22. Jacinthe
Jacinthe
A week after visiting Le Verger Tremblay, Tess and I still haven’t had a chance to talk properly, but it turns out that doesn’t really matter.
Having no opportunities to talk in private means there are definitely no opportunities to fuck in private.
Even if fucking only takes nine minutes.
I don’t know whether to laugh or groan as I think back on that moment. I turn my truck out of the driveway at Balsam Inn and shake my head. I didn’t think she’d actually make me come that fast; I just wanted to see her try.
Now I’ll never look at my passenger seat the same way again.
I glance at the seat out of the corner of my eye like it’s a crime scene while I zip out of La Cloche and onto the highway towards home. If I think about it long enough, I can still remember the way Tess’s fingers felt inside me, curling at an angle I don’t think anyone else has found before.
She got it on the first try. She got me on the first try. It was like she was some kind of supercomputer, analyzing my every move to give me exactly what I needed.
Tess hasn’t had a chance to touch me since, even though we still meet up at the barn every morning for chores with our coffees.
Without needing to discuss it, we’ve come to the understanding that nothing can happen between us at home when there’s even a chance of getting caught, so the mornings have been strictly friendly, filled with stupid jokes and taking shots at each other while we check off the daily to-do list.
We talk a lot in the mornings. The talking is fine, normal even.
It’s the moments when we’re not talking that things get awkward, like when our arms brushed this morning while we were both lugging feed buckets up the aisle.
I heard her breath catch. Our eyes locked.
It was like a scene out of some pre-teen horse girl rom com, and the longer we stared at each other, the more I wanted to toss the bucket to the ground and kiss her again.
So I turned away and teased her about watching where she’s going, and we went back to pretending she’s never had her fingers inside me.
Now, I’ll get back to the farm just in time for the evening feed, and Tess will do her daily race against the clock to meet Shel when she gets off the school bus.
We’ll all get wrapped up in our routines, and unless we eat dinner together with Shel and my mom, I won’t see Tess again until tomorrow morning.
I sigh as I turn onto the long driveway up to the house, even though having next to no time together should be a good thing. We need fewer complications, not more.
Once I’ve hopped out of the truck, I turn to face the farm.
The days are so short now that dusk has already settled in.
The woods cast creeping shadows over the pastures where the horses nibble at the yellowed grass.
With his silvery-grey coat, Joaquin looks like a long-eared ghost lurking in a corner of one of the fields.
I stuff my hands into my coat pockets and keep staring, swiveling my head to take the whole property in.
I can’t remember the last time I looked at my home and saw anything other than a to-do list.
Even now, there are a dozen unfinished tasks springing up in my mind, scrambling for attention. I push them aside, striding forwards like I can leave all my thoughts locked in the truck and just look at this place.
Most of the leaves have fallen by now. The bare tree branches stretch like fingers trying to catch the light from the pale crescent moon in the sky. There are still traces of purple clinging to the horizon, but in the inky black above my head, a few stars have begun to shine.
I rise onto my tiptoes and stretch my hands up towards the sky. I tip my head back and imagine I can feel the stars like little flecks of diamond dust balanced on the tips of my fingers.
It’s just like Tess said, that day we watched the sunset together: out here, in a place like this, it feels like you can touch the sky.
A lump forms in my throat, and I stuff my hands back into my pockets.
“Is this it?” I ask, my breath clouding in the chilly air. “Is this really it?”
Am I really going to spend the rest of my life working this hard with no end in sight? Am I really going to bury my head in to-do lists and bank accounts forever, without giving myself even a second to look up?
Am I really going to spend every day showing visitors this beautiful place while ignoring its beauty myself?
“ Ma belle ?”
I whirl around at the sound of the front door opening. Maman steps out onto the porch.
“ ?a va ?” she asks. “I heard you get home, but then I didn’t see you go down to the barn.”
I give my shoulders a little shake to pull me out of my thoughts.
“I was just, uh, looking,” I say, sweeping my hand out towards the yard, “at all this.”
She steps to the edge of the porch and crosses her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a sauce-stained apron with frilly edges.
