Читать книгу 142 Ostriches - April Davila - Страница 11

FOUR

In the mudroom of the main house, Uncle Scott hunched over a wooden crate containing twenty-eight custom license plates. He jumped when I burst in out of the downpour but recovered quickly. I hung my dripping raincoat on a hook near the door and joined him, suppressing the urge to reach out for a hug. That wasn’t something we did anymore. Instead, I shifted my attention to the collection of license plates stacked front to back, paint chipping and rust taking hold in the cracks. It was my mother’s inheritance. I had retrieved it from the barn the day before in anticipation of her arrival, a move that seemed naïve now that she was a no-show.

Uncle Scott’s hair was tucked behind his ears. Up close, I could see more clearly the signs of health I had glimpsed at the church. His eyes were relaxed, if glum, and his skin was clear. I felt a familiar flicker of hope that he hadn’t been lying about being sober. His father’s gold watch peeked out from under his shirtsleeve, the sum total of what Grandma Helen had left him. It wasn’t much, but it held a lot of sentimental value.

“No word from your mom?” he asked. He was wearing sneakers, and the cuffs of his slacks were wet. Marlboro smoke hung on his clothes. He had probably been outside smoking while I was in the corral.

“No.” The wet ends of my hair stuck to my face, and I could feel raindrops on my cheeks like cold freckles. The stuffy house made me want to go right back outside until everyone left.

“Live and let live, right?”

It was one of his NA catchphrases, I knew, but it didn’t seem to fit the situation. “Right.”

I was glad he had come. If he’d been on a bender, we likely wouldn’t have been able to track him down. He might have gone months not knowing about his mother’s death.

I ran my hand over the license plates and let my fingers walk their blunt metal edges. Flipping through the collection was like time-traveling on the highway: the way the colors shifted from authoritative blue to reflective white, the lettering of “California” at the top evolving from the utilitarian imprint of the seventies to the overly ornate art deco of the eighties to the painted-on red cursive that had been the norm since the nineties.

Uncle Scott pulled one from the middle of the stack. It was blue, with tall, yellow letters reading USDFORC. On the back, Grandma Helen had written Honda CVCC—followed from Sombra to Baker 1982. “I remember this one,” he said.

He would have been a kid then. I could imagine him sitting next to her on the bench seat of the truck as she followed that car, patiently waiting until the driver left it unattended long enough for her to swipe the plate. She had never been a particular fan of Star Wars. She must have nabbed that one just for him.

“Joe Jared made an offer?” Uncle Scott asked, surprising me. The manila envelope was still folded into the pocket of the raincoat. It felt like a dirty secret. But Uncle Scott knew that Joe Jared had wanted to buy the ranch for years. There was no reason to lie.

“Yeah.”

He was studying the blue license plate with more attention than was really warranted. I worried. The ranch had been his childhood home. But Uncle Scott’s life had been divided by meth. There was before and there was after. I didn’t know what, if anything, the ranch meant to my uncle anymore.

“Fuck that guy,” he said. “Today of all days.” His voice was scratchy.

“Does Aunt Christine know you’re here?” I peered past him, through the open doorway to the living room, where Aunt Christine stood making conversation. She pressed her thumbs into the small of her back and shifted her swollen body from one foot to the other. Devon had retreated to the corner of the room, where a few older men sipped beers and talked in hushed voices. Dim light gave the place a somber glow. The drumming of the rain slipped beneath the hum of subdued chatter and I could smell coffee.

“She agreed I could come if I brought Matt to babysit.”

Matt, with his stupid topknot, existed apart from the other guests. He had a narrow face and square brows. The tattoos on his arms rolled down past the cuffs of his sleeves, and I knew he wore a leather band around his wrist with the word “freedom” carved into it. In his hand was a napkin stacked with grapes and cheese.

