Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
VIRGIL
C lara’s in the yard with her hands on her hips, looking at me. It strikes me again how small this woman looks wrapped in Bryson’s flannel, somehow always cold now despite the heat of the mid-morning sun.
Cicadas and grasshoppers rattle around us, deafening, and I stand there like a fool holding one brown hen under each arm.
“Had surprise guests,” I grunt, studying each one in turn. Then I stare off at the coop, trying hard not to look at Clara anymore. It’s no good.
None of this is.
“Coop needs reinforcing again. Whatever you have trying to break in at night is relentless.”
“Looks like it,” she says, forehead creasing.
“I have some extra lumber. It might prove useful,” I say.
She frowns until her chin dimples. It does something weird to my chest.
“I can’t ask anymore from you.”
“You weren’t asking,” I say with an annoyed chuckle. Stubborn as always. “I was offering.”
“But…”
I wait. Nothing else comes out except a long sigh. “Then at least let me help.”
I shake my head instantly. Not because I think she can’t. Because being around her keeps getting harder. Knowing the feel of her in my arms doesn’t help one bit.
“I got this.”
“No—”
“I work alone,” I say.
“When you have to. Not today.” That’s it. Conversation over. Case closed. Been a long time since I felt a mother’s authority firsthand.
“What’s that look for?” she asks, eyes narrowing. She raises her hand, shielding her face from the sun.
“Still trying to figure out how you won the argument we weren’t actually having.”
That makes the corners of her mouth tip up. Unexpected but not unwelcome. I feel instantly guilty and somehow triumphant.
“Every day’s an argument with two grade schoolers.” She says it thumbing over her shoulder. In the distance, I hear them screaming and laughing already caught in some antics on the edge of the homestead.
“Told them to help gather hens. No good until the coop’s fixed, though.”
“Guess we better get to it, then.” She looks down at the sleeves dragging well past her hands, bunching the flannel that pools around her. She tries rolling up a sleeve. By the time it reaches her wrist, the folds are ungainly, overgrown. “Hold that thought for one moment.”
By the time she returns, I’ve got nails between my teeth, humming to myself as I work. I startle at the first sight of her, looking twice though I don’t mean to. She’s swimming in her own clothes, too, her plump figure lost beneath the weight of loss.
But at least the fabric’s manageable now. Rolling up her sleeves, she closes the distance to where I work. “What can I do?” she asks.
I remove the nails from my mouth, setting them in her open palm. “Give ‘em to me when I ask for ‘em.”
“That all?” she asks, looking up at me with those big, indigo eyes.
The flakes of gold and green glow today.
Shouldn’t notice that. Or the thin wispy curls that gather at her temples, the pink blush of her cheeks.
Haven’t seen color in her face for so long it strikes me as a downright gaudy display of nature.
She wears jeans that she has to use a belt to keep up and a burgundy thermal with lace at the sleeves. Impractical. Entirely impractical in a place like this.
Her eyes dart away, and she scrutinizes the new damage and patch I’m working on. “Last time, we had a digger. What do you think did this damage?”
“Bear more than likely.” I point to big tracks near her boots. Then a smaller set by mine. “Maybe a bobcat.”
“A bear?” she squeaks.
I arch a brow.
“Welcome to the mountains.”
Her eyes narrow. “That’s not funny.”
“Wasn’t a joke.”
She mutters something beneath her breath that sounds suspiciously like a prayer. I grin despite myself and hammer another board into place.
For a while, we work in companionable silence. The sort that would have driven me crazy a month ago. Now it feels strangely comfortable.
Nails clink softly against Clara's palm. Every time I need another one, she presses it into my hand before I can ask. Like she's already figured out the rhythm.
I haven’t figured out the lingering heat her touch leaves. So, I push it down. Refuse to think about it.
“Where'd you learn all this stuff?” she asks eventually.
“Military. My dad. Living out here.”
“Bryson used YouTube.”
That earns a laugh. “Sounds about right.”
Her smile flickers. “Actually, that's not fair. He could build things.”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually,” she agrees.
For a moment neither of us says anything. The absence settles between us. No less painful, no easier than before. But somehow both of us are more used to carrying it now. The way grief always is.
