Chapter 16 #2
DJ. The same name as her son. Not a coincidence. Claire's expression closed. The lightness faded, replaced by something darker.
"I eventually got my crush. Made a baby with him when I was just eighteen."
Bessie reached across the table and put her hand over her daughter's. The gesture was automatic, practiced. They'd had this conversation before, or ones like it.
"I'm so proud of you," Bessie said. "For finishing high school. For keeping this farm going. For raising that boy right."
"Mom."
"I mean it. Your father would be proud, too."
Claire looked down at the table. Took a breath. Let it out.
I should have kept my mouth shut. It wasn't my place. But the question had been sitting in my chest since the day I'd met DJ, since I'd seen the way the boy watched me with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, like someone who'd been burned and couldn't help reaching toward the flame anyway.
"It's none of my business," I said. "But where is DJ Senior now?"
Claire looked up. There was no defensiveness in her expression, just the flat acceptance of someone stating facts.
"He left me for a woman in the Philippines. Someone he met on the internet. Chat rooms, dating sites, I never knew exactly. One day he was here, the next day he was packing his bags, and a week later he was on a plane to Manila."
"How old was Junior at the time?"
"Four. Old enough to know his father leaving.
Young enough not to understand why." She picked up her glass of iced tea, turned it in her hands without drinking.
"So we moved here, back home. The only real father DJ has known was my father, Grandpa Mark.
They used to watch Mariners games together, like he told you.
Go fishing. Work on the tea plants." She set the glass down. "And now he's gone too."
The silence stretched. Clouds shifted overhead and a wash of sunlight moved over the hedges.
Claire straightened in her chair, pulling her shoulders back. The grief was still there, but she'd packed it away, filed it in whatever compartment she used for things she couldn't afford to feel right now.
"Dwelling on the past helps nothing," she said. "The future is what matters. And the future for us is harvesting tea."
I picked up my glass of iced tea and held it toward the center of the table.
"I'll drink to that."
Claire smiled. She picked up her own glass and clinked it against mine.
Bessie Anne joined in, her glass making the trio complete. We drank together, the three of us, and the moment felt well earned.
After lunch we went back to work. The afternoon stretched long and gray, sunlight and mist coming and going, the rows of tea hedges slowly surrendering their first flush of spring growth. My muscles ached. My hands cramped around the trimmer handle. I kept working.
Claire slowed down as the day wore on. Not by much, not enough that someone who wasn't watching would notice.
But I was watching. I saw the way she paused more often to stretch her back, the way her movements lost some of their morning crispness.
The way she blinked too hard sometimes, like she was fighting to keep her eyes open.
Late afternoon came. The light was fading, what little of it had made it through the clouds. We were loading the last of the day's harvest into processing crates, carrying them from the collection point to the barn where the leaves would wait until picked up by the processor.
Claire was telling me about her plans to eventually process the tea herself once she had enough money to buy the equipment.
Then Claire stumbled.
The uneven ground caught her boot wrong, or her exhausted legs finally gave out, or both. She pitched forward, the crate in her arms tilting, leaves threatening to spill.
I caught her.
My hands found her arms, steadied her, kept her upright. The crate stayed level. The leaves stayed put.
She righted herself. Laughed once, an abrupt sound of embarrassment and relief.
"Clumsy," she smiled.
"Long day."
"Long day," she agreed. "Thanks for catching me."
She looked up at me.
The moment happened before either of us decided it should.
Her face was right there. Freckled and tired and real. Her green eyes held mine, and there was something in them I hadn't seen before. Something that had been building through the long hours of working side by side, learning each other's rhythms, sharing the particular intimacy of physical labor.
I kissed her.
Or she kissed me. It was impossible to say who moved first. We moved together, the way we'd been moving together all day, in sync without trying to be.
Her lips against mine, soft and warm and tasting faintly of the iced tea we'd drunk at lunch. A kiss that came from nearness and exhaustion and a long day of working together.
Claire pulled back immediately.
Her startled expression made her green eyes even brighter, but then it quickly closed. The openness that had been there a moment ago shuttered, locked tight, barricaded behind walls that had been up since I first met her.
"That shouldn't have happened." Her voice was flat and controlled. "I'm just tired. A mental slip. It didn't mean anything. Agreed?"
I looked at her. No upset showed on my face. No manipulation, no pressure. I'd been married for twenty-two years to a woman who weaponized emotions, who turned moments of vulnerability into a transaction. I knew what it looked like when someone tried to make you feel bad for feeling something.
I would not do that to Claire. Whatever was happening here, whatever she needed it to be, I would let it be that thing.
"Okay," I said. "Just a mental slip."
I picked up the crate I'd been carrying. Took it where it was going. Set it down in the barn with the others, in neat rows of harvested leaves ready for processing.
When I turned around, Claire was still standing where I'd left her, watching me. I walked past her to get the next crate. My heart was pounding. My hands weren't quite steady. The feel of her lips lingered, a ghost sensation I knew would stay with me for a long time.
Claire was beautiful. More importantly, she was strong in ways that had nothing to do with muscles. She was carrying more weight than anyone should have to carry alone.
The kiss had meant something. We both knew it had.
But she wasn't ready to acknowledge it. And I wasn't going to push.
I picked up the next crate. Carried it to the barn. Set it down with the others.
The work continued. The rain came back in a fine mist as the day faded toward evening.