He popped a cube of cheddar into his mouth and glanced around the room. He was wildly out of place among my aunt’s church friends, with their threadbare blouses and perfectly pinned hair. But he held himself as comfortably as a crow on a crowded tree branch, surprisingly at ease for someone with such a sordid history. The stories of Matt’s teenage fuckups were fairly legendary in Sombra, but he had been sober for fifteen years and living in Victorville for almost twenty. He didn’t come around Sombra all that often. I had only ever known him as my uncle’s best friend, the guy who had pulled him up out of the muck of addiction time and time again. Even so, I didn’t like him. He thought he was better than everyone around him because he was sober, like getting through the day without getting fucked up was some major accomplishment. He turned toward me and I looked away.

“Uncle Scott,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “I’m selling the ranch.” I was glad to be removed from the other guests. I wasn’t ready to share the news with the whole town. “It’s not official yet, but that’s why Joe Jared was here. I asked him to come.”

He stared at me, his expression shifting from confusion to anger. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked, joining us in the mudroom. I wedged myself between the washing machine and the wall. The space wasn’t big enough for the three of us. I wished Matt would mind his own business.

I tried to stick my hands into my pockets, but my dress didn’t have any. I shifted to brace my fists on my hips, but that felt weirdly aggressive, so I dropped my arms and stood there feeling awkward. “I was just telling Uncle Scott that I’m selling the ranch.”

Matt’s eyebrows lifted and he turned to Uncle Scott, assessing the response that was forming in his face and posture.

“Tallulah,” my uncle finally said. “You can’t.”

“I can, actually.” I wasn’t proud of it, but I had made my decision. If I wasn’t staying for Grandma Helen, I certainly wasn’t staying for him. I peered again through the open door into the living room to be sure no one had caught wind of our conversation. The guests continued to talk in low voices, oblivious to the three of us tucked away in the mudroom.

“But she never would have left it to you if she’d known you’d sell it.”

“She knew. I have to be in Montana by the end of August.” I hadn’t told Uncle Scott about the Forest Service. “I got a job. Grandma Helen knew. I have to go. I want to go.”

Uncle Scott tipped his head to one side, like he couldn’t quite comprehend the idea that I would sell.

Matt jumped in on his behalf. “Tallulah, what if—”

“How does this concern you?”

“Those birds were her life,” Uncle Scott said.

“Yeah, well, she gave that up too, didn’t she?” I covered my mouth with my hand, shocked at the bitterness I heard in my own voice. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I pushed past the two men, out into the living room through the small crowd of Grandma Helen’s friends and Aunt Christine’s church buddies. I didn’t want to talk to any of them. Despite my earlier promise to be present and polite, I just couldn’t summon the energy. The best thing for everyone would be if I went up to my room and waited out the whole thing. I kept my eyes down so as not to invite conversation and was halfway to the stairs when I was pulled off-balance into the fleshy pink arms of Annie Schmidt.

The polyester of her dress reeked of eager floral perfume. She patted my hair. “I am so sorry for your loss. I have always cared about you,” she said. “If you need anything, anything at all, well, I want you to call me.” She held me out at arm’s length. Her gray hair was done up in a soft bun. “When Mary’s mother died, well, I was over there just about every night.”

The short-haired women next to her nodded. “That’s right. She was.”

Uncle Scott grabbed my elbow and pulled me away from Annie’s embrace. “Sorry,” he mumbled with hardly a glance in her direction. Annie and her friends looked like they’d been slapped. Leaning close, he whispered, “It’s not fair you get everything.”

He was right. It wasn’t fair, but I hadn’t been expecting to defend Grandma Helen’s decisions. I gritted my teeth and tried to pull away. Uncle Scott tightened his grip on my arm and yanked me so close that I could feel his muggy breath on my face. It smelled of cigarettes.

“What is going on over here?” Aunt Christine said in an annoyed whisper. She eyed the guests in close proximity and flashed an unconvincing smile.

“How come she gets everything?” Uncle Scott said, dropping my arm. “It’s not fair.” Matt appeared by his side. Our little family drama was becoming less and less private by the second.

“You sound like a dang child,” my aunt said, her voice still low. “Stop complaining and take some responsibility for yourself.”

“I’ve been sober five months.”

“Yeah, well, gold star for you, huh?”

“Aunt Christine,” I jumped in. “Don’t.”

