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It’s early August. Sometime around 10 p.m. judging by the deepening sky, the stars just beginning to shine in earnest. The dishes are done, Theo is bathed and settled in his crib. It’s cooling down, just a little, and the breeze carries the sweet musk of the cornfield, the gentle whisper of rustling leaves. Dennis and Amy are on the porch swing, rocking gently in easy silence, the whiskey a warm glow tended in his belly. He doesn’t remember the last time he was this serene. Amy is sprawled out, still in her work overalls, her neck thrown over the back of the swing. Her eyes are closed, could be asleep except for the sweating glass she’s still holding against her thigh.
Today had been rough—they’re still struggling to control the earworm problem, and Amy found varmint damage to the wiring while doing routine maintenance on the combine. They’re growing field corn so they still have some time, but not much if they need to get a repair guy out here. There’s still a streak of engine grease on her forehead from digging the heel of her hand into her temple, muttering bitterly just one fucking thing after another.
Trinity has Amy all wrong. She’s not some wispy-eyed, helpless waif, fluttering her lashes at Dennis so he’ll sacrifice himself to save her (damn near a direct quote). She is kind, and funny, and gentle, sometimes. She snorts when she laughs and insists on taking an extra ten minutes to coo over the bunnies and chicks every time they go to Rural King. She’s smart in a sharply technical way, really good with accounting and vehicle repairs. She’s also tough, thickly calloused, raised on the expectation that women suffer without complaint, work hard and unceasing through whatever hardships God sees fit to bestow. Hard-headed, even, and a lot stronger than she looks.
She can be mean, too, when her grief calcifies into anger, like the time they were repairing a fence together and she yanked a board out of his hands because he was working too slow, hammered nails with unbridled rage until she bashed her thumb, told Dennis to fuck off when he tried to fret over her. She holds her faith close, always prays before eating, but it’s not a precious, delicate thing. Her faith is battle-hardened; it can withstand her resentment. She cries often, but only when the sun is down: wretched heaving sobs, spewing snot and drool, moaning and rocking and ripping at fistfuls of her hair. Sometimes she’ll let Dennis comfort her, lets him hold her tight as grief shakes her, and sometimes she shrieks at him and he has to leave her to her private anguish.
She woke Theo, once. Dennis listened to his wailing for two minutes, alone in the guest bedroom, waiting in the dark. It wasn’t his place to intervene. He knew it wasn’t his place, but then again why the fuck was he here at all? He gave it two minutes, then padded past Amy’s room to the nursery. Theo, red-faced, his tiny hands shaking with the enormity of his need as he screamed and screamed. Dennis lifted him into his arms, cooed it’s okay buddy, I got you, held him against his chest and bounced gently. The tiny, impossibly fragile body settled, hiccupped a little. I’m here, buddy, Dennis whispered, and knew, with sudden certainty unlike anything he’d ever felt before, like a revelation, that what he meant was I love you and I’ll protect you.
He couldn’t know how long had passed, swaying with Theo in his arms, murmuring tuneless hymns and whispering little nonsense comforts, but eventually he sensed Amy in the doorway, watching them. Her eyes squinted out from swollen lids, her face bloated. She sagged against the door frame. He couldn’t read her at all through the heavy miasma of sorrow that engulfed her.
“He’s not your baby,” she whispered, voice thick with mucus.
“I know that.”
“Just as long as you don’t forget,” she said. “Are you okay?”
Dennis took a breath to keep from saying I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. “Yeah, I think he’s about ready to go back down.”
Amy nodded. “Thank you, Dennis,” she said, and slipped back to her bedroom.
It’s a gift to be there for her—more than that, it’s an honor to know her, to be trusted with such devastating vulnerability, the rich and agonizing and beautiful complexity of her. Dennis has never had such an intimate relationship, has never known someone so deeply, has never felt so seen in return. That’s the part that Trinity doesn’t understand: yes, Amy needs a lot of help, but she helps him too. He had been so catastrophically lonely before he met Amy, and now, he’s whole in a way he hasn’t been in a long time, maybe ever. Everyone at work, Trinity and her friends, they all think he’s this quaint little idiot because the only TV he watched as a kid was Veggie Tales on VHS or whatever, but none of them know how to drive a tractor. None of them know how to tell corn rootworm from black cutworm from fall armyworm. None of them have birthed a breeched calf or been kicked by a horse and walked it off. Dennis loves Trinity but she only knows the new version of him, the one violently uprooted from his home and his past. He did it to himself, cut himself into parts to propagate some new version that was hardier. But now there are multiple versions of him that he can’t quite be at the same time. Amy helps him get close.
The crickets and cicadas are a mesmerizing harmony. Dennis might be a little drunk. Amy’s head lolls towards him, big eyes blinking up at him from her slouch.
