7. Jagger
My neck twinges as I reach for the chicken feed, and I roll it around a few times looking for relief. Damn couch wasn’t made for a grown man to sleep on. I ended up on the rug on the floor with Minty pressed against me for company and a cushion for a pillow.
I’ve slept in worse places when I was in the military, but it was the woman in my bed upstairs that kept me awake.
As the storm continued through the night, I longed to join Izzie in the bed. To feel her against me and breathe in her cookie dough scent.
But the military also taught me restraint and discipline, so I stayed on the cold floor staring at the rafters until my watch clicked over to 6:00 a.m.
Sunrise was a shift from pitch black to dark grey and a slight easing in the weather. I headed out early to switch the generator back on and check on my girls.
They cluck at me unhappily as I spread the feed around the stall.
“How you doing, ladies?”
There’s no eggs today which isn’t a surprise considering the storm. I brought them inside early yesterday, and I’m glad of that. They haven’t laid, and the feathers of my oldest girl are sticking out at angles like she’s been stress preening.
I bring in fresh straw and talk to them a while until the old girl settles into the straw with her feathers puffed up. If there’s no more thunder, I might get eggs tomorrow.
With three hens, there’s more eggs than I can eat myself, and I do a weekly run up to Judith’s. It’s a chance to check on the old mountain woman. I trade eggs for whatever spare vegetables she has going. It’s a good arrangement, two old recluses looking out for each other.
I hope like hell her roof’s held up in the storm. I fixed part of it last winter. As soon as the rain stops, I’ll drive up and check on her, as well as the young family that’s up this way too.
Once the chickens are settled, I muck out the stall where Gertie spent the night. She tries to headbutt me as usual, not happy to be stuck indoors.
I keep her around to keep the grass short, and she’s good company for the chickens. Or at least they think so. Jenni, the cheeky one, likes to ride on her back. And Gertie doesn’t buck her off, so I guess it’s a mutual arrangement.
There’s a drip of water coming in from near the door, and I put a bucket under it. When all this is over I’ll need to check the tiles, but I’m not surprised something leaked last night with that downpour.
With the chickens cleaned and fed, the goat happy, and the shed tidy, I look around for something else to do. Some other task that will keep me from going back into the cabin
Minty whines. She’s after her breakfast which is back in the kitchen.
I look around one last time, but there are no more excuses.
“Come on then, girl.”
The reprieve in the weather was short, and rain’s pouring down again when I open the shed door. I make a dash for the cabin, and Minty sprints in front and pushes past me as soon as the door’s open.
The delicious smells of frying bacon and fresh coffee make my mouth water. I shrug off my coat and boots and step into the kitchen.
My mouth goes dry at the sight before me.
Izzie is in one of my t-shirts and the sweatpants from yesterday rolled up at the waist. Her hair is wet from the shower and it hangs over her shoulders, causing wet patches on the t-shirt that show the same outline of lacy bra I got a glimpse of yesterday.
She’s at the stove frying bacon, singing along to some God awful pop tune. But it’s the smile that crosses her face when she turns to me that causes a painful flutter in my heart.
“Good morning!”
She’s radiant. Her skin pink from the shower, her eyes bright. She’s the sunshine that my cabin’s been missing, filling the greyness with light and smiles and singing.
I turn away without saying anything. I can’t speak. I don’t trust myself not to cross the space and take her in my arms.
If she’s the sun, then I’m the darkness, and I want her, no need her, to light my miserable grey life.
I turn away before I can act on my thoughts.
The dog food is in the pantry just off the kitchen, and I take my time filling Minty’s bowl and getting her fresh water.
I need a few breaths to compose myself before I face the woman in my kitchen.
If she thinks I was rude for turning away, she doesn’t show it.
Izzie’s turned the music down and plated up two massive servings of bacon, eggs, and fried tomatoes.
“I found these in the fridge. I hope you don’t mind.”
She’s made herself at home going through my cupboards and preparing my food. I thought I’d hate anyone being in my space, but I don’t. I love the way Izzie’s made herself at home.
“Thank you.”
She chatters away over breakfast about how comfortable my bed is and how the rain lulled her to sleep.
I like hearing her voice. It could lull me to sleep, the soft tones of her speaking.
“I’ll check your arm again today and change the dressings.”
I’m about to protest, but there’s something in her look that makes me pause. She likes looking after me. She enjoys this.