She closed the space between her and her brother. “You want to talk about unfair?” she hissed. “Let’s talk about you, with no responsibilities at all, looking for us to get all excited about you doing what we all do every dang day. Life is hard, Scott, but we deal. We don’t go running off to get high.”

“Stop,” I said, unsure of how I had fallen into the position of defending the uncle I’d been arguing with just moments before.

“Dude, we should go,” Matt said.

By then, the room was so hushed, I could hear the patter of rain on the windows and the singsong voices of my cousins stomping in the puddles outside.

“What’d you get?” Uncle Scott asked his sister, holding up his wrist to display his father’s timepiece. “I got a watch.”

“Scott, come on,” Matt said, pressing his shoulder into Uncle Scott’s.

“Go home,” Aunt Christine said, meeting her brother’s stare without flinching. Matt gave up any pretense of a polite exit and dragged Uncle Scott through the room. The guests cleared a path, their faces full of disdain and pity.

“She got all this.” He waved his arms while Matt shoved him, more forcefully now, toward the door. “What do you figure it’s worth?”

“You have no sense of decency,” Aunt Christine spat at him. “We are saying goodbye to our mother.”

Uncle Scott straightened and lifted his chin, his obstinate glare passing over everyone present.

“Go on,” Aunt Christine said. “Get out.”

Uncle Scott spun and left the house with Matt right behind him. Aunt Christine and I followed them to the door and watched them cross through the rain. Matt bent his neck against the storm, but Uncle Scott stomped across the driveway, defiant even of the weather.

The girls, who had been catching raindrops on their tongues, watched as Uncle Scott trudged to the passenger side of Matt’s car. Their drenched dresses hung from their knobby shoulders. Their blond hair hung in wet ropes.

Uncle Scott scowled at me. I forced myself not to flinch. He dropped into the car and his face blurred behind the wet glass. I saw the flash of a lighter and the red ember of a freshly lit cigarette.

“Girls,” Aunt Christine said, her voice firm, “get inside.” The girls knew better than to argue. They filed into the house between Aunt Christine and me.

Outwardly, Aunt Christine maintained her calm, but as she held the screen door open for her daughters, I noticed her hands trembling. She faced me and gave a weak smile. “Hang in there,” she said. Then she grabbed my shoulders to give them a squeeze, and any hint of a tremor had vanished. Her grip was strong and unwavering.

“You okay?” Devon asked, coming up beside me and slipping an arm around my waist. I nodded and leaned in to him.

Aunt Christine herded her girls up the stairs to change into dry clothes. The wooden floor strained under their weight as they rounded the landing at the top and they marched in a line past Grandma Helen’s room at the back of the house, the adjacent room that had once been Uncle Scott’s. The room in the middle was mine. At the front of the house, overlooking the walnut tree, was the room that had belonged to Aunt Christine before she married and left home. Like the good mom she was, she had brought a change of clothes for the girls, knowing they would tire quickly of their formal attire. Perhaps she had even anticipated their playing in the rain. It would be just like her to see that coming.

I found myself a little jealous that she had something to do, a task to focus on that took her away from all the well-meaning people in the living room. A few of the women from her church offered tea to the rest of the guests. I accepted a mug and sat with Devon on the couch, thankful that he didn’t feel compelled to make conversation.

Later that night, after we said goodbye to the last of the guests, Aunt Christine bustled around the kitchen collecting used paper cups, stacking one into the next to form a tall tower. Mrs. Michaels, the chicken lady, had offered to help Uncle Todd take the girls home and navigate bedtime routines. He had eagerly accepted her offer and I was grateful to have Aunt Christine stay out at the ranch until everyone was gone. It was a rare glimpse of her without her girls. She seemed somehow adrift.

Outside, the rain had stopped, but the sky still hung low and sullen. By morning, I knew, it would be as if the storm had never happened. The temperature would climb back up into the triple digits, and the desert animals would hide in their underground homes to stay cool.