Instead of asking what I’m talking about, she nods and joins me in looking out at the pastures.
“Sometimes I look at it, and I remember the day we bought it.”
I freeze, not even breathing as I process her words.
By we , she means her and my dad.
We don’t talk about my dad.
“We were so excited,” she continues. “We had so many dreams for everything. I didn’t know how we’d make even half of them come true, but he…he made it feel like we could.”
She shivers. I want to tell her to go back inside or at least put on a coat, but there’s a lump in my throat, and all I can do is stand there.
“And we did, you know.” She nods, staring out at something even I can’t see. “We built this place. We made it happen. We wanted to make something we could give to you.”
Her voice cracks, and it feels like something deep in my chest does too.
“ Maman , don’t worry. We don’t have to talk about?—”
She holds her hand up and shakes her head, her eyes shining. She takes a shuddering breath, but when she speaks again, her voice is clear.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like it did, Jacinthe. You weren’t supposed to have to do so much so young. It was supposed to be your choice.”
I have no idea where this is coming from. She’s said sorry before. She’s said sorry a thousand times, but this feels different, like we’re talking about way more than doing chores and leading trail rides.
“It was my choice,” I tell her, reaching for her arm. “It is my choice. This is my home.”
I squeeze her hand. She gives me a sad smile and shakes her head.
“I look at that little Shel, and I think, my God, you were only a few years older than her when you went through so much.”
Maybe that’s what she sees in the fields tonight: an angsty thirteen year-old with a bad haircut, lugging hay bales around all by herself and bringing the horses in every night after homework.
Maybe that’s what she saw every night during those months her heart was too broken to even get out of bed most days, when her brain refused to get better no matter how hard she tried.
I squeeze her hand again, twining our fingers together and feeling the coarse calluses of her palm rub against mine.
No matter what, we’re still farm girls. We have the same rough edges and the same dirt under our nails.
“We both went through so much,” I tell her.
She takes a deep breath before squeezing me back.
“Having them around…” She nods towards the back of the house. “It’s made me think about a lot.”
I can see the splash of golden light from Tess’s kitchen window spilling onto the lawn.
“Me too.”
Maman gently releases my hand and then crosses her arms, rubbing at her bare skin in the cold.
“You know I want you to be happy, right?” she asks before I can tell her she should go back inside. “More than anything.”
She really has been thinking a lot. There’s a somber note to her voice, like this is all rising from some deep and secret place inside her.
“I know, Maman .”
I want to tell her she doesn’t have to do this. She doesn’t have to say any of this. We’re fine.
I don’t think that would help, though. She really does need me to hear the words.
“It’s been just the two of us for so long, and I don’t want you to feel like you’re missing out on anything because of this place.” She sweeps her hand out towards the farm. “If you want a family of your own someday, or even just a partner, I want you to be able to find that.”
My face heats up, and it feels like there’s a band squeezing around my chest as I wait to see if she’ll drop some bomb like telling me she caught me kissing Tess.
“I just wish I could make it all easier for you,” she finishes.
I try not to sigh too obviously. She must have things like families and partners on her mind because we have a kid living here now.
“ Maman , you do make it easier,” I tell her. “You think I could even manage to feed myself if you weren’t cooking me dinner almost every night?”
That at least gets her to smile a little.
“It’s true. You aren’t a very good cook.”
I place a hand on my chest like she’s smacked me. “ Voyons, là . Ouch.”
She laughs a little at my bad acting.
“But really, Maman ,” I say, dropping my hand back to my side, “we both agreed I would do most of the farm work while we’re figuring out your treatments. It just makes the most sense. We are a team. We work together.”
I give her shoulder a little nudge with mine. She smiles again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Sometimes I worry we need a bigger team.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that’s ridiculous, that we’ve managed for years and we’ll keep managing too, but something keeps my jaw clamped tight.
I look back out at the sky, where a few more stars have flickered to life.
“Sometimes I think about that too,” I admit.
I glance at Maman and see her eyes have widened. Even I’m surprised by what I just said.
I clear my throat and do my best to sound casual, like this is just some half-baked scheme I’ll probably never take seriously anyway.