"So, where are we going and how long have you been planning this?" I've waited long enough to ask the questions, knowing that Jim only answers when he's good and ready.
"Can't tell you," he says. He climbs on his bike first and puts up the kickstand. I climb on right after him. He revs the engine and drives us through the tall pines toward the road. But just when we're about to turn that direction, Jim stalls the bike.
Shouting over the engine, he says, "Babe, look at that."
I follow the line of his outstretched finger and eye the sight before me. It's gorgeous. Rage and Sylvia's little cabin is surrounded by a nest of pine trees that shields the cabin from the noise from the road. Jim turns the opposite direction and rides through the narrow tree line to the plot behind the cabin. We've never been over here, had no reason to be, but I'm strangely excited about exploring the land. I'm not exactly sure how far back Rage and Sylvia's property goes, but I know the cabin is well insulated.
Just beyond the trees, a large field awaits us. On the right side, the tree line extends as far as my eyes can see. The rest is wide open save for an old red barn that sits off to the left side. Jim pauses the Harley before we ride over an old, worn bridge. I hold my breath and hang on tight with my eyes scrunched closed. I've never been a fan of bridges, especially not old rickety ones that I doubt have been cared for in the last twenty years. It's one of those structures that probably wasn't ever in very good shape, and now we're taking a several-hundred-pound machine across it like it's nothing.
When I open my eyes, we're well across the bridge and into the field. There are pockets of little hills and valleys, making it a bumpy ride. But by the time my stomach starts to feel uneasy, we're past it--just like the bridge, my anxiety about the rough terrain outlasts the terrain itself--and onto a smooth ride through a lush grassy-green field. It's March now, and the winter's rainy season has only barely just let up, leaving a wealth of thriving plants behind. I wasn't sure how I'd take to Fort Bragg at first, with it being so cold and rainy so much of the year, but now that I'm here, I can't imagine living anywhere else.
Right in the middle of the plot of land, just a few yards from the barn, Jim brings the bike to a stop. In the distance, near a dirt road, I can barely make out a sign. It looks like the land is for sale or has been sold. Or maybe it's a sign letting everybody know that something's going to be built here. I can't really tell.
We climb off and survey the property. It's huge, or at least that's how it feels to me. I grew up first in New York and then was sent to Florida when good old Mom and Dad decided that parenting was better suited to my and Esmeralda's maternal grandparents. Our place in New York was a small little flat in a questionable neighborhood of Queens. My grandparents' house in Florida was a ranch no bigger than the house Jim and I live in now. I can't imagine having this much space to call my own.
"You look happy," Jim says as he comes to stand behind me. He tucks me into his chest and rests his chin atop my head.
"It's peaceful out here. Quiet. I like quiet."
He laughs at my response, his joy radiating through the shaking of his chest against my back. "Yeah it is. If I was stuck at home with a couple of idiots who glue themselves together, I'd want a little patch of quiet, too."
"No, seriously. How does that happen?" The question is rhetorical. We've been over this time and time again, and neither of us actually have an answer for what the fuck is wrong with our kids. We've already banned a variety of different chemicals and items in our house in an effort to keep the place from being lit on fire and destroyed from the roof down.
"You know, I thought Ryan was bad on his own, but Ian really gets him going," Jim says, placing a kiss to the side of my head just above my ear.
"Are you blaming my boy?"
The second the words leave my mouth, I tense up. Ian's not my boy--he's our boy. That's one fight Jim and I had shortly after we moved into the house. He got to being pissed about something and took it out on Ryan, and I kind of lost my cool on him, telling him not to talk to my kids like that. He wasn't even pissed that I said Ryan was mine. He was pissed that I'd been saying it for a while but never gave him the same leeway with Ian. It's unfair, and I know it. The difference is that I know I'm always going to be here for Ryan. I'm always going to mother him and love on him. I love Jim, and I want to believe in what we have, but I have a lifetime of experiences of men lying and changing their minds behind me to make it hard to believe even the most well-intentioned of people.
"Our boy," I correct myself.