Page 15 of The Sound Of Us

I give myself a hard shake. What melancholic garbage am I making up in my stupid brain?

The man steps into view. His back is facing the window. My chest suffers from the savage beating of my heart.

He’s shirtless.

He stands in front of the pantry, reaching up to place two tins of canned food on the top shelf. A swell of pride joins the discomforting bang in my chest. The man could place a hundred tins on that shelf and it would be as sturdy as this oak tree since I was the one who fitted it for Mrs. Johnson about five years ago.

But all thoughts of my superior carpentry skills vanish when he reaches up to place more food items on the shelf, and the ripple of his back muscles causes dips and bulges along his sides and shoulders. Indentations on his lower back. And something happens in me.

It isn’t just the whoosh of air exiting my body and refusing to re-enter, leaving me breathless.

It isn’t even the burn of my eyes because I can’t bring myself to blink, fearing this image might disappear if I closed my eyes for just one second.

It’s the unmistakable hardening of my cock at the sight of this stranger that has me reeling back so fast I stumble on some loose rock and land on my ass a foot or two away from the oak tree.

What am I doing? My life must be a dozen shades of pathetic if this is what brings me excitement. Despite the cold, my face is hot with guilt. What was I thinking, ogling a half-naked man from behind a tree like some creep?

But there’s more than excitement here.

What is this? Besides the thrill of breaking some moral rule, there’s a sense of … longing? But for what? I’ve seen Frank’s friends lie around shirtless in our backyard hundreds of times. Not once has any one of them ever inspired such a… reaction from me.

Suddenly, I have the urge to cry.

Inside of a single second, the briefest of time, the story of my life, all twenty-eight years of it—the everlasting cancer, my dead mother, my very much alive father, my marriage, my devotion to a God I’m yet to understand—all come crashing down onto me.

And for one second, the hopelessness closes off the air supply to my body. Chest tight with regret. Stomach unable to contain the rare fury felt for a mother who was stupid enough to accidentally kill herself. For a father who disappeared in the middle of the night.

A thousand wishes to have never been born in the first place. A single moment where I see the entirety of my life and all of it, all of it, makes me want to wail in despair.

The moment dissipates immediately, as fast as the snowflakes disappearing into the ground the moment it touches the soft earth.

Scrambling to my feet, I dust my hands on the side of my sweatpants. I’ve been out here too long. It’s never happened before, but I can’t risk Frank waking up and finding me gone. Pepper jumps, placing her paws on my chest, trying to lick my face. “I’m okay, girl,” I whisper.

My feet move quickly and quietly through the path back toward home, determined not to look back. I count my steps to keep myself from turning back.

One to sixteen—up the path.

Seventeen to fifty, the backside of the Mrs. Dalton’s vegetable garden.

By step sixty-six, I’ve lost the battle.

I turn, far enough away to not look like a Peeping Tom but still close enough to catch the corner of the side window.

What carries me home faster than the birds leaving Kentucky for the winter is the absolute devastation crashing over me that the man is no longer by the window.

The disappointment is so frightening and confusing all I can do is race home, focusing on the lingering pain in my toes where Frank smashed them with his boots just less than two hours ago.

And when I lock the door behind me with the stealth of an old crook, and then creep into bed next to Frank like a cheating son of a bitch, logic makes a fool out of my earlier emotional ramblings:

River Valley has not seen a new resident in nearly three years. It’s natural to be a little excited over a newcomer. He’ll have a dozen residents at his doorstep in the morning with homemade pepper steak pies, piping hot coffee and freshly fried donuts.

And then, he’ll get asked to be the guest of honor at the reopening of the fire station next month. He’ll be the town’s shiny new toy for a while. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Even Pepper had been excited to meet him.

So it isn’t just me. I’m not immune to the excitement of it all.

But, as I drop off into sleep with the occasional grunts and farts from Frank’s side of the bed, it’s hard to explain away my body’s wildly inappropriate response.

Chapter 7

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