Devon and I sat at the table, sharing a splash of whiskey from a mug with an ostrich on the side of it. The handle was painted to resemble the bird’s neck, reaching down to stick its head in the sand. The whiskey left a honey-sweet taste in my mouth. I plucked a butter cookie from a tin on the table and washed it down with another sip. From behind the couch, Griffith poked his nose out to survey the room. He was a gray, three-legged cat with hair so short he looked almost naked, and he hated having people in the house. I could see him sizing up Aunt Christine, searching expectantly for the girls. Griffith despised the girls.

“Well,” Aunt Christine said, pausing in her cleaning to serve herself a plate of lasagna. “That all went about as well as could be expected.” She sat down and took a few dainty bites. “Could have guessed that Scott would make a scene.”

I studied her profile, trying to decide if she was upset. It had been my idea to invite him to the reception.

“He probably needs money,” she continued, not angry so much as tired. “I know your grandma lent him a fair amount over the years, but that’s hardly your responsibility.”

“Do you worry about him?” I asked, grabbing another cookie from the tin.

She sighed. “He is in my prayers every night.”

I never would have guessed. I wondered if, like me, she had the urge to hug him when she saw him, or if she had hardened beyond such impulses. We had all built up defenses where Uncle Scott was concerned. We had to, because we just never knew when he was lying. But I was painfully aware that the walls we built to protect ourselves had isolated Uncle Scott. His mother had died, and instead of being at the house with us, he had stormed off. I was grateful he at least had Matt.

Aunt Christine reached over to pat my hand. “Don’t let him get to you. This is your home. I’d have been shocked if your grandma hadn’t left everything to you.”

I didn’t know what she made of Joe Jared’s visit, or if she’d even noticed it, but apparently, it wasn’t as clear a sign to her as it had been to Uncle Scott. Unlike her brother, Aunt Christine didn’t stress about money. Her husband worked in commercial real estate, ran a thriving business he had taken over from his father a decade before. They hadn’t always been rich, but it had been several years since Aunt Christine had clipped a coupon. They lived in a six-bedroom mansion on the outskirts of Victorville and she spent her days focused on family. She packed lunches, crafted scrapbooks, and brought the girls out to the ranch once a week for a family dinner she cooked in our kitchen. Of all of us, I expected Aunt Christine would be the most saddened to see the ranch sold. I hadn’t thought Uncle Scott would care at all, and he had straight-up freaked out. I would have to think of a way to break it to her gently, give her plenty of time to pack up family photos and things. Still, nothing had been finalized, and I didn’t want to upset her if there was a chance the deal could fall through. I thought of the eggs.

If Joe Jared decided not to buy the ranch, it would take months, if not years, to arrange for the sale and slaughter of all 142 birds. I didn’t have the relationships set up for that line of business. And only after all Wishbone Ranch business was wrapped up could I go about trying to sell the house with its forty acres. By then, the job in Montana would certainly be filled by someone else.

No. The sale would go through. I would make sure of it. And I would tell Aunt Christine about it once Joe Jared’s lawyers delivered the final contract and everything was official. I didn’t want to upset her unnecessarily. She had so much on her mind.

I gazed at the urn that rested on the kitchen counter beside the vase of white lilies from the church. The dark wood had been polished and oiled until the whorls of the grain resembled a slick, topographical map. It looked far too small to contain the remains of a woman who had been such a huge part of my life.

I took another sip of whiskey and slid the mug to Devon.

Aunt Christine finished her lasagna and hoisted herself from her chair with a sigh. Over on the couch, the cat flinched and came up on his one front paw like he might bolt. “I should go,” she said, tossing her paper plate into the trash. Griffith, deciding there was no cause for alarm, settled back down. Before leaving, Aunt Christine rested her hands on the sides of the urn. She closed her eyes, and I saw her lips move—whether in prayer or goodbye, I couldn’t tell.

I followed her out to the minivan. Neither of us said a word. Our footsteps on the gravel driveway were muffled by the low clouds. It took her a minute to crawl up into the driver’s seat and stretch the belt around her giant middle. She rolled down her window. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” she said in a practiced way, “and lean not on your own understanding.”

