17. Cat #2
I follow him across the yard, stepping over the worst of the muddy patches. The chicken coop is at the far end of the property, a sturdy wooden structure with a fenced run that looks recently repaired.
“Did you fix this too?”
“The latch was broken. Foxes could have gotten in.”
“When did you have time to fix a chicken coop latch?”
“Four-thirty. Before the goats.” He picks up a bucket of feed from the shed. “I don’t sleep much.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“It’s not by choice.”
“I know.”
We look at each other across the bucket of feed, and neither of us says it, the acknowledgment of all the sleepless nights we’ve both had. All the hours spent staring at ceilings, wondering how everything went so wrong.
“Ready?” he asks.
“For what?”
He opens the coop gate.
The chickens emerge like a feathered apocalypse.
I’ve never seen anything like it, a wave of squawking, flapping, absolutely unhinged birds flooding out of the coop and descending on Max with single-minded determination.
They’re everywhere at once, pecking at his boots, his jeans, the bucket in his hands, and he’s trying to scatter the feed but they’re not interested in the ground, they want the source…
“Back!” he shouts. “Get back, you heathens!”
They do not get back. If anything, they intensify.
A particularly bold hen launches herself at the bucket, and Max yelps, actually yelps, a sound I haven’t heard him make since our wedding, and jerks backward, and his foot lands on a patch of mud that’s slicker than it looks, and…
He goes down.
Full-length, flat on his back, feed bucket flying, chickens scattering and then immediately reconvening to peck at the grain now scattered across his chest.
For a moment, I just stare.
Then I start laughing.
I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. The don of the Moretti family is lying in the mud, covered in chicken feed, being aggressively pecked by a dozen hens who clearly have no respect for his authority or his dignity, and it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in months.
I’m doubled over, hands on my knees, tears streaming down my face.
“I’m glad,” Max says from the ground, “that my suffering amuses you.”
“Your, your face-” I wheeze. “When you went down-”
“I’ll have you know I was ambushed. This was a coordinated attack.”
“By chickens.”
“Very strategic chickens.” He sits up, dislodging several hens who immediately return to peck at his shoulders. “I suspect the red one is the ringleader.”
“The red one?”
“She’s been watching me all morning with calculating eyes. I should have known she was planning something.”
“You’re blaming the chicken for your lack of coordination.”
“I’m identifying the source of the conspiracy. Coordination was never in question.”
I’m still laughing, wiping tears from my cheeks, and his face goes soft as he watches me. Wondering, like he’s looking at a thing he forgot existed.
“What?” I ask, catching my breath.
“Nothing. Just-” He shakes his head, pushing himself to his feet. Mud drips from his jeans, his back, his elbows. He looks absolutely ridiculous. “I missed that sound.”
“What sound?”
“You laughing.”
My laughter dies in my throat.
“Max-”
“I know. I know I don’t get to say things like that yet.” He brushes mud off his arms, not meeting my eyes. “But it’s true. That’s the first time I’ve heard you really laugh in, I don’t even know how long.”
“You don’t-”
“But I’m glad.” He finally looks at me, and there’s no calculation in his expression, no strategy. Just honesty, raw and unprotected. “Whatever else happens, I’m glad I got to hear it again.”
I don’t know what to say. The anger is still there, of course it is, it doesn’t just disappear because he fell in the mud and looked absurd, but underneath it, the ground is moving. I’m not ready to name what toward.
“You need a shower,” I say finally.
“I need several showers. Possibly a decontamination chamber.”
“You have mud in your hair.”
“I have mud everywhere.” He shakes his head, and a clump of something I don’t want to identify falls onto his shoulder. “This is not how I pictured my morning going.”
“How did you picture it?”
“Dignified. Competent. Demonstrating my usefulness without getting assaulted by poultry.”
“You did demonstrate your usefulness. The fence posts are very straight.”
“Thank you. I’m good with posts.”
He’s still dripping, still absurd, the careful don-mask slid all the way off, and I don’t think he’s noticed it’s gone.
“And then you got taken down by a chicken.”
“A coordinated assault by multiple chickens. Very different.”
“If that’s what helps you sleep at night.”
“Nothing helps me sleep at night. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
He’s grinning now, despite the mud, despite everything, and it’s doing something dangerous to my resolve. Because this, this easy back-and-forth, this absurd shared moment, this is what I fell in love with in the first place. The man underneath the don. The person underneath the strategy.
But that person also hurt me. That person also lied to me, shut me out, made me feel invisible in my own home.
One moment of shared laughter doesn’t erase that.
“I should get back to my manuscript,” I say.
“Of course.”
“The dialogue isn’t going to fix itself.”
“No, it never does.”
“And you should probably-” I gesture vaguely at his mud-covered body.
“Deal with this situation. Yes. Agreed.” He takes a step toward me, arms spread wide. “Unless you want a hug first?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I’m feeling very affectionate right now.”
“You’re feeling very muddy right now.”
He’s covered head to boot in it, grinning like a kid, arms spread wide, and he takes another slow step toward me.
“Affectionately muddy.”
“Stay away from me.”
“One small hug. Just a little one. You won’t even notice.”
“I will notice. I will notice extremely.”
I back up, one hand out, the other cradling the curve of my belly, trying not to laugh and failing completely.
“Think of it as a bonding exercise.”
“I will push you back in that mud.”
“In your condition? You wouldn’t.”
“Try me, Moretti.”
He stops advancing, hands up in surrender, but he’s still grinning.
“Fine,” he says, lowering his arms. “No hug. I’ll be in the shower if that decision changes after the mud is gone.”
“And I’m going to keep saying no.”
“Noted. Filed away for future reference.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
I turn toward the house, and I’m smiling. I can feel it on my face, this stupid smile I can’t seem to suppress, but I don’t turn around. I don’t let him see.
I’m not ready to let him see.