Chapter 8
I oversleep the following morning.
Not that I have a set rising time. As long as I have breakfast ready when Mason is done with the morning chores, I can get up whenever I choose. He’s never said a word about expectations for me in that regard—except to continually remind me he doesn’t need my help with chores.
But it feels like it’s late anyway when I open my eyes.
I slept so soundly I can’t even remember waking up during the night to reposition or listen for sounds in the dark, and that almost never happens.
So as soon as I orient myself, I scramble out of bed and into the bathroom, throwing on my clothes and getting ready as fast as possible.
Mason is already halfway through the milking when I arrive breathless at the barn.
“Morning,” he says, glancing over at me.
“I didn’t mean to oversleep.”
He frowns. “You didn’t oversleep. You don’t have to get up as early as me.”
“But I always do, and now it feels like I’m late.” I grab my milking pail and stool and position them in front of Genevieve, who eyes me with her tolerant resignation—as if like me she’s accepted a life where she does what she’s told without complaint.
“Told you before these are my chores. You don’t gotta do them.”
I frown in his direction, since his repeated emphasis on this claim is becoming annoying. “I know you told me that.” My voice is as mild as always, despite my mood. “But I like to help.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
We milk our respective cows for a minute in silence. Then he gives me a sidelong glance and mumbles, “How you feeling this morning?”
I blink at him, holding one of Genevieve’s udders in my hand. “What do you mean?”
“How you feeling? After…”
“Oh. I’m okay. Kind of sore, but fine.” I’m actually very sore, but I was so worried about being late it barely registered until right now. Sharp pangs in my thighs and between my legs trigger whenever I move the wrong way.
“Okay. Good.” He’s focused studiously on his work.
After a minute, I ask, “How are you?”
“What?”
“This morning. Do you feel all right?”
“I feel great. Real good.”
My chest and mouth soften. “So you think last night went okay?”
“Okay? I thought it was amazing.” Now he’s frowning again as he studies me. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes. I was just making sure.”
“Okay. Good. Me too. Good. Okay.”
A giggle rises in my throat for no reason at his mumbled repetition and his avoidance of my eyes. I’m not sure why it makes me laugh, but it does.
I’m smiling to myself as I turn back to my work.
I finish Genevieve with no trouble and then milk Vera after that. Ambitious, I ask to try another cow, and Mason sets me up with Millicent.
Everything goes well for several minutes. Then I get an itch and let go with one hand to scratch my side. The move must startle the animal because Millicent makes a sudden jerk, and I’m not prepared for it.
I don’t get kicked or hurt anyway, but the milk I’ve gotten so far gets spilled all over both me and the ground.
“Oh no!” I stand up, staring at all the milk I’ve wasted as it slowly soaks into the packed dirt. Even Bill runs over from investigating a bale of hay and snuffles my feet in concern. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
“No big deal,” Mason says, stopping his own work to come over to rub Millicent’s back. “She just got spooked. She didn’t hurt you, did she?”
“No. It was my fault. I didn’t realize—”
“It’s not a big deal.” He’s not angry. At all. But there’s an undercurrent of something beneath his manner. I assume it’s frustration or impatience. With me. “It happens.”
“But all that milk!”
“I said it’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you go on in. You can clean up and get started on breakfast. Just stick with Genevieve and Vera from now on.”
There’s still nothing in his tone that sounds like frustration. Or an accusation. Or even disappointment. It’s nothing at all like the response I would have received after making the same sort of mistake with Lorraine or Aria.
But I duck my head, embarrassed and chastened as I put up my stuff and return to the house.
I’ve been doing so well. Fulfilling all my duties here on the farm well and even managing sex in a way he was happy with.
But he’s never going to let me do more to help him with morning chores after this, so it feels like I’ve really messed up.
Mason makes no show of unhappiness over breakfast, so I’m able to shake off the failure and move on.
I don’t have any weekly household responsibilities on Saturdays—the bigger chores I’ve put on a daily rotation for earlier in the week—so I decide to reorganize the closets and built-in storage compartments so the stuff we use regularly is more easily accessible.
While Mason is working outside, I pull out everything stored in the cottage, making piles by use and condition.
Some of the clothing is so old that it’s unusable, but I start a basket of rags, which often come in handy.
