Chapter 10
The cabin was dark except for the faint glow of starlight through the window.
Scout lay against my chest, her breath slow and even, her breasts flattened against me, her hair fanned across my shoulder.
Her weight was warm and solid and utterly relaxed.
I traced my fingers along her arm, feeling the muscle beneath the skin.
"You're thinking too loud," she said.
"Am I?"
"Mmm." She shifted, pressing closer. "I can hear it."
"What am I thinking about?"
"How you need to fix that loose board on the porch."
I laughed. "Wrong."
"The woodshed roof."
"No."
"Me."
"Bingo."
She tilted her head up, her chin resting on my chest. In the darkness I could barely see her face, just the gleam of her eyes.
"What about me?"
"Nothing in particular. Just that you're here."
"I am here. This is true."
She made a sound that was almost a purr and settled back against me. Her hand found mine, fingers intertwining. We lay there listening to the night. An owl somewhere in the trees. The creak of the cabin settling. The distant rustle of something moving through the underbrush.
"Your cabin is very modern now," she said. "My father says you did good work on the panels. That's high praise. He doesn't say it often."
I thought about Abner helping me with the trenching, the way he'd had to stop and catch his breath. The wheeze in his chest that he pretended wasn't there.
"He's a good teacher," I said.
"Indeed he is." Scout was quiet for a moment. "He taught me everything. How to shoot, how to hunt, how to read the land. How to read people too, though I'm not as good at that."
"You seem pretty good at it to me."
"I often know what people are feeling. I don't always know why."
"That's the hard part. For all of us."
"I've come to know this," Scout sighed. "The woods are much simpler."
Her breathing slowed, and I thought she might be falling asleep. Then she stirred.
"Shower?"
"Now?"
"Yes." She sat up, the blanket falling away from her. "I smell like sex and sweat."
"I like the way you smell."
"Noted. But I'm also very sticky and unkempt. Come on. Shower with me."
I followed her into the bathroom. The shower was small, built for one person, and we stood pressed together under the spray while the water heated. Scout laughed as I tried to maneuver around her.
"You're too tall."
"You're too short."
"I'm a perfectly reasonable height." She reached up to touch my hair. "Bend down."
I bent. Her fingers worked shampoo into my scalp, scratching gently. The sensation was so good that I closed my eyes and groaned.
"You like that."
"I really do."
"Good."
She scrubbed with concentration, working from my forehead back, getting the spots behind my ears. I felt like a dog being groomed by someone who knew what they were doing.
"Rinse."
I tilted my head back under the spray and immediately got suds in my eyes.
"Ow."
"Rub them with the water, not your hands."
"This is terrible advice."
"It's what my father always said."
"Your father was wrong."
She laughed, high and bright, and the sound of it in the small space made the stinging worth it. I blinked until I could see again and found her watching me with open amusement.
"My turn," I said.
"You don't have to."
"I want to."
I squeezed shampoo into my palm and she turned, presenting the back of her head. Her hair was thick and slightly tangled. I worked through it carefully, feeling the knots give way, watching the water run through the blonde strands.
"That feels nice."
She leaned back into my hands. I took my time, massaging her scalp the way she'd done mine. When I was done with her hair, I moved to her shoulders, working the soap across her skin.
She turned to face me. The shower stall was barely big enough for us both, our bodies pressed together, water streaming down between us. She reached for the soap and lathered her hands.
"I can do the rest," she said.
Scout washed herself in front of me, unselfconscious, scrubbing under her arms and between her legs with the same practical efficiency she brought to everything. No performance, no false modesty. Just a woman cleaning her body because her body needed cleaning.
I watched her and it felt more intimate than anything we'd done in bed. The complete lack of pretense. The trust required to be that ordinary in front of another person.
She caught me looking and smiled. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" she chided me, kissing my chest. "As my father would say, 'Put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.' Ephesians, four-twenty-five.'"
"I'm just thinking how nice it is being here with you."
She reached up and touched my face, water running down her arm. "I really like being here too."
We stood there under the spray, kissing and laughing, drunk on each other. Then we shut the shower off and stumbled out, reaching for towels that weren't quite big enough.
"Your towels are inadequate," Scout said.
"I'll add it to the list."