A shout erupts across the yard.
“Luke!” Helen's voice sounds thoroughly exasperated.
I look up in time to see the boy sprinting through the grass with three chickens scattering in every direction behind him.
“I'm helping!”
“You're terrifying them!”
“That's helping!”
I shake my head. “Your son might be part coyote.”
Clara laughs. Not the brittle kind. Not the careful kind. A genuine laugh.
The sound hits me square in the chest. Then it vanishes just as quickly.
Her smile fades. Her eyes dart away.
There it is again. Guilt. Like she thinks happiness is something she's stealing.
I hate that. More than I probably should.
“Hey,” I say. She looks up. “Your husband wasn't the only one who laughed around here.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. For a second, I think I've made a terrible mistake.
But Clara just stares at me. “What do you mean?”
I drive another nail. “He was loud. I'll give him that.” That earns the ghost of another smile. “But he wasn't the whole place.”
My eyes sweep across the homestead. To the chickens, the garden, the children, and the mountains beyond.
“You built this too.”
Something shifts in her expression. Small. Almost imperceptible. But I see it. Maybe because I've been watching her for weeks.
“Didn't feel like it after the flood.” Her voice is barely above a whisper.
I nod. “Yeah.”
Because for the first time, I think I understand.
She's not afraid of losing the homestead. Not really. She's afraid that without Bryson, none of it belongs to her anymore.
We finish the last section of fencing in silence. When I finally straighten, my back protests.
The coop ain’t pretty, the patch job far from a carpenter’s best. But it’s solid.
“Think that'll hold?” she asks. “Against a bear?”
I shrug. “No.”
Her eyes widen.
I grin. “Against everything else? Probably.”
She rolls her eyes. “Remind me why I keep letting you help?”
I look out toward the yard where Helen is chasing Luke with a feed bucket. The late-summer sunlight catches in their hair. The sound of their laughter carries across the property.
“Somebody has to keep watch.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
Clara goes still.
So do I.
Neither of us says anything for a long moment.
When she finally looks away, it feels like the most dangerous thing that's happened all day. Don’t know why.
“Ready for chicken wrangling?” I ask after a long, unsettled moment. The question takes the sting out of her eyes and some of the tension from her shoulders.
“Now that I can do,” she says, emphasizing her words like she’s answering the question I spoke into being last night—whether she and the kids can manage up here. I know the answer’s no. Not during a backcountry winter. Especially not the winter predicted by this year’s Almanac.
But she doesn’t get it, and I don’t know how to make her see it. That this mountain asks too much of anyone alone. So instead, I help with the catching, covered in brown feathers and the laughter of children by the end.
“You’re working for your eggs today, Virgil,” Helen observes with a laugh as I lunge for another hen, nearly nosediving into a pile of dead leaves and pine needles.
“Sure am,” I grunt, finally getting a hold of the runaway.
“How many is that?” Clara asks, pointing and counting the inhabitants of the coop for the fifth time. She pauses afterward, shaking her head. “All accounted for. How can that be?”
“Bear might be strong. But agile’s another thing.”
“Like you, Vir-gull,” Luke says.
Helen snorts.
Clara covers her mouth, a smile in her eyes. “Stay for lunch?” she asks.
Not that she needs to. I’m at every meal at her table now. Making most of them myself. But her asking. Her looking up at me with that slight expectation, her lips parted. It means more to me than it should.
I remove my cowboy hat, striking it against my knee. Heat climbs my neck. The unfortunate part of being ruddy-complexioned and redheaded. Can’t hide my emotions.
Would love to.
Nope, too bold.
Thank you, ma’am.
Too formal.
Instead, I settle for a smile, hard-won and reserved. Our eyes meet, and the air goes thick again. Like everything settles, and the world gets smaller.
Just for a moment… until I feel a chubby hand slip into mine, and a tug of my arm. “Come on,” Luke says with an unabashed grin. “Got to wash up good for Mama.” He leans closer, whispering as if it’s the biggest secret the world’s ever kept. “Sometimes she checks my neck and behind my ears, too.”
That gets a booming laugh from me. One I can’t help. And cresting the top of it, is a lighter peal of laughter, escaping Clara’s lips before she can stop it.