The Lost Husband (23 page)

“Oh,” I said. “Too much smoke.”

“That,” O’Connor said, “and it would use up all the oxygen.”

I thought about that. “Do we need to worry about using up all the oxygen?”

“Not if we don’t build a fire.”

A little while later O’Connor insisted we get out and move around to keep ourselves awake. We walked circles around the little room and jumped up and down some. We also picnicked on tubs of cheese, pinching off big hunks with our fingers, to keep our energy up. O’Connor had packed the tubs away in coolers before he turned the fridge off, and we went through four containers.

“This is really good,” O’Connor said as we opened up another.

“Thanks,” I said.

When it was time to crawl back into the igloo, I insisted he take one of the blankets, and because he’d been shivering since taking off his shirt, he agreed.

“Kinda wishing right now that you hadn’t just sheared off all my hair,” O’Connor said, running his palm over his jaw where the beard had been.

“You would’ve had your very own fur coat.”

As he pulled the roof back over us, he said, without meeting my eyes, “Probably the warmest thing would be for us to squish together and then wrap ourselves in both blankets.”

“Body heat,” I said, wanting to support the scientific rationale.

He flicked a glance my way. “If you’re okay with that idea.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound super casual. “I’ll try anything.”

And so, in what felt like slow motion, he opened his blanket shawl, and I opened mine. I leaned forward and crawled toward him, spooning myself around the side of his hip and then pressing my chest against his side. I could hear myself breathing, and the swish of the blankets brushing the cardboard as I moved. I put my arms around him, taking in a big breath of his salty scent, and he cocooned the blankets around us.

And that’s how we passed much of the rest of the night, wrapped up tight, telling stories to stay awake, him smelling my hair, which was right under his nose, and me listening to his heart, which was right under my ear. When we ran out of things to say, he’d sing—and I think he covered the entire Ernest Tubb songbook before morning came. Somewhere in there, I joined in, too.

We took periodic cheese and exercise breaks, but then we’d always climb back into the igloo and settle ourselves back together for warmth. We were cold, despite our best efforts—and
uncomfortable, and overtired, and a little anxious about how we would get ourselves rescued. But here’s what I remember most about those hours: I had completely forgotten what it felt like to be held, to rest against the solidness of another person. But it all came back now. And it felt really good.

“Are you asleep?” he asked.

“No,” I said, lifting my head. “Just resting.”

“Probably not a good idea to fall asleep.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said.

“Keep talking,” he said.

“I’m running out of things to say.”

“Okay,” he said, thinking. “Tell me about the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“Hell, no.”

“Come on,” he said. “Humiliation is a stimulant.”

“You first,” I said.

He took a deep breath and thought about it. Finally he said, “In eighth grade I had a really gorgeous English teacher.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And she came to school one day in this silk blouse, and I literally couldn’t think about anything else. We were diagramming sentences that day, and she asked me to go up to the board and do one for the class. And I was, like, really good at diagramming sentences for some reason. But I refused to go to the board.” He leaned down to catch my eye to see if I understood why. “I
couldn’t
go to the board.”

I was too sleepy to get it. “Why not?”

“Because I was a fourteen-year-old boy in a classroom with a woman wearing a silk blouse.”

I took a big breath of understanding. “I see,” I said.

“Longest ten minutes of my life,” he said.

“Did you ever go up to the board?”

“Nope,” he said. “I went to detention instead. For a week.”

“A week!”

“It was worth it.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m wide awake now.”

“Your turn,” he said.

I sighed. “Okay,” I said. “In fourth grade, I had a teacher who wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom. I asked and asked, and she said no over and over. I could tell I was getting myself in trouble just by asking. She was
glaring
at me. I held it as long as I could, but finally, just before the bell rang, I peed on my shoes.”

O’Connor was shaking his head and wincing. “Aw, man.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “And they tried to call my mother to bring me a new pair of shoes, but she wasn’t home, and so the school nurse rinsed mine out with water and made me put them back on.”

“No,” he said, putting his hands over his eyes.

“They squished all day.”

We fell quiet for a minute.

“So you have a lot of sympathy for PeePants,” O’Connor said at last.

I tilted my head at him. “No,” I said. “Not really.”

“But it’s kind of the same thing,” he said.

“It’s the opposite of the same thing,” I said, giving him a look that dared him to disagree.

“Children are such assholes,” he said at last.

“Aren’t they?”

“Grown-ups, too,” he added. And I had to agree.

O’Connor wound up telling me about life in the house with Erin, and how stir-crazy he felt to be so housebound. “I’ve mowed the grass three times this week,” he said. “Just to get outside.”

“Russ thinks you’re going to lose your marbles and run naked through town,” I said.

“It’s not a bad idea,” O’Connor said.

As the night wore on, we got goofier. “If I die, you have permission to eat me as food,” I said somewhere around 5:00
A.M
.

“Right back atcha,” he said.

“I’m sure I’ll be delicious,” I said.

“I’ve heard human flesh tastes like overcooked ham,” he told me.

“You’ve heard that?”

“Yeah.”

“How does that come up in conversation?”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” O’Connor said. “Humans and pigs are a lot alike.”

“I think humans are more like dogs.”

“But would you want to eat a dog?”

“Not really,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said. “Dogs can do many great things. But they can’t become bacon.”

Despite all our efforts, by six, when Russ saw the lights on in the barn and came out in Jean’s ruffled pink robe to investigate, we were fast asleep. The door opened easily from the outside, and Russ saw the empty cheese containers, discovered us inside the igloo of boxes, and pieced the whole story together.

“Looks like y’all had a fun night,” he said to us as we stood up and straightened out. He put an arm around each of us to walk us back up to the house.

“You were sleeping so peaceful,” he added with a wink at me, “I almost didn’t wake you.”

