He reaches out—and I want to be very clear that I do not, at any point during this maneuver, think about anything other than the medical-professional nature of his hands on my body—and lifts the blanket off my left leg. He puts a thumb on the bone of my ankle and presses, and I yelp like a kicked Pomeranian.
"Two out of ten?" he questions.
"… It might be a three."
He sighs again, somehow even more wearied than the first time, and drops the blanket back over my calf. "Why are you here?"
And there it is. The question I have been rehearsing in my head for six months. Since I first charged out of that wedding in Red Hook to go after Afon, I've drafted, redrafted, workshopped, A/B tested, and otherwise fine-tuned a billion possible answers. I'd finally landed on one I really liked. The way I had it all planned out, I was going to blow him away with the firm, forceful, but notintrusive quality of my presentation. I was gonna deliver it in a clean, brisk, lawyerly voice, in nice clothes, in daylight.
Fate, it seemed, had other ideas.
Because I'm not going to have to deliver it from my back, with a rapidly swelling goose egg on my forehead and poison ivy in my underwear.
Oh well. Fuck it. Daddy didn't raise no quitter, and sure, the circumstances aren't ideal, but a girl's gotta make do. Without further ado…
"It all started when I was born."
The third Afon sigh shuts me right up. "Jesus fucking Christ," he mutters. "Never mind. Forget I asked."
He stands up again. His knees crackle like bubble wrap and he winces, a hand rubbing at his lower back. I'm no doctor, but it doesn't sound to me like his body is in such great shape.
He walks over to the front door and shrugs into a workman's jacket hanging from a hook on the wall. He keeps his eyes averted, like he can't even bear the thought of looking at me.
"Where are you going?" I blurt out. I'm annoyed at how squeaky and annoying my voice sounds to my own ears. It's so plaintive, like, ew, what's wrong with you, girl? Don't be desperate.
Counterpoint: I really don't want him to leave me alone in this strange cabin with only a moose head for company.
Either way, Afon doesn't seem to care.
"Out," he grunts.
"The world's a big place. Care to be more specific?"
"To chop wood."
I sit up another inch on the couch. This is a mistake, headache-wise, but I am too indignant to lie back down.
"Youhavewood."
"Need more."
"No, like, you have alotof wood. I saw it on the way in. There's a whole—you have awoodpile, Afon, it's like ten feet long, it goes all the way down the side of the?—"
"I know where my woodpile is, Caroline."
"So then why are you going to chopmorewood?"
He pauses with his hand on the doorframe and looks back at me over his shoulder. The lamp is behind him now and his face is mostly shadow, but the depth of sadness in his face throws me for a really strange loop.
"Winter's long," he says.
And then he's gone.
The door closes behind him with a soft, considered thunk. I hear his boots on the porch, then on the dirt, and then the unmistakablethockof an axe being pulled out of a stump.
Then the thock of an axe going into a log.
Then again.
