better. It’d be uncomfortable at best. My nightmares would keep them up. They’d want to help, and there is no help. They never really understood why I signed up for another term, and I couldn’t adequately explain it. I just knew Barrett and McConnell and the rest were all going to Afghanistan, and I wasn’t about to let them go without me. So I re-upped and went back into combat.
And now look at me.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll stay for a couple of days. Help you get some shit done.”
“I won’t ask you any more questions. I promise.”
I feel my left hand trembling. I squeeze to stop it. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Reagan.”
* * *
REAGAN
He won’t sleep in the workshop. Won’t say why, just says he feels more comfortable in the stall. Hank had an old Army surplus cot stowed away, so I set that up in the stall with a pillow and a couple of blankets, a camping lantern. It’s odd, knowing he’s out there, in the barn, when I’m trying to sleep. I feel guilty, wishing I had better accommodations to offer him than a barn. But I don’t. There are only three bedrooms in the farmhouse: the master, Tommy’s room, and the third bedroom. But that third one…it’s Tom’s, from when he was a kid. When he joined the Corps out of high school, his parents left it the way it was, so he’d have something familiar to come home to, I guess.
Tom and I got married a month before he was scheduled to deploy to Iraq for the first time. He’d finished his infantry MOS training and was rotated home before shipping out. We’d kept in touch while he was in California, via letter and phone call. When he got his leave papers, he hopped the first train to my hometown of Tulsa, showed up at my front door unannounced. Dressed in his finest blues, he took my hand in his, dropped to one knee, and proposed with a white gold and cubic zirconium ring worth maybe a hundred dollars. My parents were standing behind me, furious. I said yes, pulling Tom to his feet and leaping into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and kissing the ever-loving shit out of him, right there in front of Mom and Dad. Since clearly my parents weren’t going to be a part of a wedding, Tom waited on the front sidewalk while I packed two suitcases and called us a cab. We took a Greyhound bus to Houston and had a courthouse wedding. We spent three nights in a hotel in Houston, fucking like jackrabbits. Finally, we made our way to Tom’s family’s farm outside a tiny place called Hempstead. His dad stood on the front porch, waiting for us, a huge man in dusty jeans, a dirty white T-shirt, and Caterpillar boots. He was broad, thick, carrying a beer belly and wearing a bushy blond beard, staring at us with dark eyes. Tom dragged me up the porch steps and stopped in front of his father.
“Dad,” Tom had said, “this is my wife. Reagan.”
Carl Barrett just grunted, nodded at me, and said, “Welcome to the farm. Y’all can take the spare bedroom. Just don’t keep me awake at night.” He then brushed past us on his way to his tractor, swigging from a flask.
He died a little more than two years later, but I’d spent those two years while Tom was in Iraq getting to know Carl, learning to love him like a parent. He was gruff and taciturn, but he was always kind to me. I’d grown up on a horse ranch, so I wasn’t out of place on the farm, and Carl appreciated the help I gave him. When Carl died, I’d made all the arrangements. Tom came back for the funeral, and again between each tour for a few months at a time. Once he was back almost a year before they shipped him back to Iraq, and that was, honestly, the best year of my life. Farming with Tom, riding the north pasture with him, making love in the tall grass, our tethered horses grazing nearby. When he was gone, I learned to manage the farm by myself for the most part, with a lot of help from Hank and his bevy of grandsons.
All that time, in eight years of marriage to Tom, and the three years since, the bedroom where Tom grew up has stayed the same. Gathering dust, except when I can summon the courage to clean it. I know for a fact Derek won’t stay in there. He wouldn’t be able to set foot in that room. I barely can.
Derek has been here for a week. He’s repaired every single foot of fence, fixed the porch steps, and he’s now working on painting the barn. He works like a man possessed, up and working before dawn and staying out until past dark, sometimes working by the light of the truck’s headlights or the lantern. I usually end up bringing food out to him. He refuses to eat with Tommy and me. He avoids Tommy like the plague, actually. Won’t go near him, won’t talk to him. If Tommy’s around, Derek vanishes. I’ve stayed true to my word and haven’t asked any more questions, although they’re burning a hole inside me. There are so many things I want to know.
