17. SAM
CHAPTER 17
SAM
It’s easy to keep my mouth shut during our final appointment of the day because all I can think about is what Carlos said. When we return to the office, I tell him that I want to do some research on alfalfa pests—the only thing I remember the woman we met this afternoon asking about—but instead, I pull up an incognito search window and go down a neurodivergence rabbit hole.
Twenty-five open tabs later, I’m more agitated than I was before. I don’t think I have any of the dyslexias, or Tourette’s. But I could have OCD, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, sensory processing issues, or a cocktail of all of the above. I take a few online tests, but they just get me more confused. So I do the next best thing. Text my sister.
Me: Did you ever think I was neurodivergent
The dots come and go under her name so many times I almost break down and call her, but I don’t want to talk about this out loud at work.
Colleen: Why do you ask?
Me: Give it to me straight Ree
More dots.
Colleen: Okay. After a training at work a couple years ago, it did occur to me that you might be on the autism spectrum or maybe have ADHD. It would have been easy for it to go undiagnosed when we were in middle school because we were going through so much change and grief.
Me: Why didn’t you say anything about it
Colleen: It didn’t seem important. You’re well-adjusted. You’re successful. I figured it would just stir the pot unnecessarily.
Colleen: I’m sorry if that wasn’t the answer you were looking for.
I just stare at my phone for a long time. Is she right? Am I well-adjusted? Or is Carlos right? Would knowing how and why my brain works differently be a relief? Or would a diagnosis just give people permission to isolate me further?
These questions continue to circle the drain of my brain for the rest of the workday. On the drive home, I try to focus on the world around me. Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. There’s something about the quality of the light. Even though it’s a crazy time for farmers as they rush to get the harvest in, there’s that feeling that everything you’ve worked so hard for is coming to fruition .
Which, until today, I’ve been able to relate to. I’m finally loving the work I do and feeling like my hard-won education is doing good. The icing on the cake I didn’t realize I wanted? A gorgeous, smart, sexy woman to come home to.
If only it were my home and the woman was sticking around. But maybe it’s better this way. The more time we spend together, not only will I get more attached, but the more likely she’ll come to the conclusion that every other woman I’ve dated has. A conclusion that now has a scientific basis. I’m different, and there’s nothing they can do to change that.
Anyway, like the seasons, everything comes to an end.
The driveway is full when I pull up to the farmhouse, and I can hardly find a place to park my truck. Gomer’s out of the car the minute I turn off the engine, racing off somewhere. Excited barks have me worried, so I hightail it after him.
I can’t figure out where the sound is coming from until I realize that it’s echoing off Baabara’s house. When I finally find him, I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. Gomer’s on his back, belly exposed, tongue lolling. Then he jumps up, barking as his front paws hit the ground in a play slap. He and the sheep face off for a moment, and then they race in a circle until Baabara butts the dog and he flips onto his back, which starts the cycle all over again.
My dog is in love with a sheep.
Despite my worries, I can’t wait to show Diane. To share this moment with her. To make her laugh. She’s usually editing this time of day, so I take the back stairs two at a time to the bedroom. Her computer is there, but she’s not. Back downstairs, I follow the sounds of female voices to the parlor and slide the pocket door open a fraction.
Once again, I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing.
Ethel Bedd, the woman who in most of my childhood memories is sweating away in the kitchen or being run ragged by five kids, is wiping tears from her bright pink cheeks, and she—along with every other woman in the room—is howling with laughter. It takes me a moment to figure out what’s so funny, but when Colleen steps to the side to reveal Diane tangled up in what looks like an entire skein of yarn, I get it.
Diane’s got Gran’s knitting club under her spell.
Closing the door before anyone notices me, I head out the front door and down the lane to the barn. I don’t know why I’m suddenly so angry. Am I jealous? Maybe. But is it that I don’t want to share Diane in what little time we have together? Or is it that she so easily fits in around here, while I never have? Not wanting to think about either scenario, I grab the basketball that always sits in the barn office. It’s only when I head back outside that I notice the hoop is gone.