I find more clothes that must have belonged to Mason’s parents and identify those with more use in them, moving them into his closet and mine.
I put the items we use regularly in the accessible compartments in the hall and stow stuff used only a few times a year in the bottom ones that are still reasonably easy to get to.
Then I drag out piled boxes in the corner of my bedroom and move the useful stuff into the storage compartments as well.
There are two whole boxes of books that might be interesting to read. I’ll ask Mason if I can build some shelves in my big closet to put them on so they’re easier to get to. I don’t have enough good clothes to fill more than a third of the space in there.
I collect several piles of random items with no clear use at all—archaic pieces of small technology, unattractive trinkets, and books and manuals obviously written for a narrow purpose no longer relevant in the world after the Fall. No one will ever want to read them.
At lunch I ask Mason what we should do with them. I really think we can just throw them out, but Mason doesn’t want to. They belonged to his parents. But he says he’ll be happy to build the shelves for me tomorrow.
I would have been more than capable of doing them myself. I know how, and I prefer to be useful.
When he goes back outside for the afternoon, I finish the organizational project, doing so well that both our closets end up half empty and there are no longer visible boxes stacked anywhere.
By late afternoon, all that’s left is stowing the useless stuff in the very top compartments in the hallway. They’re up next to the ceiling, and there’s no way I can reach them without help.
Mason has a big ladder in the shed outside, but that’s far too big and ungainly to bring into the house. So I drag one of the dining chairs over to stand on. It’s sturdy and gets me to the right height.
It takes several ups and downs to stow everything. There are three different top compartments, so I have to reposition the chair to reach each one.
I’m tired and ready to be done with this job, so I probably rush too much. But everything goes fine until the very last box of junk that needs to be tucked away up there.
I’m holding the box in my hands as I take a big step up onto the seat of the chair like I have each time.
But my foot doesn’t get planted as firmly as it should. It lands too far to the side of the seat, throwing the chair off balance.
What happens next is unfortunate. The chair topples to the side, and so do I. The box gets thrown out of my hands. And all of it—me, the chair, the box, and everything inside it—falls onto the floor with a loud clatter.
I land on my butt with half the items from the box on top of me.
The impact jars me, but I don’t hit my head, and none of my limbs get bent the wrong way in the fall.
So I’m all right. I really am. Even as I catch my breath and orient myself, I know I’m all right. I might have bruised my ass, but there’s no other damage.
Mason must have been on his way inside or close to the cottage because he hears the tumble and comes running in. “Teresa, what the hell?” he bursts out, rushing over to me and kneeling down on the floor beside me.
“I… slipped.” I blinked, once again assessing my condition. “I’m okay.”
When I try to get up, he stops me. “Don’t jump up. You might’ve really hurt yourself.”
“I didn’t hurt myself.” I let him gently lift me to my feet. My unsteadiness is from being jarred so abruptly, not from being injured. But I’m forced to cling to him anyway. “I just fell. Give me a minute to get my balance again.”
“Go real slow,” he says when I take a few experimental steps. He’s got his arm at my waist to support me. “Sometimes we don’t know what’s hurt right away.”
“I really think I’m okay. Maybe a bruise or two but nothing else.” After a minute, I’m able to walk fine on my own, but Mason is still hovering. “Sorry for the hassle.”
“Hassle? You scared the shit out of me. Heard the big crash and then saw you on the floor. What the hell were you even trying to do with that chair?”
“I was just moving the extra stuff into the top compartments.”
“Standing on that chair?”
“Yes.” I’m breathing heavily as I sit down on my chair in the living room. “It was the only way I could reach way up top.”
“Why the hell didn’t you ask me for help?” He’s openly disapproving now.
“I could do it on my own. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“It would’ve taken me five minutes to help. Better than you breaking your neck with acrobatics.”
He’s not being mean. He doesn’t even sound angry. Just a stern disapproval.
But it feels like a slap in the face anyway, and my first reaction isn’t to be cowed and submissive like usual. I want to snap back at him defensively. I’m so close to doing it.
I’m an adult. I’m not incompetent. And I can do normal things other people can do.
I took a bad step. It could have happened to anyone.
I don’t need to be lectured.