“This is nice, isn’t it?”
He smiles at her, hopes his feelings radiate from the warmth in his chest so he doesn’t have to wrangle words into something like sense. She wriggles herself into sitting up, gingerly takes his glass and sets in next to hers on the ground. She’s facing him, her brow slightly furrowed; he feels assessed, thinks this is what her OBD2 scanner feels like, chuckles a little. Amy’s not smiling. She puts a hand on his jaw, her callouses catching on his stubble. He can’t breathe. She leans in, eyes open, and he has just a second to think please, no before she presses her closed lips to his, slow and deliberate.
Dennis can’t help closing his eyes, just to hide from her. He knows he’s supposed to move but he’s trapped, every muscle shocked into immobility. He’s cornered; he can’t run, he can’t do anything. He knows he’s supposed to do something but he can’t sort out what it could possibly be. Amy’s lips are a constant, even pressure as she takes his hand and lifts his leaden arm to her breast.
His stomach twists, roiled by nausea. He hears his mother’s voice: you just have to try. He is trying. He wants to want it so badly it aches, wants more than anything to do what he’s supposed to. Her breast is soft and warm and he could have everything he’s supposed to want, here with this perfect woman, if he could just stop feeling so sick, if he could just be a man like he’s supposed to be. This is his chance, maybe his only chance, if he could just choke down how it feels—but it’s too late, the part of him that knows he can’t has already burrowed its taproot too deep.
He shifts away from her, breaks the kiss, opens his eyes. She’s crying softly, face unlined and stoic.
“Amy, I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Me neither,” she whispers. Her face buckles and it’s so easy to hold her close as she sobs against his chest, rocking gently. It’s enough just to be there, just to be together. When she settles she stays tucked against his chest, taking deep shuddering breaths as he strokes her hair.
“Nothing makes sense now that he’s gone,” she murmurs, and Dennis sees Teddy’s face, so close he could taste the decay and antiseptic, gasping without voice let me die.
Eventually she pulls away with a hearty snort, coughs as the mucus slides down her throat. He tucks the wet strands of hair sticking to her cheek behind her ear, and she smiles.
“Let’s never do this again, okay?” she says.
Dennis can’t help smiling. “Deal,” he says, holding out a fist. She swats at it in a pantomime of girlish disapproval but he’s earned a little smile. They just look at each other for a few moments in comfortable uncertainty. Eventually she sighs, hoists herself up, extends a hand.
“Well I’m fucking exhausted,” she says in the doorway.
They meet back in the tiny bathroom in their pajamas, Amy halfway through her skincare routine. He bumps her hand reaching for his toothbrush, mumbles a sorry that sounds infuriatingly awkward even to his own ears. She looks at him blushing in the mirror and hip checks him hard enough to make him scoff indignantly around a mouthful of toothpaste, smugly rubbing her face with lotion. Some of the tension he’s keeping in his shoulders dissipates but he’s still got an ache in his chest, shame heavy in his gut.
He spits, murmurs goodnight, but she catches the hem of his t-shirt.
“Wait, Dennis. I really don’t want to be alone. Stay with me? I promise I won’t try anything.”
It takes him a second to understand what she means. Then he’s the one sizing her up. It’s a bewildering thing to ask after the disaster on the porch but she seems nothing but sincere, picking at her cuticles nervously. It’s not proper. Men and women aren’t to be trusted with each other. Men, especially, are not to be trusted, with their naturally rapacious desires. Real men, anyway. He ought to say no out of chivalry, a noble sacrifice to protect her honor. He ought to mean it, or else demure and pretend so she doesn’t figure him out.
But they are not men and women, Dennis realizes. They are just themselves: two lonely people who by whatever coincidence or divine grace have found comfort in each other. He really doesn’t want to be alone either. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that, if they can allow it to be simple. He nods his agreement, and she lets out an audible rush of held breath.
He’s been in Amy’s room before, even sat on the edge of the bed to talk to her on one of the days when she couldn’t bear to get up, staring blankly at the wall. It’s another thing entirely to get in beside her. He feels like an ungainly beast on her sage green bedsheets, the pillows that smell like her lavender shampoo, the quilt her mother made her as a wedding gift. He shouldn’t be allowed to touch any of it, lays flat on his back with his hands at his sides, as still as possible to avoid feeling any of the fabric around him too much. Amy clicks off the lamp and curls up against him with her head on his chest, her hand on her sternum. It takes a few deep breaths but eventually he relaxes, allows himself to put an arm around her shoulders. It’s really, really nice. He feels like an animal, like they’re two foxes curled up in the same den. Like nothing means anything except what it is.