“Okay.”
Her eyes widen in surprise, and that makes me chuckle.
“You thought I wasn’t going to let you?”
“You haven’t been the most agreeable patient,” she concedes.
She’s right. I’ve been fucking awful. Grumpy and difficult. But not anymore. If Izzie wants to nurse my arm, I’ll let her.
Ten minute later, the dishes have been cleared away and Izzie’s got the bandage off my arm. She takes the arm gently in her hands and squints at the stitches.
“They’re holding.”
She seems a little surprised, but I’m not. It’s clear she was born to take care of people, and nursing suits her.
“I should have done an extra stitch there. That’s where the blood leaked through.”
She dabs some disinfectant onto a cotton wool pad, and I grit my teeth as she presses it to the wound.
It’s an angry red mark, but the bleeding’s stopped and it’ll heal. Hell, I’ve had worse.
She takes a fresh bandage from her kit, and I watch her face as she carefully wraps it around my arm. She’s twenty-one years old. She should be enjoying her years at college and going away with her friends over the holidays, not spending them making fucking casseroles for grumpy old mountain recluses.
“Why are you here, Izzie?”
She glances up at me with her brows knit together.
“Because this is the craziest ass storm we’ve seen for twenty years, and the road’s washed away.”
She wraps the bandage around the back of my arm and brings it around my forearm.
“I mean, why are you here at all? Why did you come to my cabin yesterday?”
The frown deepens. “To bring you a lasagna.” She shrugs her shoulders, “And you know, to say hello. That’s what people do; they visit their friends.”
The word strikes at something in my chest.
“Is that what we are? Friends?”
She glances up at me, and there’s confusion in her face. Her lips are so close to mine my gaze flicks to them.
“You’re a family friend, I guess.”
I lean back in my chair. That’s how she thinks of me, as the family friend. Best man at her parents’ wedding. I served with her father. The family friend who lives on his own and needs checking in on.
“Did your father ask you to come?”
She frowns. “No, I was doing the rounds. I visited Kaci and Hunter and their new baby, and I thought I’d stop by.”
She pulls at the bandage too hard, and I jerk my arm away.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, reaching for my arm again. “I’ll be gentle.”
She’s getting agitated, and I’m not sure why. I should let it go, but I want to know what drives her.
“You don’t need to take care of everyone on the mountain, you know.” I say it gently, and for a while she doesn’t speak. The bandage goes around my arm for the last time, and she makes it secure.
“It’s what my mother would have done,” she says quietly.
Ah shit, her mother. She was the nurse practitioner for this side of the mountain.
Carol was a saint and loved by everyone on the mountain. Her funeral was attended by hundreds of folks all crying like they’d lost their own family member.
“She was a kind woman.”
It’s an inadequate thing to say, but I don’t know the words that will bring comfort to her.
“She always told me nursing was about more than treating aches and pains. It’s about caring for the soul of the community.”
Izzie blinks quickly, fighting back tears. “Sometimes a hot meal and a chat over a coffee can do as much for a person as any medication.”
She’s not wrong, and the truth of it floors me. I’m reminded that it’s the anniversary of the accident. Seven years since her mother passed.
I put my hand on Izzie’s shoulder, needing to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry. Especially today…”
Izzie frowns and stands up abruptly. “It’s fine. I’m fine, Jagger. No point dwelling on the past, huh?” She smiles a thin smile that doesn’t meet my eyes.
She picks up the scrap of bandage and bottle of disinfectant and puts them back in her nursing bag.
She’s not fine. She’s far from fine. But I sit back and watch, not knowing what I can say to comfort her, as she busies herself with packing away her kit.
By the time everything’s back in its proper place, her eyes are dry and she’s got a smile back on her face.
“Now what do you do around here for fun? You got any board games?”
The smile is too bright, too forced.
I’ve upset her, because I’m a thoughtless lug who is shit with people. The last thing I want to do is upset Izzie any further.
She wants a distraction, and that’s something I can give her.
“I don’t have board games.”
Her face falls.
“But I’ve got a pack of cards.”
The smile returns. “Brilliant. No one has faster snap hands than me.”
I chuckle at the way she manages to turn the sun back on. But it sits uneasily with me. Maybe that sunshine is masking pain. And if you bottle up pain for too long, you end up a miserable old man like me. And that’s the last thing I want for Izzie.