Page 3 of The Solstice Additions
“You are not in the least sorry. My eyelashes are singed. Roll down your window.”
His snickers grew louder as did his toots.
The man was lucky he wassogood in bed or he would be hoofing it to Whiteham. This right here was Relationship Realness 101. Romance movies never touched on this side of life. They never showed Mr. Darcy ripping one.
Fucking pickled eggs.
Chapter Three
Since Kenan was a stinky man, I dropped him off at his place first with a promise to come up for dinner in a few hours as long as he promised to take some danged Beano. I had to check on Fred and Wilma then unpack while he had to cuddle his new adopted cat and apologize profusely for abandoning her for three whole days.
I refused to kiss him when I dropped him off due to the lingering funk. He snorted in amusement, gave my thigh a squeeze, and darted off with his man bag on one shoulder and his carry-on duffel on the other. His long legs carried him to the front door of what used to be Mr. Blum’s cottage. My elderly neighbor had moved away last winter to tend to his sister and had sold Kenan his large plot of land and his home at a pretty big loss for the old gent. We kept in touch. Kenan and Mr. Blum talked frequently. I suspected much of that was because Kenan was the lone Jew in a small rural town filled with Gentiles. Mr. Blum and he had shared a short but special bond that still lingered. One of the stipulations of the old cabin to Kenan wasthat he had to place and light his grandfather’s menorah in the window when Hanukkah arrived. There was no doubt he would do so this winter. He was proud of his heritage and beliefs even if he didn’t attend temple weekly. Not that there was one to attend in or near Whiteham, but there was a fairly active one in Corning that he had looked into. He’d not gone yet and might not, but he knew it was there if he chose to attend. Right now, he worked most nights at the alehouse with me, either tending bar or singing, and one night a week he traveled to the closest rural hospital to attend the lone Narcotics Anonymous group.
Rural healthcare was incredibly sparse, and any kind of mental health or dependency programs even more so. So Thursday nights I pulled beer alone. Something that I had done for years, so it wasn’t anything new or shocking. What was jarring was how damn much I missed the lanky singer when he wasn’t there. Funny how fast a solitary man could become part of a duo.
Trundling down our rough dirt lane, the hatch on the Nissan bumping along despite the bungee cord I had secured it with, I pulled into my short driveway with a sigh. Traveling was not my cup of tea at all. I was a hermit at heart, but Nora had moved north and then fell in love with a hockey player, so if I wanted to see her, then trekking was the only way to do so. Yes, she went to New York at times, as did my folks, but her visits would dwindle once the baby arrived. Which meant it would be footloose and fancy-free Brann doing the journeying. I’d grumble a lot, but I’d drive, fly, or boat around the world to see my baby sister.
I checked the mailbox, gathered the junk and bills that Wilkes had left, smiled at the darling BEWARE OF THUG GEESE sign on my picket fence, and pushed through the creaky gate. No sooner had the gate squeaked and slammed shut did the thug geese arrive. Fred and Wilma came waddling around the side ofmy little house, wings out, necks long, barbed tongues making hissy sounds.
“It’s me, you two goobers,” I called as they stamped closer. Once they saw me and heard me speak, the wings lowered, their heads rose, and Wilma came over to pinch at my jeans. Fred, my spirit animal, kept his distance, eyeballing me with a sideways goosey look. “I don’t have any treats. Let me get in the door. Have you been nice to Lyle when he came to let you out in the morning and shut you up at night?”
They remained silent. That was suspicious. I would text Lyle, one of my pub regulars and the only one brave enough to goose sit when I had to go north, to see if he’d been pinched while I was gone. “I’ll get you some wilted lettuce in a second.”
Wilma seemed okay with that. She joined Fred by the rhododendron bush under the front window. They mowed the overly long grass as they went, snipping off the green blades of ryegrass as they trundled back to the creek that meandered through my property.
The house was musty, so I opened the windows and tossed my bag on the bed before toeing off my sneakers. I padded into the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, and opened the fridge. I’d been expecting to find a goose egg or two in the fridge.
“Well, well,” I said as I searched for those eggs. Wilma was a late layer, to be sure. How old they were was anyone’s guess. They’d been dumped on the Kirby pond several years ago. Knowing they would starve over the winter because they were domestic geese and did not fly south, I voluntold a few of my regulars to help me round them up before the pond froze. I was pleased to see the eggs. She’d not laid many last year, so perhaps they were getting up there in age. No matter, I would gladly take any eggs she gave me, and when she stopped laying that was fine too. They were my buddies, even if Fred did strike fear in the heart of my mailman. “Guess we won’t make a souffle.”