He doesn’t realize he’d drifted off until Amy speaks. “You’re my best friend,” she whispers. “You have no idea how grateful I am, every day.”
He squeezes her shoulder just a little, presses his cheek to the top of her head. “I’d be lost without you.”
She shifts and Dennis feels like she might say something else, but she just takes a deep breath and settles her weight against him. It’s not long before she’s asleep, and Dennis follows soon after.
They’re both up before dawn, as usual, each to their separate chores. It’s a meditation, doing the same thing every morning, and Dennis is halfway through feeding and milking the cows before he remembers to panic. His stomach starts churning and he has to take deep breaths to calm the nausea, feels clammy and cold and vaguely dizzy. He briefly considers stealing Amy’s truck and driving forever, but it’s a short-lived fantasy. He’s in too deep now. He can’t run anymore, and this time he doesn’t want to.
Amy’s in the kitchen making home fries, singing along to Steve Earle while Theo wiggles contentedly in his bouncer. Dennis crouches down and tickles his belly, earning one of his signature cackles. They talk through the day’s itinerary over breakfast, but neither of them move to clear their empty plates.
“Can we talk for a second?” Amy asks, eyes on Theo as she rocks his bouncer with her foot. “I’m really sorry for kissing you. It was really obvious you weren’t into it. I won’t do that again, I promise.”
“It’s okay—”
“No, listen.” Her hazel eyes are wide and bright and imploring. “You’re my best friend, and I love you. I truly don’t know where I would be without you. Seriously. But it’s not like that at all. And I think we’re on the same page, right?”
“Yeah, Amy—”
“I’m sorry for the crazy mixed messages. I just felt, I don’t know, obligated. Like I was supposed to. Like maybe it was what you would want, so—”
“Amy, I’m gay!” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but his heart was beating so fast he could feel it in his hands and the words just leapt out as if propelled. His hands are disgustingly sweaty and there’s a loud buzzing sound in his ears.
Amy blinks. “Oh! Well, that’s a relief, then.”
Dennis might vomit. “What?”
“I said, that’s a relief. We’re on the same page about not wanting to fuck each other. Not to be an egomaniac but I kinda figured.” Her eyes soften. “You really are a blessing, Dennis. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
He hears himself say “you’re not mad?” in a voice so soft and childlike that some vital tether inside himself snaps. He feels like he’s falling backwards, falling forever even as he feels the back of the chair dig into his shoulder blade. Amy is a thousand miles away at the end of the table, her voice echoing and distant as she says his name. He watches himself from above, his frail little body shaking, watches Amy gather him in her arms and squeeze tight.
He’s living his whole life at once, all the fear he’s ever had to store away in some secret hiding place in his skull ricocheting down his spine. He’s cowering in a closet listening to his dad shout at his mom. He’s getting jumped by a group of older boys walking back from the bus stop. He’s staring at the sunburst of blood and brains on the wall behind where Uncle Tommy’s head should be, shattered remnant of his jaw hanging by a strip of flesh from his neck, the thick mass of flies already feasting. He’s shivering in a sleeping bag against freezing concrete, wondering idly if he’s going to die as people chatter past him. His father saying you’re fucking disgusting. The carnage of PittFest—the screaming, the chaos, the agony. The relentless, meaningless suffering, mangled bodies writhing as they shriek and splatter blood and shit themselves. Teddy’s final days, begging to die.
He can’t breathe. He’s clawing at Amy’s shirt, gasping desperately but unable to suck in any air. His vision blurs, gets dark around the edges. He’s going to die here. After everything he’s going to die here.
You’re hyperventilating, a calm voice says from somewhere behind him. Breathe with her.
Dennis heaves his focus to Amy’s chest against his cheek. She’s breathing slowly, a steady rhythm—inhale, hold, exhale, hold. He tries to match her, gets tripped up on the inhale, starts gasping again, catches up on the exhale. He’s like a newborn calf stumbling after its mother, tripping over itself but slowly finding its footing. He gets a few steady cycles in before he’s crying, muffling his great heaving sobs against Amy’s chest so he doesn’t scare Theo until he’s totally empty.
He’s back in his body but it’s so impossibly heavy he doesn’t understand how Amy can hold him up. If she lets him go he’ll sink to the center of the earth. She’s stroking his hair, murmuring.
“I’m disgusting,” he hears himself say.
“We’re in this together, Dennis,” she hums. “We’re a family.”
He laughs bitterly, pulls away. His face is smeared with snot. “I don’t even fucking know what that word means.”
Amy crouches in front of him, her arms on his thighs. She tucks a few wet curls stuck to his cheek behind his ear.
“We’re going to find out, together. It’s going to be weird, and hard, and maybe fucked up. But we’re in this together.”
Somehow, against all odds, he believes her.