I hated when she spouted Scripture at me. The borrowed words put distance between us, like I wasn’t really talking to my aunt anymore at all. And what did that quote even mean? Did she really believe I should disregard my own understanding of things? Was God supposed to swoop in and tell me what to do like I was fucking Noah?

She seemed to sense my irritation and dropped the sermon. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she said and reached through the window to take my hand in hers. “You take care of yourself, Tallulah, and I’ll see you for dinner on Wednesday, same as always.”

It surprised me how relieved I was to hear her say that. “Good night, Aunt Christine.”

“Good night, Tallulah,” she said and put the minivan in gear. Her headlights burrowed a tunnel through the night. I watched her drive away, the darkness caving in behind her as she went.

I stared in the direction of the road long after Aunt Christine’s van disappeared. Quiet returned to the ranch, and I was glad for it, but a nagging sense that something was missing persisted. It was my mom. I had actually expected her to show. Some small, foolish part of me still held out hope that she would appear, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting in her hair and a dozen excuses at the ready for why she had missed her own mother’s funeral.

I had to remind myself that she was not sentimental. Mom didn’t send cards. She didn’t keep old photographs. And she certainly didn’t come for visits. It had been stupid to think that Grandma Helen’s death would bring her home, no matter what she had said over the phone. My mom hadn’t set foot on the ranch since the night she’d hopped onto her boyfriend’s motorcycle and run off to Los Angeles, five months pregnant with me.

She had never been interested in the family business. As a kid, I knew she grew up on an ostrich ranch in the desert, but she left out a lot of details—like the fact that I had an aunt and uncle. It wasn’t until second grade, when my schoolmates and I drew family trees to put up on the classroom wall, that the question of extended family even occurred to me.

In class, I wrote my name in orange crayon over the photocopied trunk of a large tree, and then, as instructed, I drew two lines in a Y to form the branches of the tree. Where one line ended, I wrote “Laura Jones” for my mom, but while the rest of the kids continued working, adding fathers, grandparents, and cousins, I had nothing. The teacher suggested I finish it at home.

When I showed my mom, she tore a page from a notebook and told me to redraw the tree, but I hesitated. We were supposed to use the sheet our teacher had given us.

Irritated, she snatched the lined paper from my hand and held it over the original to trace the shape of the tree. “See,” she said. “Perfect.”

It wasn’t perfect. The lined paper was all wrong and the frayed edge where she’d torn the page from the notebook looked sloppy.

When I hesitated, she rolled her eyes and wrote my name across the trunk of the tree. She replaced the Y above my name with a single line up to her name and added a line up from her to a barbell of Grandma Helen and Grandpa Hank.

I wrinkled my nose, skeptical, and asked, “That’s it?” At which point she conceded and added two more names: Scott and Christine, her brother and sister. It was the first time she’d ever mentioned them. When I asked, she said Uncle Scott was older than she was and Aunt Christine was younger, but when I wanted to know more, she waved her hand dismissively and said, “I don’t even know anymore.” Then she poured herself another glass of wine and left the room, which was a pretty good sign that she wanted the conversation to be over. But I followed her into her bedroom.

“Who was my father?”

She set the glass on her dresser and stripped off her shirt. “It’s not important,” she said, standing there in her bra and flipping through the clothes in her closet. She yanked a low-cut, magenta top from its hanger and pulled it on. “The only people that matter are you”—she reached out to touch my chin—“and me.”

I flopped onto her bed. “But I want to know.”

“There’s nothing to know.” An edge came into her voice then, a subtle warning. She grabbed her wine and swallowed half the liquid in one gulp. In a pile on the floor, she found a studded belt. She swapped her slippers for three-inch heels.

I got the message, that I should drop it. Persisting would be bullying, and Mom hated being pressured to do or talk about anything she didn’t want to. Not that she would hit me. When I was little, I used to wish she would hit me. With a fat lip or a bruised cheekbone, I expected I could go to the school nurse and gorge myself on sympathy, but my mom’s response to anything unpleasant was to distance herself from it. When we fought, when I couldn’t appease her, she would disappear. For days afterward, I wouldn’t see her. She would leave the apartment before I got home from school and return after I was asleep. In the mornings, I would hear the click of the bathroom door, notice her footsteps in the hallway, but she was like a ghost, and I was left aching for her to take solid form again.

