A Walk in the Sun

by Michelle Zink

  Rose looked up at her. “He’s gone.”

  Marty took the chair next to her. “What do you mean, ‘He’s gone’? Bodhi’s leaving the farm?”

  Rose shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t . . . I don’t think he’d do that to us. Not until the hay is put up. Especially not now, with Dad . . .”

  Marty put her arm around Rose shoulders. “Then tell me what you’re saying.”

  “He thinks this is his fault. He said . . .” She choked back a sob. “He said we were a bad idea, that he couldn’t give me anything.”

  Marty rubbed her back, and Rose had a flash of memory, her mother doing the very same thing when Rose had the flu in ninth grade. “He’s just upset, honey. He’ll come around.”

  “I don’t think so, Aunt Marty. I think he’s always felt this way—like he wasn’t good enough—and now he has an excuse to believe it.”

  Marty took a deep breath, like she was just realizing something important. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I believe he believes it,” Rose said.

  Marty didn’t say anything for a minute. When she finally did speak, there was a note of certainty in her voice that Rose recognized. It was the voice Marty used when she was completely sure of something, when she’d finally figured something out.

  “Then you have to go,” she said. “Tell him he’s wrong.”

  Rose shook her head. “He won’t listen.”

  “Are you going to let that stop you?” Marty asked.

  “I don’t . . . If he won’t . . .”

  Marty took her hand. “You have to try. Go now, before he’s had time to convince himself he did the right thing.”

  “What about Dad?”

  “They gave him something to help him sleep. He’ll be fine, and I’ll stay for a bit. He would want you to do this.” She met Rose’s eyes. “If he were himself, he would want you to do this, and so would your mother.”

  Her mother. Rose thought about her passion and her backbone. She would never let someone she loved walk away. Not without a fight.

  She leaned in to give her aunt a hug. “Thanks, Marty.”

  She hurried out the big sliding doors at the front of the emergency room. By the time she hit the sidewalk she was running.

  It was almost midnight when she parked in front of the house. She had no idea how Bodhi had gotten home, but she said a silent prayer of thanks that he’d thought to follow the ambulance in the truck. Otherwise she would have had to call a cab, and they weren’t exactly easy to find in the areas around Milford.

  The farm was silent, a full moon rising up over the barn. The police had still been here when they left, but now the windows in the house were dark, the driveway in front empty except for the Ford Taurus her dad sometimes drove.

  She didn’t have the heart to face the wreckage inside, or even to think about all the things that had been destroyed. Besides, that’s not why she was here.

  She went straight to the barn, opening the doors as quietly as she could so she wouldn’t startle the animals, or Bodhi if he was sleeping. She thought about Marty’s question, about whether Bodhi was leaving the farm, and panic swelled inside her. What if she was wrong and he was already gone?

  Hurrying to the hayloft, she climbed the ladder, her heart in her throat. The loft came into view a little at a time, and then she was at the top and he was there, lying in bed with his back to her, his shoulders bare over the sheet around his waist.

  She was quiet when she stepped into the loft, but it was impossible to be totally silent. He had to know she was there. She paused. There was so much she wanted to say. So much she wanted to tell him. But all of those things, all of those words, weren’t the most important thing between them. There was something else, a bone-deep affinity that had taken her by surprise, growing and growing until she realized it had been there all along, wrapped tight inside itself like a tiny seedling. That’s why she’d been scared of him in the first place. She knew that now.

  She stepped closer to the bed, her footsteps ringing out on the wood floor. Bodhi’s back was rising and falling too quickly, his breath a match to the racing of her heart.

  She pulled off her boots and drew her sundress over her head. Reaching behind her, she removed the tie from the end of her braid and undid her hair until it fell in loose waves around her bare shoulders. Slipping under the covers, she stretched her body against Bodhi’s bare back, sliding an arm around his waist, before she could change her mind. They lay like that for a few minutes before she dared to speak.

  “Will you look at me?”

  At first she thought he hadn’t heard her, that he really was asleep. But then he turned in her arms so that their faces were only a few inches apart.

  She reached up, put her hands on his face, and looked into his eyes. “It’s too late. Only your leaving can hurt me now.”

  “Rose . . .”

  She lifted herself up on one elbow, her hair falling around them, blocking out the rest of the world. “The truth?”

  “Always,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  She smiled. “I love you, Bodhi Lowell. Stop pretending either of us will be okay without the other one.”

  For a few seconds, she thought he might argue the point. But a moment later a soft sigh escaped his lips, and he pulled her head to his chest.

  “I love you, Rose. So much. And I’m going to do everything I can to prove that to you as long as you’ll let me.”

  She kissed the bare skin on his chest and worked her way up his neck, pausing over his mouth. “You’ll stay, then?”

  She thought she saw hesitation in his eyes, but then he nodded and his mouth was on hers and she forgot about everything but him.

