green land

His weight on the corner of my bed wakes me.  "Are you sick?" He asks softly.  

I roll over trying to see him through the darkness.  "No, I'm not sick, just tired." 

His first response is a deep disapproving grunt but he can't leave it alone.  "If you were well you would be awake by now. I've been waiting for you to come out....your back field is covered with fog. I think you would like to see it."

He tosses me the pants I abandoned on the floor beside the bed last night. I push off the blankets and slip into my jeans. I have slept in my work shirt, seeing this makes him frown.  "Don't." I say and he retracts the expression without comment.


I follow him downstairs. 

In my kitchen he looks a little guilty while handing me a cup of gas station coffee. My dogs avoiding us looking sheepish for letting him slip by them without complaint. 

He leads us outside. The night's rain has soaked the ground.  He recovers his jacket resting on the back of a lawn chair.  "How long have you been here?" I ask as he scoops it up and puts it on me. 

We walk to the edge of the field before he chooses to answer.

"Not that long." He says tilting his head and squints, looking sideways down my face. "Don't be mad at me." He leans in for a good look then takes a step back. He laughs. It tumbles out over the thin layer of dewy mist covering the tall grass.  

He was right I wanted to see this.

"Sweetness?" He holds out his hand. In his palm a tiny orange. The thin skin carefully carved away to form the face of a smiling jack-o-lantern. He places it in my hand.  Kissing me gently on the top of my head whispering, "You don't need no stinking pumpkin."

"You know if I didn't know better I would be completely taken with you, Sir." I say letting my head rest against his shoulder. 

"Yes my darling, but we both know that you DO know better." Something in his voice sounds like rain. But around him the morning sky is breaking clear.


"Will you ever stop hating me?" He asks.

"No." I can see my breath.

"Because you loved me the most?"

I laugh. "Because I was stupid enough to ever love you at all."

I can feel him nodding his head, "Yeah, that was a pretty stupid thing to do....even for you, Misty Brown."  
  
We lean on the fence watching the light break the beauty of the haze until all that is left is the green grass glistening on the other side.