Chapter 19
 

That same morning, though, I still had to get the milking done—because you can’t ever skip a milking—and so I was back in the barn after breakfast. Jean offered to take my shift, but I really was fine. Not injured or hypothermic. Just a little lovelorn. O’Connor was long gone before I came back down, and even though for the rest of the day—hell, the rest of the week—I kept expecting him to show up somehow, he didn’t, and that was that.

In the barn, Sunshine was already halfway through. She had Margaret Thatcher up on the milking stand and the machine running full volume. I felt certain she was going to ask me all about O’Connor, and I really didn’t know what I would say. But she didn’t ask. She wanted to talk much more than she wanted to listen—and about one thing in particular: the boy she’d run into at Jean’s party.

“He knows who I am,” she called out over the noise. “But it doesn’t seem to faze him.”

“That’s great,” I said, lost in my own thoughts. I brought Eleanor Roosevelt in from the waiting pen and helped her up.

“And we like all the same music,” Sunshine went on, “and he’s really gentle and thoughtful.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, still not listening, taking a seat on my milking stool.

“And,” Sunshine added, “the sex is incredible.”

“I’m sorry?” I snapped the suction cup onto my goat so fast, I made her startle.

Sunshine looked up with a shrug. “He’s good in bed.”

“You slept with him?” I asked, my voice all astonishment.

Sunshine lifted an eyebrow. “You slept with O’Connor.”

“I didn’t
sleep with
O’Connor,” I said. “I
fell asleep next to
O’Connor.”

Sunshine didn’t argue, and instead turned back to her milking. “It just kind of happened,” she said. “It was very organic.”

“Sunshine,” I said, “that’s completely reckless! You don’t know anything about him! You’re still heartbroken from the other guy! Don’t you think you ought to get to know him a little first?”

“Yes,” Sunshine said with a nod. “I should.”

“But?” I asked.

“But I just couldn’t help myself,” she said, shrugging.

I gave her a disappointed-mom look. “You have to take better care of yourself,” I said. I couldn’t stop myself from lecturing. “Sex is not the same thing as water polo or mini golf!”

Sunshine wrinkled her nose in pity. “It’s been a while for you, hasn’t it?”

“That’s not it,” I insisted. “Sex connects you with something …” Here I searched for the words. “Something larger than yourself. The whole of human history, somehow—”

“I’m not going to get pregnant,” Sunshine interrupted. “We
used birth control.” She tilted her head. “Edible birth control, but still …”

“I’m not talking about getting pregnant,” I said. “I’m telling you sex is powerful stuff.”

“What am I,” Sunshine said, “your little sister?”

And she had a point. Who was I to lecture her about anything?

Sunshine wrinkled her nose. “Anyway,” she said, “you’re so old-fashioned.”

“
Sex
is old-fashioned!” I said.

She drew an air circle with her finger around the side of her head like I was loco. “Ohhh-kay.”

And there it was. The chasm I came to over and over again with my own kids that separated the things I knew from the things they could understand. The vast difference between what you could learn from experience and what you could teach. “When you’re my age, you’ll get it,” I said in my own defense.

“I
am
your age,” Sunshine said.

“Right,” I said. “You seem younger.” And for the first time I wondered if Sunshine was young for our age—or if, in fact, I was just old. She clearly hadn’t paid enough attention to life’s lessons. On the other hand, maybe I’d paid too much. Either way, I wished so badly that I could just tell her everything she needed to know. That we didn’t have to fail so many times to succeed. That wisdom didn’t have to go so hand in hand with regret.

“Please just try to hold off a little on the jumping into bed with random people,” I said.

She shrugged. “Maybe it’ll work out. Maybe you’ll wind up telling this story at our rehearsal dinner.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” I told her. “You are standing at the edge of something big.”

“Fine,” Sunshine said. “But let’s get one thing straight.”

“What?” I said.

Sunshine grinned. “He is way better than mini golf.”

I wanted to scold her some more but I held back, and my unspoken words bottlenecked in my throat. Something about her optimism reminded me of Abby and Tank: the sweet way they could love anybody—the assumption they made that people deserved it—and how charming, and heartbreaking, it was.

Sunshine was clearly done for the morning with being disapproved of.

“So,” she said, pulling her stool over next to mine and resting her chin in her hands. “Tell me about your all-nighter with O’Connor. Russ said he found you two curled up like kittens.”

I glossed over the basics of what had happened. After all the judging I’d just done, I was extra careful not to get judged myself. Instead, I maneuvered the conversation back toward a much more manageable, if far less appealing topic: PeePants Gaveski.

I confessed to Sunshine that I really had no idea how to handle it. My meetings with the teachers and the principal and the school counselor had resulted in stacks of recommended reading on my bedside table, a folder full of handouts on bullying, and assurances that the school was doing “everything” it could. Short of going to school and following Abby around with a set of nun-chucks, I really didn’t know what to do.

Sunshine wanted me to run PeePants over with the farm truck.

“Obviously,” I said, “that’s not an option.”

“I’ll do it,” she offered. “Just give me the keys.”

“Tempting,” I said.

“Doesn’t Jean have a solution?” Sunshine asked. “Jean always knows what to do.”

“She’s researching it.”

“Researching what?”

“Bullying,” I said.

“Well,” Sunshine said, “if there’s an answer, Jean will find it.”

Which was true. And comforting. But only if there was, in fact, an answer.

Within a day, we were back to our completely normal routine. The door was fixed on the fridge, I had another meeting scheduled with the principal at Abby’s school, O’Connor was gone again. The only thing that wasn’t normal was me. That one crazy day with O’Connor—from the haircut to the square dancing to the night spent clinging together for warmth—had left me feeling anything but.