We worked for two hours. Badly at first. He had forgotten how to use a wrench without checking if he was doing it right. He had forgotten that work often requires silence. But slowly, his shoulders lowered. His hands got dusty. Sweat darkened his shirt.
At noon, we sat on the tailgate of my truck and ate sandwiches I had made that morning.
He looked out over the pasture.
“I used to hate how quiet it was out here,” he said.
“You used to hate anything without a screen.”
He smiled faintly.
“Mom would’ve said that nicer.”
“Your mother would’ve handed you a sandwich first.”
He looked down at the one in his hand.
“She really wrote that letter?”
“Yes.”
“Did she hate Lindsay?”
“No.” I took a sip from my thermos. “Your mother didn’t waste that much energy.”
He nodded.
“She saw something, though.”
“She saw you disappearing when Lindsay spoke.”
That one hurt him.
Good truth usually does.
He stared at the ground.
“I don’t know how it got like this.”
“It got like this one small surrender at a time.”
He looked at me, and I could see he understood.
That afternoon, before he left, he said Lindsay had gone to stay with her sister in Plano.
“She says you destroyed our future,” he said.
“No,” I told him. “I protected mine.”
Three months passed.
Summer came hard, as it always does. The grass browned at the edges. The cattle moved slower. The porch fan hummed through the afternoons. The roses by the house bloomed again, stubborn and pink.
Evan kept coming on Fridays.
