Chapter 11 The Work of Staying
YSABEL
By early afternoon, the goat pen is half cleared and Leon looks like a different man.
His shirt is dark with sweat across the shoulders and down the back.
Dust and worse things streak his forearms where he's wiped his face with the inside of his elbow.
The borrowed boots are caked with the evidence of honest work, and somewhere in the last two hours he's stopped moving like someone who's never done this before and started moving like someone who's tired but determined to finish.
I've been helping my mother with the beans, kneeling in the garden rows with a basket between us, but I keep finding my eyes drifting toward the pen. Toward Leon, methodical now, shovel and wheelbarrow and dump pile and back again.
"He's still going," my mother says.
"I noticed."
"He hasn't asked your father to finish it for him."
"Most men aren't trying to prove something."
She pulls another handful of beans from the vine and drops them in the basket. "What's he trying to prove, exactly?"
"That he can change. That he's different now." I sit back on my heels and wipe my forehead with my sleeve. "That doing farm work for one afternoon somehow makes up for two years of letting his mother treat me like an inconvenience."
"Does it?"
"No." I watch Leon dump another load in the wheelbarrow, his movements slower than they were an hour ago but no less careful. "But I don't know what would. I don't know if anything can."
My mother is quiet for a moment. Then she reaches for another handful of beans and stops, frowning at a vine that's snapped near the base.
"Well, that's done for." She pulls the broken section free and tosses it aside. "I told your father that trellis was too tight."
I look toward the pen. Leon is pushing the wheelbarrow back from the dump pile, and instead of stopping for water or looking around for approval, he parks it by the fence and picks up the shovel again. He doesn't glance toward us. He just gets back to work.
"He's not asking for praise," my mother says, following my gaze.
"I don't know if that means he understands what he did wrong, or if he just can't stand the idea of failing at something."
"Then don't decide today." She hands me a tomato that's gone soft on one side. "Put that in the compost pile. And bring back the small basket while you're up."
My mother stands, brushing dirt from her knees. "The beans can wait. Come inside and help me with lunch. Your father will need to eat before he falls over, and I suspect Leon will too."
***
We eat at the small table in the kitchen, the four of us crowded around like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Leon sits across from me, still in his dirty shirt, and eats the bread and cheese and cold vegetables my mother sets out with the careful attention of someone who knows he hasn't earned this hospitality.
"The pen's looking better," my father says between bites. "You've got a decent rhythm going."
"You showed me the right grip. That helped."
"Most people take longer to figure it out. You're a quick study."
Leon glances at me, then away. "I'm motivated."
My father makes a sound that might be acknowledgment or might be skepticism. It's hard to tell with him.
"There's more work tomorrow," my mother says. "If you're planning to come back."
The table goes quiet. Leon sets down his bread and looks at me.
"That depends on Ysabel," he says. "I told her one afternoon. If she wants me to leave after this, I'll leave."
Everyone is looking at me now. I take a drink of water to buy myself time, turning the question over in my head.
He did what he said he would do. He worked without complaining, without making excuses, without asking for special treatment.
That's something. I don't know if it's enough, but it's something.
"Tomorrow you can help my father with whatever he needs," I say. "But you go home at the end of the day. And you come back only if I say you can."
"Understood."
"I mean it, Leon. This isn't you moving in. This isn't us being fine. This is me giving you a chance to show me something I haven't seen yet."
"I understand." He holds my gaze. "Thank you."
I look away first. I hate that I look away first.
After lunch, Leon goes back to the pen to finish what he started. My father goes with him, though he mostly watches from outside the fence now, occasionally offering corrections or suggestions. I help my mother clean up the kitchen, and then I go to the guest room and close the door.
I need a minute. Just one minute where I don't have to think about Leon or the farm or the baby only Gia knows about. I lie down on the bed and press my hand against my stomach, the gesture so automatic now that I barely notice I'm doing it.
I called the doctor's office while I had a few minutes alone.
There was an appointment later in the week, and I took it. I still need to ask Gia about a lift.
For now, the time is saved privately on my phone, one small thing settled in a day when I can't seem to settle anything else.