  Forty-Eight

  They spent the next morning cleaning up the mess in the house. Marty was bringing John Darrow home in the afternoon, and Bodhi wanted to make sure everything was ready before he got there. He felt physically ill as they swept the broken shards of china that had belonged to Rose’s mother, as they picked old photographs off the floor, pulling out the broken glass and rehanging them until they could replace the frames. There were times he wanted to run, escape to the barn to avoid facing what his father had done, but he forced himself to help Rose, to clean the blood on the floor where his father had beat up Rose’s dad. It was the only penance he could do for now.

  Rose didn’t say a word. He knew she was hurt by all the damage—almost everything in the Darrow home was old, handed down from one relative or another—but he also knew she would never let him see it. She was protecting him, even while he wanted to protect her.

  He thought about the plane ticket he’d bought for her. Today he would make things right with Marty and John Darrow. Then he would ask Rose to come to Europe with him. They would wear backpacks and squish together in twin beds in cheap hostels. They would try food they’d never heard of and take corny pictures together. They would leave behind their sadness and loss until they could both come back whole.

  He would stay with her like he’d promised. Just not here.

  Rose looked around the living room and straightened one last pillow. “I think that’s about it.”

  “It looks good,” Bodhi said. “And I’m going to replace all of those broken frames.”

  She slid an arm around his waist. “Don’t be silly. Who needs glass in a picture frame anyway?”

  “But all that stuff . . .” He looked down at the two trash bags by their feet. “It meant something to you.”

  She hesitated a little before nodding. “I won’t lie and say that it didn’t. But it doesn’t mean as much to me as my dad does, or you. Nowhere close. And you know what? I’m starting to think we sometimes have to lose things to remember what really matters.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “You’re amazing, Rose Darrow. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  She looked up at him, fluttering her eyelashes dramatically. “Once or twice.”

  He swatted her bottom playfully. “I’m going to head
to the barn.”

  “But my dad will be home soon! You have to say hello.”

  “I’ll be back, but I think you should get him settled first.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He bent his head and touched his lips to hers. “I love you.”

  She smiled. “I still can’t believe it’s real when you say that.”

  “Believe it. Nothing’s ever been more true.”

  He stepped away, holding her hand until distance made it impossible to hold it any longer.

  “See you later,” Rose said.

  He nodded. “You will.”

  He left through the front door and made his way across the drive to the barn. When he got there, he took a quick shower in the bathroom next to the bunk room and headed for the loft in his towel. He was crossing the room to the plastic bin that held his clean clothes when he stopped, his feet suddenly frozen to the ground.

  The air felt charged with presence, like someone had just been there. He wasn’t afraid. There was nowhere to hide, and besides, who would be in his room now that his father was behind bars? But he walked slowly into the room anyway, really looking at everything, trying to figure out what had changed.

  He checked his pack first—everything was there—and then moved on to his clothes and the money he kept stashed in an old coffee can. Everything was where it should be, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that the space had been inexorably altered.

  He changed into clean clothes, still fighting the sensation that someone else had been in the loft. Pacing the floor a few times, he finally opened up his computer, looking for a distraction until he could be sure Rose’s dad was home and settled. The first thing he did was change his email address. He didn’t want reminders of the past. No more thinking about his father and where he was and what he was doing. He wished Christine and all the people he’d met along the way well, but he was going to start fresh, and he was going to do it with Rose Darrow. He’d been stupid to think he could leave her behind, to think that his words would separate them. They would always belong to each other, whatever he said.

  He pulled up some of the hostels he’d bookmarked for his trip, double-checking to make sure they were good enough for Rose. She wouldn’t care, but he didn’t want her staying in some flea-ridden dump. When he was satisfied that cheap didn’t necessarily mean dirty, he sat back in the chair, his stomach clenching.

  What if she said no? He hadn’t let himself think about it, but there was no guarantee she’d want to go with him. She’d worry about her dad—that was for sure—but he’d tell her she deserved this. That she deserved to live for herself now. Still, there was no way to be sure she’d agree.

  Shutting the computer, he jumped up from the chair and wiped his palms on his jeans. What he had to do next wouldn’t be easy, but it seemed like nothing right ever was. Nothing but Rose. Loving her was the one easy, simple thing he’d ever done.

  Marty’s car was still out front when he made his way up the walkway to the house. When he got to the front door, he took a deep breath and rapped on the wood frame of the screen.

  Rose’s face appeared on the other side a moment later. She opened the door and smiled. “I thought you’d finally gotten used to coming in without knocking.”

  “This isn’t a social call,” he said.

  She scowled a little. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  “I’d like to speak to your father.”

  She opened the door wider. “Come in.”

  He nodded and stepped through the door, then followed Rose down the hall to the living room. She looked back at him nervously, and he smiled to try and ease her mind.

  Marty was curled up on one end of the couch. Rose’s dad sat on the other. A bandage covered half his forehead, and one eye was swollen and purple. He started to rise when Bodhi came into the room.

  “Please, sir,” Bodhi said, holding up both hands. “No need to get up.”

  John eased himself back onto the couch with the slow movements of a man whose whole body hurt.

  “Have a seat, Bodhi,” Marty said.

  Bodhi shook his head. “I’ll stand while I say what I have to say, but thank you.”

  “Okay, then,” she said.

