Page 18 of Freak
Chapter Six
The next morning brokein a sky full of dingy clouds. Occasionally, the sun would push weakly through, as if it were still leaning on one elbow in bed, trying to work up the will to get up and have another day. Abigail sympathized; she’d slept poorly and had required a stern self-talking-to before she’d managed to stumble to her feet.
Her head seemed as cloudy and overfull as the sky beyond her bedroom windows. The same thoughts had vexed her throughout the night and, unresolved, pestered her still.
Mel had kissed her. Really kissed her, in a way that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but what it was. He’d said words, too, that couldn’t be mistaken.I want to kiss you, he’d said.I like you like that.
No cloudiness in those words. Mel wanted her. And that made her feel ... many things, mostly wonderful things. But not exclusively wonderful. She had questions. She had wonderings.
Before the summer, she’d known Mel hardly at all. But in these weeks, they’d seen each other often and talked hours over dinner or lunch, and over the leavings of those meals when they were so engrossed they didn’t realize they’d finished eating.
Now she could say she knew him as well as she knew anyone alive. She’d never done any kind of a formal reading for him, he didn’t believe in such things and she would never push, but she had, of course, used her intuition and the ways of observation her grandmother had taught her. He was a good man. He had a gentle heart.
But he had told her outright that he liked his life as it was. After supporting his younger sister and then caring for his disabled grandfather, he did not want to be burdened with responsibility for another person, not even the mutual responsibility that came with intimacy. It was a word he’d used more than once when talking about family relationships and responsibilities:burden.
Abigail also liked her life as it was. She didn’t consider it a burden to take care of people, but since her grandmother’s death, and possibly until now, she hadn’t really had anyone who might draw from her stock of care. She had herself and her animals. She also had the people who regularly bought or bartered for the things she could make and do, and she cared for them all in some way, but those connections were only as tight as their enjoyment of her jams and baked goods, or their trust in her tinctures and unguents or her skill with tarot.
And she had Mel. As a good friend, her only true friend, she had him, and she was growing to depend on the easy good feelings, the support and pleasure, of his company and attention. Last night, he’d told her that his life was better because she was in it, and that declaration had seared at once into her chest. Words like that carried powerful energy.
She could say the same words to him. She hadn’t last night, primarily because the whole scene had made her brain swim like when she was a little girl and would spin in circles over and over until she fell, and then she’d lie in the grass and watch the sky itself dance.
Mel’s declarations had made her dizzy and breathless even before he’d kissed her. Then he’d kissed her, and she didn’t know how she’d managed to stay on her feet. Such a kiss that had been. Such feelings and thoughts had creaked to life inside her head and chest and ... elsewhere.
Whole decades had passed since the last time a man had kissed her, or anything else of that nature. Dreams of love and romance had faded from her mind so long ago the gap where romance belonged in her life had closed up and the scar had faded away. She neither needed nor missed romantic love. But Mel had put a truth into the world last night, and her own truth had answered its call.
Abigail’s life was better because Mel was in it.
He said he wanted her ‘like that.’ She felt the same.
But they were not reckless youngsters, still figuring out who they were and what they wanted, with the meaty part of their lives before them and all the time in the world to make mistakes and repair them, to hurt and recover. They were middle-aged folks who’d settled into lives that fit them. What did romance mean for them?
If, that was, Mel had even meant something serious and life-changing. Abigail wasn’t the least bit interested in anything less than serious. Already she cared about Mel enough that being his ‘booty call,’ or whatever the kids were calling it these days, would hurt. If that was what he meant, then no.
She couldn’t see how the two lives of mature people set in their ways combined comfortably, and her head was too full and busy to be able to clear a path through the clamor so she could use her cards for insight.
The solution, of course, was to sit down with Mel and talk it all out. She’d said as much last night, and the night had ended there; Mel had kissed her cheek and gone home.
She needed to stop fretting about this. On her own, she could answer no questions, come to no conclusions.
So Abigail exerted all her considerable will, collected her whole herd of mental cats, and locked them in a room at the back of her skull. Until she and Mel could speak seriously about this, she needed to focus on the daily operation of the life she had, as it was.
Her plans today were primarily about preparing for the Harvest Festival next month and getting done some other of her first fall chores—sterilizing her canning equipment, checking her supplies and making a shopping list, and so on. She’d also intended to air out the heavy blankets and flannel bedlinens, but she’d put that off until she had an unambiguously sunny, breezy day.
First things first, though. Mornings meant a quick, light breakfast before her regular chores. After coffee and a piece of farmer’s bread with gooseberry jam, she slipped into one of the several pairs of Wellies she kept by the back door—pink today, to pull out the pink flowers in her sage-green calico dress—and headed outside, two dogs running out ahead of her and two cats prancing behind her.
The forecast called for intermittent showers in the late afternoon, but Abigail lifted her face to the sky, took a deep breath, and guessed that they’d be having thunderstorms by noon. Adjusting her usual routine to make room for the possibility of having to lock everybody up several hours early, she got to work.
As always, the goats and chickens knew the second the screen door squeaked open that freedom was near at hand, and the whole crowd began to clamor. The dogs trotted to the door of the goat barn first, and Bogie barked once, quieting the herd. Abigail opened the door leading into the smaller pasture today—in case the storms were bad and they’d need to be herded back into the barn in a hurry. As the herd spilled out into their limited freedom, she gave each one a critical look, making sure they were healthy and well. Occasionally some interpersonal difficulties got expressed in the night, and once in a great while those expressions drew blood.
Seeing everybody was well, Abigail went into the empty barn and tidied up. She mucked out the soiled shavings, laid down some lime, and shoveled fresh shavings over it all. She dumped the stale water from their drinking buckets and refilled them. Usually she did that part in the evening, but she wanted everything to be ready if they ended up having to rush through a storm.
With the barn clean and ready, Abigail filled the water trough in the pasture. Bogie had already come out of the barn and was sniffing around his usual guarding spot—between the goats and the chickens. Mitch was still herding the goats so they trotted in a spiral. Abigail was more than half sure that dog just liked messing with the goats.
“Mitchum! Leave it!” she called, and Mitch pulled up and gave her an innocent look, his ears cocked high, one folded over at the top, as usual. She laughed. “Stop vexing the goats! You’re a bodyguard, not a prison guard.”