I considered her nearly empty wineglass, tried to guess how many more questions she would tolerate. Because even as a second grader, I knew that babies came from having sex, and that sex, as mysterious as it was, happened between people who liked each other. She had cared about my father at some point. It seemed wildly unfair that she wouldn’t tell me anything about him. “All I want is a name.”

“Let it go, Tallulah. He left. That’s all there is to say about it.” Her rings clanked against the wineglass as she grabbed it and vanished into the bathroom. I stayed frozen there on the bed, waiting. Waiting to see if she would speak to me when she came out. Waiting to see if she would look past me as if I wasn’t there. Waiting to find out just how much my curiosity had set her off.

Half an hour later, she emerged. Her dreadlocks were pinned into a large bun on the top of her head, and gold earrings dangled past her chin. Her cheekbones were dusted pink, but the deep red of her lips made the rest of her face comparatively pale. She collected her things and kissed me. I felt the print of lipstick on my forehead and a sense of security washed over me. “What are you going to watch?” she asked.

“Family Guy.” That was a lie. I would watch Unsolved Mysteries, same as every night. It gave me nightmares, but I couldn’t resist.

“Don’t stay up too late,” she said, her voice light. “And don’t unlock the door for anyone.”

As soon as she left, I went to her bedroom to snoop through her drawers, hoping for a clue as to who my father was, but there was nothing. Not a snapshot or love letter or anything. If evidence of my father had ever existed, she’d long since thrown it out. For my mom, once someone was in the past, they simply didn’t exist anymore. She didn’t think twice about losing people because they were all, friends and lovers alike, entirely replaceable.

Every time we moved into a new apartment, which was pretty often, she would linger outside smoking until someone bummed a smoke or asked if she was new in the building. Within a day, she’d have a brand-new group of best friends. Other single moms were usually the first to come, but men flocked to her too. Parties raged into the night. Then one day, usually without warning, my mom would simply announce that it was time to go.

One time a friend of hers, a woman I could only recall as having a cascade of silky, dark hair and a necklace with a gold cross on it, asked what we did for childcare while my mom was bartending at night. The question caught my attention, though I was watching TV and pretended not to hear it. My mom told her I was fine staying home by myself. “But she’s only seven,” her friend said. That was the last I remembered of her. A week later, my mom found a new boyfriend, and we moved into his apartment on 14th Avenue in Oakland. It had rust-colored carpet and I slept on a futon in a small room off the kitchen.

Moving always signified a fresh break for my mom, and her genuine enthusiasm for the good things ahead made the changes feel like an adventure. Anyone from before was a hindrance to that, something to be put behind us and forgotten.

Standing there in the driveway of the ranch, I forced myself to turn from the emptiness of the night. My mom wasn’t coming. The motion light over the barn clicked on, and a blaze of white light illuminated a perfect half circle outside the door. Abigail was kind enough not to peck at me while I unlatched the stall to let her wander out into the night. I fed the goats and filled the dog’s water bowl. Back inside the house, Devon was finishing up the last of the dishes, drying a serving platter with an old dish towel.

“Stop it,” I said, closing the door behind me. “Seriously, no more cleaning.”

He dropped the towel onto the countertop and I pressed myself into his body, resting my face against the cool fabric of his formal shirt. My head fit neatly under his chin. I wanted to lose myself in the clean smell of his skin. I kissed his neck, then his jaw where the slightest bit of stubble was forming. I found his lips with mine. His mouth tasted of whiskey and lemon.

I undid the top button on his shirt, smiling because I’d never done that before. Devon always wore T-shirts. There was something endearing about the button-down, but it slowed my progress. I pulled away from him to undo the remaining buttons, and he kissed my neck.