  Bodhi wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and looked at John Darrow. “I came to apologize, sir. I—” John started to interrupt him, but he continued. “Please. I just . . . I need to say this.”

  John nodded.

  “I know you’ll say it wasn’t my fault, that I’m not responsible for the things my dad did, but he came here a couple of days ago, and the truth is, I should have known something like this might happen.” He looked down at his boots. “He’s not . . . well, he’s not a good man. Not like you.” He forced himself to look up at Rose’s dad. “I should have said something to you or to the police so you could keep an eye out. You’ve been nothing but good to me, you and Rose and Marty.” He let his gaze slide to Marty before looking back at John. “I promise that your faith in me isn’t misplaced. I’ll never let anything bad happen here again. I hope you can both forgive me.”

  For a minute, no one said anything. Then John slowly got to his feet and held out his hand. Bodhi took it.

  “Son, no man is responsible for another man’s actions. That you’re willing to take responsibility for not saying anything means a lot, but that’s as far as your part in it goes.” John gave his hand a shake, then clapped him gently on the shoulder. “I never did hold to the belief that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. It’s been my experience that every man has more than one chance to turn things around for himself. From what I can see, you’ve done a fine job of it. Any man would be proud to call you their son.”

  Bodhi blinked back the sting of tears. “Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me.”

  Marty stood, crossing the small distance between them and wrapping Bodhi in a hug.

  “All is well,” she said in his ear. “You’re doing just fine.” She stepped back and looked at him with a smile. “Now sit down, will you?”

  They all laughed as Rose’s hand slid into his.

  Forty-Nine

  Rose stopped on her way to the barn, looking out across the field where Bodhi was running the baler, picking up all the loose hay and turning it into the rectangular bales that could be put up by one or two people. She couldn’t help smiling, even though he probably wasn’t watching her.

  She could tell that her dad had been impressed by Bodhi last night, by the fact that Bodhi had apologized to him man-to-man. She still didn’t know what was in the cards for them long term, but Bodhi had said he would stay. For the first time, she had faith that they would find a way to make it work. They belonged together. That was all that mattered. Everything else could be figured out.

  She continued to the barn, planning to take Raven for a run to the pond. Throwing open the door, she stepped inside and started down the row. Coco stared at her as she approached, snuffling a little when Rose came close.

  “Hey, girl,” she said, reaching into her pocket for an apple. “Want to try one of these today?”

  Coco sniffed at the fruit, then lifted her head in a gesture of disdain. Hesitating, Rose lifted her arms up over the stanchion door and smoothed the hair between Coco’s eyes. “Beautiful, strong girl . . . Such a beautiful, strong girl.”

  The horse whinnied a little, and Rose looked into her eyes, wondering if she still remembered Rose’s mother. If she was aware of the loss in a tangible way. If the horse could remember the way her mother spoke or felt on her back, or if the loss was visceral, a feeling rather than knowledge. Would that be better? Would it make it easier?

  Rose walked to the wall behind her and took a lead off one of the hooks. Then she lifted the latch on the door, and stepped inside.

  At first, Coco was nervous around her, sidestepping and chuffing like she wasn’t sure what was going on. But Rose moved slowly, stroking the horse’s neck and repeating her mother’s words until the animal calmed down
.

  She led Coco to the tack room and saddled her, then brought her outside. Rose eased her body over the animal’s flank, then sat still, giving Coco time to adjust to the weight on her back. When Rose was sure the animal was comfortable, she eased up on the reins and gave her tongue a click.

  The horse ambled forward, slowly at first, and then a little faster so that Rose had to rein her in to keep her from breaking into a run. Rose guided her to the field at the back of the house before giving her enough lead to break into a gallop. The horse took off like a shot, and Rose gave her yet more lead, letting her run around the field, feeling the horse’s powerful muscles flexing under her thighs. The summer wind loosened some of the hair in Rose’s braid, and she laughed out loud as it whipped around her face.

  She let Coco wear herself out, slowing down to a canter and then a trot, before leading her across the dirt road to the orchard. They made their way through the trees, heavy with fruit, the apples still small and ripening, the deep mauve of the peaches covered in soft fuzz. She could feel her mother’s presence, could hear her whisper.

  Beautiful, strong girl . . . Such a beautiful, strong girl.

  She was smiling as they ascended the hill leading to the pond. She would give Coco time to stop and drink. Then they would return to the farm and she’d see if Bodhi wanted to come back with her for an evening swim. He would hold her, his body slick against hers. His mouth would taste like the hay he chewed when he drove the tractor, and like the water that bubbled up from a spring under the pond.

  But when she got to the top of the hill, she saw that someone else was already there.

  Will.

  He sat on the bank with his back to her, his hat next to him on the grass. She stopped Coco’s progress. She didn’t want to fight with Will. But not speaking to each other was just as bad. Maybe he’d calmed down now that some time had passed. Maybe they could work it out.

  She nudged Coco into motion, and the horse picked her way down the hill. Will didn’t look at her, not when she tied Coco to a tree by the water or when she lowered herself to the grass next to him.