I laughed. “Yeah, good thing.”
“I’m serious,” he said. Then, lower, “They’re good people.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, and I let him pull me in so tight I’d probably have indentations from the lines of his collar on my cheek. “So are you,” I said as he released me.
He dragged his hands down my arms as he backed away and lifted my left hand to his face. “I’ll file a claim tomorrow.”
“It might still turn up.” I cringed. “It’s probably in one of those half-packed boxes. I’ll look again.”
“Let me know if you find it,” he said, pulling his suitcase behind him toward the front door. “And Nicolette?” My heart stopped, from the way he was looking at me. “If you’re not home by next weekend, I’m coming back for you.”
* * *
AFTER WATCHING HIS CAB drive off, I shut the door behind me, turned the lock, and twisted the knob to double-check. I circled the house, checking them all, closing the windows that Everett had insisted on opening, and wedging the kitchen chair under the handle of the back door with the broken lock. Everything felt slow and labored, even my breathing. It was this heat. The damn air-conditioning unit that still wasn’t fixed. I dragged myself to the kitchen—I needed a drink. Something cold. Caffeinated. I bent over and stuck my head in the fridge, debating my choices.
Water. Gatorade. Cans of soda. I sank to my knees in front of the open door, breathing in the cold air—wake up, Nic—as the electricity hummed in my ear and the fridge light illuminated the space around me.
There was a sudden, high-pitched cry as the chair scraped against the floor. The back door swung open as I spun around, my back to the open refrigerator, my hands grasping for anything I could use to defend myself.
Tyler stood in the open doorway, his arms trembling, covered in sweat and dirt and something that smelled like earth and pollen. His body shook like he was wound tight with adrenaline and was fighting to keep himself still. He frowned at the chair, toppled on its side, and then scanned the room behind me.
“Tyler? What are you doing?” His brown work boots were coated in a thick layer of mud, and he braced an arm against the doorframe. I pulled myself upright and shut the fridge, and the house settled into an uncomfortable silence. “Tyler? What’s going on? Say something.”
“Is anyone here?” he asked, and I knew he didn’t mean just anyone.
“He left,” I said. His arms were still shaking. “It’s just me.”
He was not okay. This was Tyler at fifteen when we all went to the service for his brother, and the folded American flag was placed on his mother’s lap, and he appeared to be sitting perfectly still, but if you looked closer, you could see his entire body was trembling. I was so sure he was on the edge of cracking into a thousand pieces, and all the strangers pushing closer and closer to him were making it worse. This was Tyler at seventeen on the day we got together for real, when I scraped my car door against his, and at first he looked so tense, all coiled-up adrenaline, before he noticed me holding my breath, waiting for his reaction. “Just a piece of metal,” he’d said.
“It’s just us,” I whispered.
He took a step inside, and pieces of caked dirt settled on the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, seeing what he was doing to the floor.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
But he was focused on his shoes and the mud on the floor. I was scared he was going to leave. That he’d leave and disappear and I’d never see him again.
“Here,” I said, kneeling in front of him, prying at the muddy laces of his work boots. His breathing was ragged, and up close, I could see a fine yellow powder clinging to his pants. I concentrated on keeping my hands steady, trying to settle the growing unease. Tyler. This was just Tyler. I had one shoe unknotted when my phone on the table rang, making us both jump. Tyler watched me move across the room while he took off his other boot.
“It’s my brother,” I said, frowning at the phone display. Tyler’s face mirrored mine. I held the phone to my ear.
“Nic,” Daniel said before I’d even said hello. “Tell me where you are.”
“I’m home, Daniel.”
“Are you with Everett?” he asked, and I could hear wind through the phone. He was moving. Fast.
“No,” I said. “He left. Tyler’s here.” I looked over at Tyler, who had taken another step closer. He was halfway across the room, his head tilted to the side, like he was trying to hear the conversation.
“Listen to me,” Daniel said as an engine came to life in the background. “Get out.”
My stomach dropped, and I looked at Tyler’s boots once more.
“Get out. Now.”
My hand dropped to my side. “Tyler?” I asked as the phone slipped from my hand, cracked as it made contact with the floor. Pollen, I thought. Earth.
“What? What did he say?” Tyler said, his words quiet and laced with panic.
I looked at his hands, at the dirt caked under the nails, at the thin line of dried blood running between his thumb and pointer finger.
“Tyler,” I said. “What did you do?”
He leaned against a chair, his fingers pressing into the wood. “I’m running out of time, Nic.”
And then I heard it—faint and far away—the high-pitched call of a siren.
Tick-tock, Nic.
“What happened?” I asked.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and a slow tremor made its way through his body. “They found a body at Johnson Farm.”
The field of sunflowers. Pollen. Earth.
The siren, growing insistent.
Tyler, coming closer.
And time standing perfectly, painfully still.
It’s just a thing we created. A measure of distance. A way to understand. A way to explain things. It can weave around and show you things if you let it.
Let it.
The Day Before
DAY 14
Time had gotten away from me. I’d been searching through the boxes of Dad’s old books and teaching material while waiting for Everett to fall asleep, pulling scraps of paper from between the pages, checking the margins for comments. It must’ve been well after midnight, and I wasn’t finding anything meaningful. Simpler and safer to trash it all. I stacked the boxes out in the hall to bring down to the garage in the morning.
The sound of rustling sheets carried through the open doorway, and I silently padded back to my bedroom in bare feet. Everett was sprawled across the middle of my bed, the yellow comforter discarded and crumpled on the floor beside him. He wasn’t the deepest sleeper, but now his breathing was slow and measured. I placed my hand on his shoulder, and his back rose and fell in the same steady rhythm.