Page 69 of Homestead

He smiles and strokes my hot cheek with his knuckles.

“I thought you’d be exhausted after all that work,” I finally say.

“I am. But some things are more important.” He slants a look at me. “I did miss you, Chloe.”

I’m so happy I beam up at him. “I missed you too.”

“I thought you were annoyed by me taking too long.”

“Oh.” Momentarily stumped, I decide how to handle it. “I was. You were being very slow, and I was tired of waiting for you.”

“I was tryin’ to finish the row. I hate leavin’ things unfinished.”

“I know you do. But still…” I give a little sniff, mostly pretending to hold on to my hurt feelings.

“Do I need to fuck you again to prove how much I missed you?” He asks the question in a teasing growl.

It works. I laugh again. He puts a hand on my back as we walk around the outbuilding and toward the back door of the main house. We’re going to need to act normal when we head in for dinner or someone will suspect what we just did.

We both wash up before joining the others. Jimmy got dirt and sweat on me, and it’s no longer imbued with that primitive significance, so I want to get it off.

Dinner is good. We chat with the others, and no one says a word that indicates they suspect we snuck off to have sex.

I’m in a good mood as the meal ends and Jimmy and I start back home.

I have no reason not to be.

Jimmy is coming home, and he admitted he missed me. He made it clear how much. And maybe a little insecure voice inside me has to acknowledge that the main thing he seems to have missed is sex—that’s what he was immediately focused on, that’s the thing he needed to act on—but that still doesn’t mean anything problematic.

Of course the main thing he misses about our relationship is sex. That’s one of the primary things I offer him. That and keeping his house. He cares about me. He wants to protect me. I have real value to him. And he misses me when we’re apart.

The ways that I missed him weren’t really about those things—they were deeper, more intimate—but that doesn’t have to matter in the long run. We’ve both gotten what we wanted out of this arrangement. It’s worked for us—better than we could have ever imagined—and I’m not going to mess things up by expecting something that will never happen.

Romance isn’t in the cards for me, and that’s fine. It’s never been the most important thing. We can still build a satisfying, lifelong relationship without it.

So I’m going to be happy with what I have.

12

Two weeks later,I wake up feeling sick.

Not feverish or in pain or anything debilitating—just slightly dizzy and nauseated enough to feel icky.

It’s probably something I ate. While I try to be as careful as possible, we don’t have the same kind of food protection and sanitation that was common in the old world, so it’s not at all unusual for people to get sick from something they ate.

Last month, a woman in her sixties died after getting very sick from eating meat that had started to spoil.

I’m not aware of eating anything risky. In fact, I’ve eaten exactly the same things that Jimmy has this week. But sometimes germs will hit different people in different ways. I’m not sick enough to stay in bed, so I try to ignore the queasiness.

Jimmy has been working like a fiend on our own garden this week, trying to get the most intensive tasks taken care of before he’s called to help out somewhere else. We’ve got greens and potatoes and carrots and asparagus and scallions and celery and herbs and even some tomato plants in our sunniest spot. He’s tried some other vegetables, but in the woods as we are, we’ve got too much shade for the more sun-hungry options.

Greta has given me some training and the supplies necessary for me to can some of our produce so that we won’t have to rely solely on our neighbors for vegetables during the winter. But it’s hard and stressful because I’m still not very confident with the process. Yesterday Jimmy brought in big batches of asparagus and tomatoes. Way too much for us to eat before they go bad.

I’ve got to try to can as much of them as possible today so they don’t go to waste.

The sight of the big basket of vegetables on the kitchen floor makes me feel even sicker than before. My stomach roils, and I take a few deep breaths before I scramble a couple of eggs for Jimmy’s breakfast. I’ll stick to only toast this morning to be safe.

When Jimmy comes in from outside, he smells like the woods and morning air. It’s warm enough now that he’s given up his flannel shirts and is wearing just an old black T-shirt with his jeans.

---