I need to throw things right now, and chucking a basketball at a backboard is definitely safer than anything else I could hurl at the moment. Ball on my hip, I search for Ethan, but he’s not in the barn or the equipment shed. The tractor’s parked, so he’s probably not out in the field. Hoping he’s moved the basketball hoop to his driveway, I continue down the lane. When I get to his house, I don’t see a hoop anywhere, so I bang on his front door until it opens.
Ethan rubs his eyes like I woke him up. “Where’s the fire?” he asks grumpily .
“Where’s the fucking basketball hoop?” I shoot back, matching him grump for grump.
“I took it down. There’s a new one in the barn by the side door. Haven’t had time to install it.”
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
Without further ado, I stomp back down the lane. After reading the installation instructions for the new hoop, I call my dog and teach him the words for wrench, tape measure, and bolt, just in case I drop something.
After I locate the studs and drill the pilot holes, it’s a little tricky to haul the mounting bracket up the ladder and screw in the lug bolts, but I manage it. I’m just trying to figure out if Gomer could help me get the backboard up the ladder, when a voice startles me from behind.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I catch my balance by grabbing the bracket and the top of the ladder before craning my neck to find Ethan’s scowling face. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Hanging off the side of the barn like an idiot. And why didn’t you put it where the old one was?”
Naturally, Ethan has to criticize the placement of the hoop.
“I thought it’d be better under the side roof. That way we can play when it’s raining.”
I nearly fall off the ladder again when he agrees with me, but I catch myself just in time. He helps me lift the backboard and then holds it in place—claiming that he’s stronger than me—while I screw in the bolts. We hang the net, and while Gomer helps me put away the tools, Ethan looks around with a frown on his face.
“I have no idea where the basketball went.”
“No problem. Gomer, fetch the basketball.” I have no idea w here I left it either, but Gomer trots around the corner of the barn and returns nosing the ball in front of him.
Ethan jogs over to grab it. Gomer barks, miffed that he didn’t get to bring me the ball, so I yell, “Good boy! Come get the tool bag, Gomer.”
Happy to have another job, he gallops back, takes the handle in his jaws, and proudly returns the tools to the office.
Ethan shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Game of HORSE?”
“You’re on.”
It kills me that he barely even has to try to make his shots, just heaves the ball willy-nilly, while I have to go through my whole routine every time. Place my feet, do a mock arc with my hands, three dribbles, and then shoot.
“Overthinking it, like always,” Ethan mutters before making yet another easy basket.
Hmm. Overthinking. Is that because I’m autistic or I have OCD? “What happened to the old hoop, anyway? Did it get rusted or something?”
“It was headed that way,” Ethan says as he tosses me the ball. “And I realized I could use it to make a grate for the fire pit Lia asked me to put in.”
“That’s an impressive reuse.” Feet, arc, dribble, shoot.
I can’t shoot a fucking basketball without going through a ritual.
A grunt from Ethan snags my attention, but his expression’s as unreadable as always. “Thanks.”
“You should’ve gone to school for engineering, Ethan.”
He narrows his eyes at me, like he thinks I’m making fun of him. “Right. ”
“I mean it. You’re, like, a mechanical genius. That thing you made to plant the strawberry starts? And the changes you made to Gran’s basement greenhouse so she can use it all year round? Diane told me how you rigged a clamp so Gran could film Baabara from above. I mean, at the very least you could take some courses at the community college. You could learn how to patent and sell your inventions.”
“Like I have time to get to Climax every day.”
“From what I heard, you’re getting to climax every damn night,” I mutter, but he just laughs.
“You’re just jealous.”
No way am I confessing that I’m getting some too, so I circle back to my original point. “There are night classes. Designed for working people.”
He passes the ball to me, hard. “Sam, I was never like you. Sitting in a classroom just made my brain clog up. I figure things out when I’m moving. Driving a tractor, digging in the dirt, mending a fence, even shoveling shit. That’s when ideas come. That’s how I tease out the solution to a problem.”
I’m about to point out that there are accommodations for non-traditional learners, but the irony of it stops me. Biting my tongue, I take my shot, which bounces off the rim. Gomer races for it and noses it back to Ethan.
“Anyway,” Ethan continues after taking his own shot, which drops in effortlessly. “I already looked into patents. You can learn anything on YouTube these days. I might file one for my strawberry toboggan.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say, meaning it, as I run after the ball, Gomer chasing me.