"What list?"
"The list of inadequate things. It's getting long."
She threw her towel at me. I caught it and threw it back. We dried off in the cramped bathroom, bumping elbows, laughing at nothing.
Back in the bedroom she sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through her wet hair. Her skin was flushed from the shower, her cheeks pink.
"Thomas... My father is getting worse."
She said it the way she said everything difficult. No preamble, no building up to it. Just the words, presented straight and plain.
I sat down beside her. "I know."
"You've noticed?"
"It's hard not to. The coughing. The way he has to stop and catch his breath. I noticed it during the installation."
She nodded, looking at her hands. "It's more frequent now. He tires faster. Some days he can barely make it across the homestead without stopping."
"Has he seen a doctor?"
"He won't go."
"Scout..."
"I've tried." Her voice was flat. "I've asked.
I've argued. I've begged. He says doctors are for people who want to die in hospitals surrounded by strangers and machines.
He says when his time comes he wants to be home.
He says the burn pits have already made the decision and no doctor can unmake it. "
I thought about Abner wiring the solar panels, his hands steady, his breath ragged.
A man who'd served his country and come home with poison in his lungs, quietly dying in the woods because the institutions he'd served had already betrayed him once and he wouldn't give them the chance to betray him again.
"I could talk to him," I said.
"It won't help."
"I could find a doctor who does house calls. Someone who would come here."
"He wouldn't let them through the door."
"There has to be something..."
"There isn't." She looked at me then, and I saw fear in her eyes. Real fear, the kind she rarely showed. "He's made his choice. He made it a long time ago. He won't change until something drastic makes him change."
I put my arm around her. She leaned into me, her wet hair cold against my shoulder.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I wish I could fix it."
"I know you do." She was quiet for a moment. "That's one of the things I like about you. You want to fix things. But some things can't be fixed. Some things just have to be endured."
We sat there in the lamplight, the two of us, listening to the night sounds through the window. There was nothing more to say. Nothing I could offer that would change anything. Just the shared helplessness of caring for someone who wouldn't let you help them, and the ache of knowing it.
After a while Scout stood. I watched her dressing. The movements were efficient, practiced. Canvas pants, patched at the knees. Denim shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. She braided her wet hair with quick fingers, securing it with a leather tie.
Then she reached for her belt and the buckskin holster handmade by her father. The revolver settled against her hip like it belonged there, like it was part of her.
She caught me watching.
"What?"
"Just observing." I stood up, crossed to her. "You're so beautiful."
"My lover is besotted." She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "You're lost in my radiance."
"Probably."
"Definitely."
I kissed her. She kissed me back, her hands on my chest, her body pressed against mine. Then she stepped away.
"I'm going now."
"Be safe."
"Always."
She went to the door, paused, looked back at me.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For listening. For not trying to fix it."
"I did try to fix it."
"You suggested things. That's different." She smiled again, smaller this time. "You let me say no. Most people don't."
Then she was gone. I heard her footsteps on the porch, then crossing the clearing, then fading into the trees. The night closed in behind her.
I stood at the window for a while, looking out at the darkness where she'd disappeared. The stars glittered overhead. The solar panels gleamed faintly in the clearing. Everything was quiet.
I went back to bed. The sheets smelled like her, like us. I lay there in the darkness, listening to my breathing, feeling the space beside me where she'd been.
I woke to the smell of eggs frying and coffee brewing.
For a disoriented moment, I didn't know where I was. The smells were throwing me off. I was a man who lived alone, who made his own coffee, who cooked his own eggs. But the cabin was full of sounds that didn't belong to me. Movement in the kitchen. The scrape of a spatula against iron. Humming.
I pulled on jeans and a shirt and went out.
Grace stood at my stove. She wore clean clothes, a blue hoodie and jeans, her short hair held back by colorful hair clips. The French press was full of coffee. Something was sizzling in my cast-iron pan.
"Morning," she said without turning around. "Coffee's almost ready to serve. You want eggs?"
"I..." I rubbed my eyes. "Sure."
"Cool. Sit down."
I sat at the table, still not entirely awake. Grace moved around my kitchen with complete confidence, finding plates, finding forks, even pouring coffee into my favorite mug from Irma's bakery.