He lifted off my dress in one swift motion and pinned me against the kitchen counter. He scooped me up onto the tile and I felt the cold through my underwear, a sharp contrast to the heat created where our skin pressed together. I closed my eyes, enjoyed his strong hands on my hips. It had been such a terribly depressing week. Not even a week. Four days. I didn’t want to think about any of it. I wrapped my legs around him to pull him closer, found the buckle of his belt, and undid it.

“You’re selling the ranch,” he said between kisses. The words came out hot against my neck. It wasn’t a question. “That’s why that big guy was here, why Scott was upset.”

I pushed his unbuttoned shirt over his arms and leaned against him, the fabric of my bra pressing into his skin. I traced my fingers up his back, tickling his spine in a way I knew he liked. “Just talking.” It was true. Nothing had been signed. I kissed him, hoping to distract him from that conversation.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He leaned away, pulling his hands free of his sleeves. “You never tell me anything.”

“I told you,” I said and tried to draw him in for another kiss, but he stiffened. I slumped and rested my head against the cabinet. “I’m supposed to be in Montana at the end of the month.”

“You said a contract job.” His limp hands slid down my body until they were resting on the counter on either side of me. “A few months at most, you said. Selling the ranch sounds like you’re heading out for good.”

I untangled my legs from around him and slid down from the counter. “Things have changed.” I grabbed my dress from the floor and went up the stairs.

Devon followed. I could hear his belt buckle jangling behind me. “When were you planning on telling me?”

“I’m telling you now,” I said over my shoulder.

“Because I asked.” We’d had different versions of this argument before. He always insisted I was holding out on him, when usually it was just that I didn’t see the point in sharing every damn thought that popped into my mind. When something was important, I would tell him, but most things, frankly, weren’t that important.

I hesitated at the top of the stairs. “What do you want me to say, Devon?” But even as I spoke, I knew what he wanted to hear.

He held up his hands the way I would approach an agitated ostrich in the corral. “Don’t freak out.”

I groaned and spun toward my bedroom.

Devon was right behind me. “My mom was twenty-four when she married my dad. It’s not all so young.”

“It’s not all so old either.” I threw my dress into the corner of my room and undid my bra. I pulled on the oversize T-shirt I used as a nightgown.

“All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t be so unusual, us getting married.” His voice softened. “People do it all the time.”

I didn’t put much stock in marriage. At best, you got what my Aunt Christine had: a business arrangement that left you home alone with a houseful of kids. At worst, you lived a life bent by compromise until you woke up one day worn-out and bitter because you let someone talk you into a life you never wanted in the first place.

He sat on the end of the bed, then reached up and took my hand. He kissed it. “I only want to know what’s going on in your head,” he said. “Because from out here, it kinda seems like you’re fixing to bail.”

“I’m not bailing on you,” I said, sitting down next to him. But we both knew that wasn’t exactly true. Part of the lure of the forestry job was that it was decidedly a step away from marriage and kids, the two things Devon wanted. For him, those things were the natural next phase of life.

“We don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he said and kissed my hand again. “But can you try to keep me in the loop? I want to know what’s going on.” He kissed the skin on the inside of my arm, being careful to avoid the welts the ostriches had given me. He pushed up the baggy sleeve of my nightshirt and brought his lips to my shoulder. It was a fair request. I really didn’t mean to keep things from him so often.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “For not telling you.”

We kissed again. I helped him out of his pants and left them in a pile on the floor. I rolled onto him and my hair fell in his face. He traced my forehead with his thumb and gathered the hair behind my neck. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” I said and felt an overwhelming guilt for all the things I wasn’t saying. How could I explain that I needed to leave? I needed to go out into the world and stand in a place of my own choosing. Devon wouldn’t understand that. He had chosen the cement plant. He had his own apartment. He was building a life that worked for him. I wanted that for myself: to make choices and know that I was responsible for all the good or bad that came of them. I’d spent my life doing what other people wanted me to do. I finally had a chance to do something on my own and I wasn’t going to give that up.

He kissed me and I closed my eyes. Everything was a mess, but there was nothing I could do about any of it right then. I ran my fingers through his hair and forgot myself in the feel of him for just a little while.