“What?” I squeaked.
“And bears.”
“You’re joking, right?”
He shrugged.
“That’s not funny, Kevin.”
“I don’t know, it kinda is.”
Kevin winked—which was weird in and of itself—before he lumbered off, leaving me unsure if he was joking or not.
For my own peace of mind I decided to go with joking. Physical labor—yes.
Snakes? No.
Bears? Hell no.
I traded my tennis shoes for the boots and slipped on the gloves. There was a box of black garbage bags and I tucked five of them in the back of my pants. I grabbed a shovel and rake and headed back over to the weed-and-garbage-filled field.
My feet slipped in the too big boots, but I was grateful for them when I stepped into the weeds and something squished underfoot and a wall of flies buzzed up and away.
The smell made me gag.
I pulled my scarf up over my nose. This is so gross.
But it was still better than what I’d left behind.
—
Back home, in the flatlands of Oklahoma, I’d been able to see for miles. And at the beginning of my marriage—not the very beginning, but when I realized that the chicken potpie incident wasn’t going to be a onetime thing—the openness seemed like protection.
Like a moat around me.
Hoyt couldn’t sneak up on me. I could be anywhere on the property, but I’d see the dust behind his truck rising up into the sky, long before I’d even see the truck. And in all that space, that open air, that blue sky with its towering clouds, my fear was like a radio signal that never bounced back. It just went and went and went—flying out over the prairie, fading away into silence.
And at some point during those days, at the beginning, anyway, I could empty myself of that fear. For just a few minutes. As if the dust and the work and the emptiness sucked it all from me.
It’s not like it was a huge transformative event. Like for a few minutes, I took off my clothes and sang Broadway tunes to the corn.
Hardly.
I just got to not be scared for a while.
And it was enough.
But here in Carolina, I was surrounded by a forest and insane amounts of kudzu vine. Which truthfully—as far as plants went—had to be the scariest plant. The way it climbed and grew over anything that stood still, preserving the shape of the thing underneath but killing it dead at the same time. Like a mummy plant.
So damn creepy.
There were strange animals in the forest. Strange bugs buzzing around my ears. Every noise made me jump and every shadow seemed to watch me.
Here, my fear bounced back at me tenfold.
Like I transmitted doubt and it came back as terror.
By the second hour of working, my entire body slick with sweat, I started to doubt if I’d gone far enough to get away from Hoyt. Because I was partially convinced he was watching me from the weeds around the watering hole.
“Hardly seems like a job for a girl,” a quiet voice said.
Wild, I turned, shovel over my head like a weapon.
“Whoa, there,” said an old man, lifting one arm up in the air. His other hand held a plate. “I take it back. It’s a perfect job for a girl.”
Heart thumping, I lowered the shovel. “Sorry,” I said, with the best smile I was capable of. “You startled me.”
“I can see that.” The man had a silver buzz cut and wore a pristine white tee shirt with a pair of jeans. On his forearm a tattoo snake twined its way around his elbow and an eagle was swooping down from his biceps, talons stretched to grab it.
“Here,” he said, holding out a plate toward me. “Watching you work made me hungry, so I figured you had to be starved.”
On the plate were two pieces of bread covered in mayonnaise and ragged slices of tomatoes, like they’d been cut with a spoon. The tomatoes were so red, so beautiful, they looked like gems. The juice like blood.
My stomach roared.
The old man’s lip twitched. “Go on,” he said pushing the plate toward me.