Just as I’m lining up to shoot, Ethan says, “You know the ot her way I learned? From listening to Pop and Grandad. I know you think they were idiots, but?—”
“I didn’t say that.” I’m too irritated to shoot now, so I dribble a few more times.
“Well, they were old-fashioned in their thinking,” Ethan says.
I fumble the ball, I’m so surprised at this admission, but I don’t look at him as he continues.
“And I’ll allow that they were wrong about some stuff. But they were right about the basics. The… What’s that word? Tenets.”
I lift a pinky finger and employ the fake British accent we always employ when someone uses a big vocab word or ridiculously correct grammar. “Oooh, fancy word.”
“Shut up and give me the ball,” he says. “I’m trying to agree with you.”
After passing it to him, I remember Carlos and mime zipping my mouth shut. “I’m all ears.”
“Pop and Grandad taught me to take care of the land because it’ll take care of your family.”
It’s not easy to keep my mouth shut because I have opinions, but my lips remain zipped.
“They may have been misled by companies like Congento; they may have been operating on now-debunked ideas. But their hearts were in the right place.”
I nod because I do believe this.
“Anyway,” he says, tossing up the ball without apparent effort. “You and Grandad were cut from the same cloth, so you’d butt heads no matter what.”
Letting Gomer run after the ball, I remain still until it seems like he’s really finished. “Sounds like you speak from experience. ”
He snorts. “We’re all stubborn, know-it-all assholes, I guess. But we all care about this place.”
I can’t hold this one in, even though I probably should. “The difference for me is that I care about all the places. A lot has to change if we want this land to be here for our kids and their kids to survive. I want to take care of the earth so it feeds people for generations.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, kicking at the dirt, “we have to get it back from the bank before we can do any of that.”
Guilt twists in my gut like colic in a horse. I blow out a breath and do my best to backtrack. “I was going to tell you how impressed I am at how you’re running the family meetings, taking in everyone’s input before making a decision. I’m sorry I jumped down your throat.”
Ethan leans forward, cupping his ear. “Wait. I need to hear that again. I think I heard my stuck-up younger brother admit he was wrong.”
“I didn’t say I was wrong. I said I’m sorry .” I roll my eyes. “Sorry you’re getting so old you’re losing your hearing.”
“I may be older, but I’m still bigger and stronger, you string bean.”
Before I know it, Ethan’s got me in a headlock and is giving me an actual noogie. I’m laughing so hard I can’t break away at first, but thankfully, my dog comes to the rescue and side tackles him.
Ethan staggers to the side. “No fair. I don’t have a dog.”
“That’s a you problem.” I rush to pin his arms behind his back before he can catch his balance. “Take it back.”
“Take what back,” he says, laughing almost as hard as I am .
“String bean.”
“Stuck-up string bean, you mean.”
“Gah!” I yell, wrestling him to the ground. We continue to laugh as we roll over and over trying to pin each other.
“What in the Sam Hell is going on out here?”
Sam Hell is the closest thing to a curse word Gran ever uses. In the blink of an eye, we’re on our feet and backing away from each other, hands up. “Nothing.”
A giggle has my gaze flicking to Diane. She and Lia stand next to Gran, mouths hanging open.
“Nothing, ma’am ,” Gran admonishes.
“Nothing, ma’am,” Ethan and I intone dutifully before breaking out in laughter again.
“You two have less sense than the good lord gave a goose,” Gran says, shaking her head and turning back toward the house. “I expect you both washed up and in the kitchen to help make dinner in twenty minutes.”
Grinning, I pick up the ball and stow it back in the barn office before catching up to Diane, who is scratching behind Gomer’s ears. Not sure if it was the basketball or the talk or the wrestling or the laughter, but I feel a billion times lighter than I did an hour ago.
Than I have for a long, long time. Maybe knowing that my brain is different isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it’s how I do fit in, rather than why I don’t fit in.
I hold out a crooked elbow to Diane. “May I escort you to the house, madam?”
She raises a brow but hooks her arm in mine. “Only if you promise to meet me in the bedroom later.” Leaning closer, she fans herself. “Watching you two wrestle? That was hot.”