Page 26 of Unnatural
And then I’d find someone and give them the other half.
She’d been sick and wanted to know what it was like tolive.But she’d wanted to share it too.
Sam’s eyes moved around the table through the window. He wondered what it would feel like to meet someone’s eyes over a basket of rolls and have them smile at him and laugh at his joke. The whole concept seemed so alien that the wondering alone made him feel ludicrous.What kind of joke would you tell, Sam?You’rethe joke. Even thinking about a scenario like thatisthe joke.And if he couldn’t even picture it—couldn’t begin to imagine—why did the vague notion bring him pain? He wanted it, he supposed, and he had no right to such a longing.
He was who he was. Some had been created to laugh with family around dinner tables, and some had been created to sit alone on fences, looking in. Always looking in.
He thought of her as he worked. He pictured her face and remembered the way her eyes had sparked with enough fire that he still felt the warmth. He’d taken that glow with him to Chennai and Lagos and other destinations he didn’t remember the names of.
He’d taken her with him to each and every forgotten place, and he’d carried her words, as much a part of him now as his organs or his skin but even more so. Because her words and her ideas were hidden away, tucked deeply into the only parts of him that had never been touched. Not muscle or bone but something deeper, something far more essential. Her words reminded him that despite it all, there were still parts of himself that were only his and could not be prodded or poked or sliced into.
And that very idea was his downfall, perhaps.
And his saving grace.
But again, he didn’t want to be saved. Yet he could not let her go. Would not. So he suffered. And he lived on.
Because to die would be to kill off a piece of her as well. And that, he realized, he could not yet do.
Soon, but not yet.
“Sam,” the old man, Adam, called.
Sam turned, grunting in response.
“I need you to pick up a new generator for the barn. It’s going to be a cold winter, and I can’t risk the power going off out there. I have an old friend in the city who gives me great deals.” When Sam didn’t answer, the man cocked his head as though listening for something Sam wasn’t saying. “You do drive, don’t you?”
“Yes. I drive,” he said. He didn’t have a license because he didn’t have an identity, but he knew how to drive.
Adam lifted his hand, and a pair of keys sailed through the air. Sam reached out and caught them easily.
“Take the pickup,” Adam said, turning and tapping his cane on the dirt path that Sam had brushed free of tiny pebbles and debris that morning so the old fool didn’t trip and smash his head open.
“These paths need to be paved,” Sam noted.
Adam waved his hand behind him, dismissing Sam’s words. “I like the feel of dirt under my feet. And I expect someone will help me if I injure my foot on a rock.”
Sam scratched the back of his neck. “Why would you expect anything when so many people let you down?”Lie to you. Cheat you. Steal your things.
Adam’s smile only widened. “People do let me down a lot,” he said. “But sometimes they don’t.”
Sam sighed.Sometimesdidn’t seem like something to stand around grinning about. He shrugged and looked over at the red pickup near the fence next to the long driveway that let out on the main road. Sam didn’t want to drive. Hedidn’t want to go into New York City. He didn’t want to be around people and buildings and noise.
“Hey, Sam,” Adam said, turning around, his milky eyes strangely trained directly on him. “Who hurt you?”
Who hurt you?The question confused Sam. Especially because Adam couldn’t see all the scars that littered Sam’s skin. Maybe someone had told him about those. Maybe someone had seen him washing himself off under the faucet behind the barn and noticed that the scars weren’t only on his face and his arms but on his back and the biggest one of all trailing from his throat to his stomach. Still, those scars weren’t the reason he was alone. Shamed. Discarded. That had been his doing.
“Me,” Sam answered. “I hurt myself.”
Adam seemed to stare at him for several moments, finally nodding. The old man looked sad but also understanding. “That’s the worst kind of hurt.” The old man paused. “Do you think I’m lucky, Sam?”
Again, Sam was confused. “Lucky?”
“Yes. Do you see me as a lucky man?”
Sam stared at him. He was old and blind and relatively ugly too—though who was Sam to talk?—with bare, dirty feet and employees who regularly stole from him. But he owned an apple farm and sat around the dinner table while people laughed and talked. People who kissed him on his cheek when they stood up to leave. “Yes,” Sam answered. “I think you’re a lucky man.”
Adam nodded once. Then he unbuttoned his shirtsleeves, rolling them up slightly and holding the undersides of his wrists out to Sam. There were two long scars up the middle of each arm. “I agree,” Adam said solemnly. “I am a lucky man. But I didn’t always think so.” He dropped hisarms. “Things are always changing, Sam. Life is moving all around us, even when it seems to be standing still. Have faith.” Then he turned, tapping his stick on the dirt again and heading toward his house.
