BITTERN
The next few months are the best of my life. Janie moves in with me two weeks after she returns to Ryder Ranch for good. She has a fair amount of belongings, and they fill up my empty house nicely. I let her do as she likes. So long as I have my porch, I don’t care about much else. It’s nothing like I was told falling in love would be. It’s not tumultuous, there’s no fighting, begging, or tears. We just move in together and exist in peace. Every day, we’re more familiar, a little more comfortable with each other.
“Did you put this dish in the sink?” she asks one day.
“I did,” I say.
“Could you put it directly into the dishwasher, since it’s dirty?”
She’s looking at me, tensed up. I shrug, kissing her head.
“Yeah, sure. Sorry, baby.”
After that, I carefully put my cup into the dishwasher. It never comes up again, and I don’t think about it until one night when she pulls me aside while she’s brushing her teeth.
“Thank you for putting your dishes in the washer,” she says.
I’m unsure what she’s talking about for a second. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, am I doing that wrong?”
She shakes her head, putting her toothbrush away. She wraps an arm around my waist, hopping up on the counter. I tuck a bit of her hair behind her ear.
“I don’t like fighting over every little thing,” she says. “You’re the first person who doesn’t do that.”
Briefly, I think about the home I grew up in, how a dish in the sink would be such a small problem, it would go unnoticed. No, we had worse issues, whether it was the drugs, the simmering threat of constant violence, the never-ending struggle against the lights and water turning off. Instead of answering, I pull her in and kiss her forehead. That always does it for her, and we end up in bed together, which is my favorite place to be, even when we’re not fucking.
It’s autumn before we know it. Deacon and I work a lot together; I think he’s got a notion of having me replace Andy when he retires. The idea isn’t a bad one, but I know I have a lot to learn before that happens. I buckle in and soak everything up, because when that time comes, if it does, I’m going to be ready.
“I was thinking,” Deacon says one day while we’re putting some tack away in the barn.
“Yeah?”
“You think Janie wants to go back to work?”
I lift my head. “What do you mean?”
He stops, hands on his hips. “I’m putting in a lot of time on things I’d rather not be. Shaking hands, making deals for the barrel racers. Maybe it’s time we start up a front end for the operation, bring her on as a…kind of PR person.”
I study him. “Was that Freya’s idea?”
“Nah. Sometimes, I get good ideas all on my own. I did start this whole damn operation myself.”
I shrug. “I can talk to her about it.”
He gestures as he leaves the tack room down the row. “We’ve got a good crop of colts coming next year, but I’ve got a kid now,probably have a few more soon, and I don’t have the time I used to. Plus, I just want to be home more.”
I get that. Work has given me goals and a place to measure my recovery and success, but at the end of the day, all I really want to do is go home and see Janie. I imagine if we have kids, that only increases.
“I think it’s a good idea,” I say.
“You two planning on getting hitched soon?”
Shrugging, I leave the barn, but he can’t take a hint and goes with me. It’s cool, cloudy overhead. He takes out a cigarette, digging around for his lighter. I have one in my pocket, not for smoking, and I offer it to him. He inhales, sighing.
“God, I gotta quit,” he says.
“Probably be good if you did.”
“When I was younger, I did a lot of wild shit,” he says reflectively. “Coming out of that with cigarettes being my only vice feels like I won, but yeah, gonna quit this winter, I think.”
