The vignettes lengthened; the tempo slowed. More often now, they showed tired people: Erik with his hair sticking up crazily, shirt off, sweat drenched, dragging a shovel behind him as if he were too weak to lift it. Me in the big door of the shed, swiping hair off my face and trying unsuccessfully to tuck it behind my ear with my leather-gloved fingers. Brassard with his pipe, looking out over corn in the late afternoon and swatting at a persistent horsefly. Robin, muck boots on, leaning against the Jeep, one hip stuck out, tired but unconsciously glamorous as she shaded her eyes against the afternoon light, apparently waiting for Lynn to come out of the barn. A lingering shot of Perry and James, walking away from the camera, along the uphill end of the hop yard, two bearded men holding hands, talking, absentmindedly bumping shoulders.
Then Earnest and Erik and me, sitting on the edge of the porch, all three of us in exactly the same posture, leaning forward with elbows on knees, hands dangling, talking seriously, thinking something through. Bob lounging at our feet, tongue hanging, oblivious. Again I had a moment of that clear vision that comes with unfamiliarity, this time not in seeing myself but seeing Earnest and my brother: What handsome men! I thought.
It ended with a close shot of a single brilliant deep-orange poppy standing tall above Diz’s derelict flower garden, swaying gently in one of the breezes of that particular summer of all those people’s lives.
Then it was done. I was moved and astonished. I had noticed Will filming now and again, mainly in the hop yard, but never realized he had assembled so many moments. I also realized I hadn’t given him credit for such a good eye, or sense of humor, or sensitivity. He had been looking, observing, seeing, all that time.
“I love it. That’s … us. You got us.”
“Thanks. It’s not really done. Just a bunch of clips I pasted together. But it’s fun, isn’t it?”
“There’s someone missing, though.”
“Who’s that?”
“Will Brassard.”
“Well, someone’s got to be behind the camera.” He went to check the spaghetti, then turned up the heat on the sauce and meatballs. He set me up at the counter with lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes to make a salad.
“I think you should branch out,” I said. “With your eye, your sense of timing? I mean, you’ve landed in an agricultural-productions professional niche. But that’s pretty ironic, don’t you think? Given your feelings about farm life?”
“Oh, farm life is okay to visit; I just wouldn’t want to live there.”
We both chuckled. The growing anxiety and fatigue was wearing on me, too, and I was having my own doubts. I remembered getting my monthly check from Larson Middle School, its reassuring predictability, and the pleasure that came from a workday that actually ended.
We ate without saying much. The silence felt a little uncomfortable, so I played some of Erik’s Celtic tunes on my laptop. But they were melancholy, not the best choice. It had gotten dark outside, and despite each other’s company, I think we both felt the lonesomeness of a rural night wrap around the farm and around my little apartment. I had heard Erik come into his side, but no further noises, and I knew he hadn’t made himself any dinner—he’d taken one look at his bed and collapsed into it.
“Yeah, I thought I should redeem myself after the brucellosis fiasco,” Will said.
“Hey, don’t put it down! I am now much more vigilant for signs of brucellosis.”
He was supposed to smile at that but didn’t. Another silence.
“Dad has dropped your name on me about ten times in the last week,” he confessed. “Increasingly in the last couple of months.”
“Likewise.”
You must understand that I have never been any good at moments like this. The nakedness that both parties feel is difficult for me, and I have too little experience, no habitual reflexes, to fall back on. I knew Will was the same kind of person. To our credit, though, if we were not adept we were pretty straight up.
“What do you say when he does?” he asked carefully.
“Nothing. He just … it’s very indirect.”
We looked at each other frankly for a long moment.
“You’re not really there with it, are you?” he asked.
I considered that as he watched me attentively: a good-looking, intelligent, well-intentioned man facing determinedly into a moment of difficult honesty.
“I’m not sure where I am with anything much,” I said at last. “Do you maybe mean ‘Am I ready?’”
“I suppose that’s one way to put it.”
“Because I think there are really two questions there. One is if I am. The other is if you are. And I’m not sure you are, because you’re fresh off a hard breakup and you don’t know whether you’re just lonely and unanchored and are … reaching out. I mean, it is scary. Being single. When you’re not used to it.” I knew the feeling all too well but couldn’t express it, so I tried to make the shape of it with my hands: “There’s this gap in every day, where there’s … supposed to be someone.”
He nodded. Clearly, he knew that feeling, too.
I wondered whether he noticed that I’d avoided directly answering his question. I thought about effulgence and my brother’s crabby but insightful observations. The slot machine tumblers Erik had set in motion were still rolling. But though they had not quite come around to their fated final combination, they