I rummaged in the crisper for some old veggies. There were two squishy Roma tomatoes in the bin and a bag of bagged salad that was goose food for sure. Taking my coffee out the back door, I took a moment to enjoy the cool air of the state game lands that butted up to my property line. My yard was nothing out ofBetter Homes & Gardens, but it was mine. A small shed, a fenced-in goose coop, and a frolicking creek made it the perfect place to chill. My phone buzzed in my back pocket. A text from Nora to check if I had made it home safely. I replied that I had. She sent me a picture of a baby kicking her big tummy as Antoine sang something French to the babe. It was stupidly cute.
Theywere stupidly cute. Was Kenan and I stupidly cute too? God, I hoped not. That would go against the reputation that I had worked so hard to establish over the years. Another text rolled in, this time from Lyle, also asking if I had made it home. I told him that I had and thanked him for goose sitting.
Welcome home. There is a slew of eggs in your goose coop. Damn birds about tore my head off trying to gather them, so I left them. I was pinched. No stitches required. I expect free beer for a week as hazard pay. ~ L
Stitches. Okay, now Lyle was being dramatic. Sure, they could break the skin on occasion, but generally the pinch just left a bruise. The wings, now those you had to look out for because if they beat you with those strong wings, it kind of felt like you’d been worked over by some goon with a baseball bat. Overall, Fred and Wilma were placid. Sort of. For geese. Still, the eggs would need to be gathered, so I ambled outside, with coffee and old bagged salad. The sun was sinking low, and a bluebird sat atop a birdhouse nailed to an old pine watching me intently. The geese were down in the creek, splashing about as geese do.
“Hey, goose,” I called because I was original like that. Two white heads came up. A few honks followed. “I have lettuce,” I shouted and shook the bag. They went back to their baths.Rude. With mug and wilted salad in hand, I threw open the door to their pen. The hinges squealed. I dumped the lettuce in their rubber dish, kneeled down, and gaped at the huge nest inside their little coop. Lying in a deep divot in the hay that had been coated with soft white down lay six pretty white eggs. I sat back just enough to spy two irate geese charging up the small incline, wings out, honking angrily. I quickly stood. Wilma, usually the gentler of the two—I’d even been able to feed her fresh watermelon chunks by hand a few times—raced at me like a hyena.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I yelled, but there was no whoa taking place. Fred reached me first. I did a little shuck and jive, avoided the pinch, and backed away from those eggs in a dandy impression of Usain Bolt. Coffee sloshed over my fingers. “Shit, okay, I get it.” Wilma charged me once more, stopping only when she reached the fence. “I’m not going to do anything to them.”
Wilma hissed a warning hiss and waddled off. Fred, being Fred, fell into sentry mode, marching back and forth in front of the gate while his mate settled her damp self onto her clutch. I wiped the hot coffee off my fingers onto my jeans. It was then that I noticed her breast feathers were missing. Two and two added up to four. Wilma had pulled her feathers from her breast to line the nest as well as ensure the eggs were closer to her skin for incubation. She was ready to set some eggs.
“So this is something,” I said to Fred. He gave me the evil goose eye. “Did she ask you if you were ready for parenthood?” He seemed to ponder my question, then pooped a big green poop as a reply. “Okay, fair. Well, guess I won’t be usingthoseeggs to make a cake.”
He ambled over to the coop to stand guard as Wilma tucked her head under her wing. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about this, to be honest. Two geese were a handful. Eight, if all the eggshatched, would be a gaggle. Did I want a gaggle? Was I a gaggle-worthy goose grandparent? Shit. What would Kenan have to say about this? I went to my tiny back step, sat down, and while I sipped what remained of my coffee, I sent my lover up the lane a text.
See you after dark. How do you feel about gaggles? ~ B
Assuming you meant to type giggles. I like them. Yours in particular. ~ K
I rolled my eyes. As if Ievergiggled. The man was punch drunk on pickled eggs still, obviously.
Chapter Four
Strolling along a small country lane right before the sun set was magical.
Normally I wasn’t the type of man to pay attention to goofy things like doves settling onto pine boughs with soft coos for the night or the soft rustle of a cottontail in the woods as it ventured forth to find something to eat or the arrival of brown bats swooping over my head to catch mosquitoes. Hell, until Kenan arrived in my life, I barely paid mind to fireflies as they lifted to the night sky to attract mates. Now, I noted all of that. And more. Kenan had not only breathed life into my sorely withered heart, but he opened my eyes to artsy shit too.