Today, I’m driving the tractor, towing the baler up and down the last few rows. It’s near dark, and I’m itchy with sweat, exhausted, ready to collapse. And then the tractor quits. Rumbles, slows, then dies. It’s been on its last legs for years now, and this isn’t the first time it’s quit on me. I want to scream. Cry. But I don’t.
I hop down, stomp through the lowering darkness, cursing under my breath, trying to find a center of calmness. The barn is a hulk in the darkness, the shape of a ladder visible against one side, part of one long side wall ready to be painted. I don’t see Derek on the ladder. I hear the creak of the well pump out behind the barn, assume he’s back there washing the paint off his hands. There’s a refrigerator in the workshop, and it’s got another one of my dirty little secrets in it: a secret stash of beer. I never drink at the house or around Tommy. But sometimes, after a hard day’s work, I sneak in here, sit at the workbench, and drink a cold beer. Sometimes two, before I head up to the house.
I need one today.
I pull open the fridge, grab one, and pop the top on the bottle opener mounted to the workbench. I plop down on the stool, hold the sweating bottle to my forehead for a second, then take a long swig. I don’t think twice about pulling up the hem of my T-shirt and wiping the sweat off my forehead. So, the shirt is up, my entire torso bared, when I hear a step and a creaking floorboard. I drop the hem and catch Derek’s gaze at the same time.
He was looking at me.
He backs away. “Sorry. Sorry. Thought I heard someone in here, and I came to check it out.” Scratching the back of his neck, he turns away.
“It’s okay.” It’s not. I felt his gaze on me, on my tight red sports bra, my sweat-covered stomach. I don’t know how I feel about it, how he feels about it. Or what I’m supposed to say, or do.
“Everything okay?” he asks. “You don’t usually come in here, that I’ve seen. In the last week, I mean.”
I shrug, take a drink. “The tractor broke down. I keep some emergency keep-myself-sane beer in here. I was almost done baling the hay, and now it’ll be days before Hank can fix the tractor, so…emergency beer.”
“I can take a look at it in the morning if you want.” He’s determinedly not looking at me. His gaze is on the floor, on the Little League and high school baseball trophies.
Silence.
“Want one?” I gesture with my bottle.
He hesitates. “Um…sure. I guess.”
I ta
ke one from the fridge, open it, and hand it to him. He holds it, stares at it for a long, long time.
“It’s just beer,” I say, confused by his reaction.
“Yeah, I know. But I haven’t had a drink in…a long time. Since before.”
“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have offered if—”
He waves. “No. Nothing like that. It’s not a problem. It’s just been a long time.” He lifts the bottle to his lips, takes a small, measured sip. The look of rapture that crosses his face is priceless. “God, that’s good. I’d forgotten how much I liked beer.”
A few minutes pass in a not-entirely-awkward silence. Derek stays in the doorway, standing.
“There’s another stool, you know,” I say. “You can sit down.”
He eyes the stool, crosses the room, pulls it out, and sits on it. It doesn’t escape my notice that he moved it so he wasn’t too close to me.
He’s not wearing a shirt. I can’t help eyeing his torso, his scars. He’s gained weight in the last week, put on some muscle, a little much-needed body fat to cover the bones. He’s not anywhere near where he used to be, but he’s not gaunt anymore. His hair has grown out, and he’s let the beginnings of a beard cover his jaw.
He scratches at his scalp, at a scar on his head. He notices me watching, drops his hand. “An old scar,” he says. “It itches sometimes.”
“How did you—” I start to ask, then cut myself off. “Sorry. Never mind.”
He swallows some beer, sets the empty bottle down. “It’s fine. They kept my head shaved when I was a prisoner. Except, they weren’t exactly gentle, and they didn’t always use very sharp razors.”
“God, that’s horrible.”
He shrugs. “Nah. It was probably better than getting lice or something.”
There’s an element in his words hinting at much, much worse. I’m torn between offering him another beer and the worry that I might be introducing a potential problem. I know I want another one. I open one, glance at him in question.
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