“What about the new calves?” his brother asked, from the backseat.
“There’s nothing we can do about them now,” their father said.
“We’ll lose some,” Patrick persisted, as if that was the most important thing.
Suddenly furious, Rex turned around and glared at his brother. “She’s dead, Patrick.”
“So what? Shut up.”
“So what?”
Patrick shrugged, turning his face away and staring out the far window.
“Asshole!” Rex whirled back around, violently shoving himself into the seat back.
His father didn’t remonstrate with either of them, just let them stew in their own emotional juices while he navigated the hazardous roads back home. When Rex glanced over, he saw that his dad had a grim set to his mouth, which could have been because he was thinking hard, or because of the girl, or just because of the driving conditions. It was hard to tell, just as it was hard to tell how his father felt about a lot of things, unless he was angry about them. It was only anger that his dad seemed able to express openly and without reservation, and now and then a kind of patient, sarcastic affection. The more subtle ranges of feeling stayed locked up inside of him. Or, maybe, Rex thought, he had delegated all of those to Rex’s mom, who had enough sensitivity for all of them.
When his dad pulled up into their driveway, Nathan Shellenberger bypassed the house and drove on to park in front of the barn.
Rex got out of the truck, and Patrick opened his door, too.
“Get up here in front with me, Patrick,” his dad ordered him.
“Why?” It sounded whiny, and made Rex want to slug him.
“Because you’re coming with me.”
“Huh? Where? I don’t want to. I’m tired, Dad.”
“And I don’t care if you don’t want to. Get up here. Now.”
Patrick slammed the back truck door, then just stood in the snow while their dad got out on his side and trudged toward the barn.
“What’s he doing now?” Patrick complained.
“Probably going to use the barn phone.”
“To call who?”
“How the hell would I know, Patrick?”
They watched their dad slide one side of the barn doors open, and then disappear inside.
Patrick took a step toward the truck door that Rex was holding open. He got right up in Rex’s face, grinned, and said in a low voice to his brother, “Congratulations, asshole. You finally got to see a naked woman.”
Rex shoved him into the truck.
Patrick laughed, and shoved him back.
Rex pulled back his right arm to hit Patrick with everything he had, but Patrick ducked under and slid into the front seat, so that Rex’s fist landed on the metal divider between front and back. Pain shot up his arm like a lightning bolt, and blinded him. His teeth clamped down on his tongue, filling his mouth with pain, too, and with the bitter taste of his own blood. He fell back into the snow, grabbing at his broken fist with his other hand, then crying out in agony at the touch of his own hand.
Laughing, Patrick slammed the door shut, and locked it.
“Sucker!”
When their father returned, Rex had already gone into the house, cradling his fist.
“Rex, honey, is that you?”
“Yeah, Mom.”
“Did you boys find any calves? Come in and talk to me. I’m too sick to get up.”
Reluctantly, Rex went to her open doorway. “One dead, two live ones, Mom. We put them in the barn.”
“Did we lose any cows?”
“No, just the one calf, but we didn’t get around to every pasture.”
“You didn’t?” She coughed repeatedly, grabbed a tissue from a box on the floor, blew her nose a few times, and then said, “You’ve been gone a long time. Why are you holding your arm like that? Is something the matter with your hand?”
“Nothing. I hit it-”
“Come here, let me see it.”
“Mom, it’s okay-”
“Come here, Rex.”
He went and sat down on the edge of her bed, and showed her his fist. In the glow of the bedside light that she had turned on, it looked viciously discolored. He saw he had cut it, right across the top of his knuckles, and there was blood. The snow and cold had limited the ooze, and kept the swelling down so far.
“Good grief. What did you do, hit your brother with it?”
He stared at her. How did she always know?
She sighed. “I won’t even ask why. The two of you don’t need a reason, do you? I want you to ice that down before you go to bed.” She kept small plastic bags full of ice at the ready in the freezer, for tending the wounds of athletic sons and a husband who did physically dangerous work. But then she looked up from his hand, directly into his face. “What’s the matter, Rex?” She frowned, cocked her head, as if listening for something. “Did you come in by yourself? Where’s your brother? Where’s your father?”
His dad had told him not to tell her. He was supposed to wait for his father to do it. But he hurt, and he was exhausted, wound-up, confused, and upset, and she was his mom, the best listener of any person he’d ever known.
Rex started at the beginning, and told her everything.
He didn’t stop until his hand began to ache so bad that it was either go get some Tylenol for the pain, or start to cry.
Chapter Four
Mitch and Abby kissed and tortured each other until the coast was clear.
“Now?” he asked her.
Feeling equal parts shy, sure, scared, and excited, Abby nodded.
Mitch slipped out of her bed, and got back into his jeans and undershirt, leaving his boxers, sweater, shoes, socks, and winter coat behind in the room. When Abby saw how he had to struggle-carefully!-to get his half-cocked penis back into his pants, she giggled, and when he saw why she was laughing, he flushed as red as the valentine she had taped to the wall above her bed. “Very funny,” he said with mock sarcasm, and they both laughed. He made a comedy out of walking bowlegged to the door. They both flinched when he turned the lock and it clicked open. After a tense moment of waiting to see if anybody else had heard it, Mitch sneaked through, turning around just long enough to flash her a grin.
She blew him a kiss, and mouthed, “I love you!”
Mitch left her door ajar, so he could slip back in later.
Abby quietly jumped out of bed and pushed all evidence of him under her bed, just in case. She slipped on his red-and-white football jersey that she slept in every night, inhaled the scent of him that clung to it, and let it slide down her body. Then she got back into bed to wait for him.
She didn’t feel any guilt about lying to her mother. In her family, they lied to each other all the time, and only laughed about it when they got caught. “Don’t tell your mother I ate that second piece of pie,” her father might say. “Abby, don’t tell your dad I threw his old tie out with the trash,” Margie might say. Abby lied for her older sister, Ellen, and Ellen, when she was home from KU, lied for her. They were tiny lies, Abby thought, the lies that made it possible to live life without feeling totally chained down to other people’s expectations, the lies that gave ordinary days a little spice and adventure. There was nothing wrong with it, in her opinion, though it boggled Mitch’s mind when he heard them do it. His tiny family-the judge, Nadine, Mitch-lied to each other, too, Abby knew, but there was hell to pay if they got caught, which made them extra careful around one another. “That’s the whole difference between our families,” Abby had once told Mitch. “You guys are so formal, and you take everything so seriously, and we don’t. And that’s weird, because my dad’s the one who’s a doctor, where a lot of things really are life and death, but we don’t act like it. Every time you do anything wrong, it seems like it’s a capital offense.”
“Well, my dad is a judge,” Mitch had pointed out. “Guilt, innocence…”