***
Leon leaves at dusk, his expensive shoes back on his feet, the borrowed boots cleaned and left by the back door. He shakes my father's hand and thanks my mother for lunch, and then he stands in front of me like he's not sure what he's allowed to do.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" he asks.
"If you're here by seven, my father can use help with the almond trays."
"I'll be here."
He doesn't try to touch me. Doesn't ask for a hug or a kiss or any of the things a husband might expect from his wife. He just nods once and walks to his car, and I watch him drive away until the dust settles behind him.
"Well," my mother says from the doorway. "That's something."
"It's something," I agree. I don't know what else to call it.
The next morning, Leon arrives at six-forty-five.
He's dressed differently today. Work clothes that look new but practical, boots that are his own, not borrowed. He's brought nothing else, no gifts or gestures, just himself and his willingness to work.
My father puts him to work immediately, carrying baskets of almonds from the barn to the drying area and spreading them on the trays the way my father showed me when I arrived. Leon learns quickly, asking questions when he's not sure about something, accepting corrections without argument.
I watch from the kitchen window while I help my mother prepare breakfast. He moves differently today, more confident, like the memory of yesterday's work has settled into his body overnight.
His hands are careful with the almonds, turning them so they'll dry evenly, checking for damage the way my father showed him.
"He's not terrible at this," my mother says, following my gaze.
"He's not terrible at most things. That was never the problem."
"What was the problem?"
I turn away from the window. "He was good at everything except seeing me."
My mother doesn't say anything to that. She just hands me a knife and points me toward the tomatoes.
After breakfast, my father takes Leon to help repair a section of fence that's been sagging for weeks.
I stay nearby, hauling empty drying trays from the barn to the shaded work area where the sorted almonds will go. The trays aren't heavy, but there are a lot of them, and the repetition is almost soothing. Stack, carry, set down. Stack, carry, set down.
From where I'm working, I can see Leon and my father at the fence line. My father is showing him how to brace the posts while he hammers in new supports. Leon is holding the wood steady, his back to me, listening to whatever instructions my father is giving.
His phone rings.
I watch him step back from the fence, pulling the phone from his pocket. He says something to my father, who waves him off with a gesture that clearly means take it.
Leon walks a few steps away and answers. I can't hear what he's saying, but his posture changes. Straighter. More businesslike. The Don, dealing with whatever the Don deals with.
Part of me expects him to walk to his car. To make some excuse about an emergency at the estate, something that needs his attention right now, sorry but he has to go. That's what would have happened before. There was always something more urgent than me.
But he doesn't walk to his car. He talks for maybe three minutes, pacing a little, then stops and says something that sounds like a question. He listens. Nods. Says something else. Then he puts the phone back in his pocket and walks back to my father.
"Everything all right?" my father asks. I can hear him from here now that Leon's closer.
"Irrigation pump at the estate needs a part replaced. The supplier wants approval on the order." Leon picks up the wood he was holding before. "I told them to handle it. The manager can sign off if they need something today."
"You don't need to go back?"
"No. I told them where I'd be. If something actually urgent happens, they'll call again." He braces the post. "Where were we?"
My father looks at him for a moment, then picks up the hammer. "Hold it steady. I'm going to hit it hard this time."
They work for another twenty minutes. I finish moving the trays and start sorting almonds, spreading them across the wood in single layers, checking for cracks and discoloration. The work is meditative, and I let myself fall into it.
"Ysabel."
I look up. Leon is standing a few feet away, my father still visible at the fence line behind him.
"Your father said you might need help moving the full baskets. The sorted ones."
I glance at the baskets lined up along the wall. They're heavy when they're full, heavy enough that I've been leaving them for my father to shift later.
"The three on the left need to go to the barn," I say. "The shelf by the door."
He nods and picks up the first basket, lifting it with both hands. He carries it to the barn without complaint, comes back, takes the second one. Then the third.
When he's done, he doesn't linger. Doesn't wait for me to thank him or acknowledge what he did. He just goes back to the fence where my father is waiting.