Page 119 of The Auction
I felt the couch cushions dip. Mrs. Talley was getting up. I reached for her hand, and felt her fingers clasp mine, even though my eyes were still closed.
“What if he doesn’t come back?”
“He will. I have a good feeling about him.”
Oh. Well. If Mrs. Talley thought so. I let her hand go and rolled into the couch cushions and promptly fell asleep.
The next morningJackson drove me into town, not saying a word, but I could tell silently judging me the whole time.
I drove my truck home and apologized to AP and Peasy for being a jackass.
That Saturday, April left for college and I started getting the fields ready for winter.
TWENTY-NINE
JULIETTE
It was mid-October.Wasn’t really sure of the date because when I thought too hard about what the date was, it made me count back to the day he left.
It had been one thing to think he was gone for a few days, but when you started to put a number to it, it became real.
Four days.
Ten days.
Two weeks.
A month.
We were sometime beyond two months at this point, so I didn’t think about the date too much. Pretty sure it was a Thursday, but that was all I would think about.
Because if I got started on wondering whether he was alive or dead, it would suck me into the vortex of overthinking, sadness, rage, more sadness. Worry.
And nothing would get done.
Instead, what I was doing was trying to keep busy.
Today, I was digging through the garden my mom had attempted years ago and seeing if there were any perennialsleft to be salvaged. Something under the weeds and overgrowth that just needed to see the light of day to grow again.
About halfway through digging I was pretty sure there was nothing there. I could rip it all out by hand, but maybe what made the most sense was to hook up the plow to the back of the tractor and just pull all of it out and start with fresh dirt.
For the record, I was getting pretty competent about getting that thing on and off by myself. It was all about alignment. I would use Peasy to help me move the plow to the spot I needed it, where the land was a little raised, and back the tractor right up to it. Then it was just a question of getting the hitch from the plow secured on to the tractor.
It was heavy, but it was doable.
So suck it, Creed.
I could hear a truck in the distance and thought nothing of it. A few weeks ago, sure. Any time the sound of an engine came close to the property it was enough to send my heart racing and have chills breaking out over my body.
Because I didn’t know if it meant he was coming back home or if I was about to be told he was never coming back home.
It got so bad, I had this idea that I needed to buy ear pods so that my hearing was always muzzled and that way maybe my reaction to the sound of a truck engine wouldn’t be so Pavlovian.
Except today was hay day, so at least this truck engine made sense.
Sam Talley, the Talley’s middle child, was home on a break from vet school and would be delivering my hay drop off for the next week, according to Jackson. Which explained why Jackson hadn’t been here first thing in the morning. He usually did his drop offs before dawn.It took some doing, but we’d negotiated a fair rate for the hay and Peasy seemed to be doing well with it, so for now she could stay with me.
I needed her for the heavy lifting.
