They’d already packed their stuff into Galen’s truck, which had been stored up at the guest ranch and which now sported a set of brand new and very sturdy truck tires. Then, with Galen in the driver’s seat, and Bede riding shotgun, they’d driven to the farm.
The windows had been open and the music had blared, with the Black Crows singing about change in their pockets and about free milk and a cow. The sun had been shining, as it always did. Overhead, in that bright, brassy blue sky.
Once they settled in the farmhouse, there’d been a ton of chores to do on the farm. A shitton, in fact.
Because they owed money to Leland Tate, Bede threw himself into working from sunup to sundown. Every day of the week. Galen was at his side, every minute.
Together, they fixed the fence line. Bought goats. Weeded the lavender, prepping the beds for winter with bales of straw. They got a new door for the shed over the water pump. Put in a new screen door for the house.
Between all of this, they’d made love. Lots of love. Indoors, on the new mattress that Bede had insisted on. Outdoors, on a blanket on the grass. And after, they’d watched the stars come out.
Today, Galen was on an errand to Cheyenne, because if they were going to start raising goats for milk, they needed the best freezer to store the milk in.
Galen also wanted to buy enough wood to build a store that they would put near the main road. Galen’s plan was to sell from the store come spring, which Bede thought was crazier than crazy.
“We can’t stay out there all day and sell honey and shit,” he said.
“We won’t stay out there all day and sell honey and shit,” Galen had said quite patiently. “Customers are going to take what they want and then they’ll leave money in the box. Sure, Saturdays we can be out there, but most days, it’ll be self-serve.”
Bede did not explain that people were crooks because even if, in his old life, they were, though in Galen’s life, and in Bede’s new life, they were not. At least not in this part of Wyoming. Maybe not even in the whole state.
His job, before Galen returned, was to chop wood, a cord of it, to be exact. He was just about halfway through it when the dark blue Amazon van showed up, trundling up the long driveway that curved from the main road.
“Hey, there,” said Bede, gratefully putting his axe down, laying it carefully on top of the next log. He pulled off his gloves and went to meet the driver, a woman with short-cropped purple hair and an earring in one ear who was always on time and never messed up a delivery. “Is it here?”
“One box for Mr. Bede Deacon,” she said, handing it to him as she stood next to the open door of her truck. “You sure do get a lot of deliveries, Mr. Deacon.”
“I like new things,” he said, which was true.
What was even truer was the fact that he’d been on a desperate hunt for the perfect china mug. Not just perfect, but the exact kind that someone might use when drinking coffee ina diner. White, sturdy, with curved handle just the right size for your fingers.
He’d already ordered three sets, but those turned out to be fancy, or thin, just wanna-be-but-ain’t kind of mugs. He’d sent those back and now he held in his hands another chance at getting it right.
“Thanks,” he said, waving at her as she got in her van and drove off. Then, unable to wait, he took the brown box inside the house, making sure to wipe his boots on the mat before he stepped inside.
He placed the box on the kitchen table, which, draped with a red-and-white checked oilcloth, looked exactly as a farm table should look. Cozy. Dependable. Big enough for a large and happy family to sit around while they ate supper.
There was no large family, but they were happy.
Bede loved living with Galen more than he’d even dreamed of, and shared meals at that table were quickly becoming a staple of their lives.
He’d been alone at lunch that day, having a sad bachelor meal of leftovers, but Galen was due back for dinner, so Bede opened the fridge and brought out two steaks to warm to room temperature.
Then he got a knife from the drawer and sliced open the tape on the Amazon box. First carefully, then quickly, then the inner box was in his hands. He squinted at the images of the four white china mugs.
Would he be fooled again by false advertising? Would he ever find the perfect mug for Galen?
The cardboard box was lined with paper straw, and inside that was a squat, compact box that had pictures of white mugs on it.
Bede pulled out the box, and then opened it carefully, in case he was disappointed again and had to send the mugs back. Again.
Pulling out the first mug, he almost didn’t want to look, but there in his hand, was the perfect white china mug. His fingers fit around the curve of the handle. The lip was wide enough to be sturdy but not so wide as to make the coffee spill when he drank out of it. The white was a deep white, a satisfying white.
Galen was going tolovethe mugs.
Bede took them all out, disposed of the box (because they were a recycling kind of household), and washed each mug lovingly at the sink. He dried them with a fluffy kitchen towel, then placed them on another towel on the kitchen table. So Galen would see them when he came home.
Bede puttered around, putting salt and spices and oil on the two hunks of steak, and those he put on a plate, covered with a bowl, and went outside to chop the rest of the cord of wood. He worked hard enough that he didn’t need a jacket, and was finished just as he heard the rumble of Galen’s truck coming up the long drive.
