A Walk in the Sun

by Michelle Zink

  Bodhi shook his head. “I don’t imagine so, but you at least had the possibility of a future. Rose and I . . .”

  “You going to drop off the face of the earth, son?” She laughed again. “Going to the moon?”

  He looked down at his hands. “Not the moon, no.”

  “Well, the amazing thing about living in this age is there are trains and planes and something called Skype.” Now it was his turn to laugh. She took his head in her hands and gave his forehead a motherly kiss. “And you know what else?”

  “What?” He was barely able to choke out the word. No one had ever kissed his forehead. Not that he could remember. There was something impossibly tender about it, and he suddenly felt the loss of all the moments like it that he’d never had.

  “You don’t know the future,” Maggie said. “I didn’t know it that summer on the Cape, and you don’t know it now. Anything can happen. Take hold of this moment. The future will take care of itself, with or without our help. Always does.”

  Thirty-Three

  Rose had just gotten out of the shower when the doorbell rang. She threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top and hurried down the hall. No one ever rang the doorbell. Lexie and Will would come right in. Same with Marty, and now Bodhi.

  She took the stairs two at a time, but when she opened the door, no one was there. She stepped onto the porch and almost tripped over something on the doormat. She looked down, her eyes landing on a stack of books tied together with a green ribbon.

  She looked around before bending to pick them up.

  A piece of stationery was tucked inside the ribbon. When she unfolded the piece of paper, she immediately recognized Bodhi’s scrawl from all the times they’d worked on the farm’s books, trying to reconcile their expenses with their revenue.

  Always time for a good book. Especially now.

  BL

  She raised her head again, hoping to catch sight of him, but he’d made himself scarce in a hurry, and she turned around and went inside.

  When she got back to her room, she shut the door and sat on the bed before untying the silky emerald ribbon. There were five books, all of them from the Milford library. She read the titles softly: The Princess Bride, A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Perfume by Patrick Süskind.

  It was an odd mix of books, and a warm flush spread through her body when she imagined Bodhi standing in the narrow stacks at the library, his shoulders spanning the space between shelves, trying to pick stuff he thought she might like. He’d done that. He’d done it for her.

  She opened the books one by one, relishing the crinkle of their protective covers. She’d forgotten that about library books, the way they crinkled. She opened A Thousand Mornings and held it up to her nose, inhaling the scent of paper and ink.

  She scooted back on her bed, taking the book with her.

  I don’t know where prayers go, or what they do . . .

  “That was nice, you know,” Rose said when they were heading to the pasture to bring in the animals later that night. “The books.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I hope you like them.”

  He was staring straight ahead, studying the pasture like it held the answer to some kind of mystery. Was he blushing under the brim of his hat?

  She smiled. “They’re perfect. Every one. I already started.”

  He looked over at her. “Yeah?”

  She nodded.

  “What did you start with?”

  “The poems,” she said. “By Mary Oliver.”

  “I haven’t read that one,” Bodhi said. “You’ll have to tell me how you like it.”

  “I’ll pass it to you when I’m done,” she said. “Then you can read it, too.”

  He looked over at her, and a slow smile dawned on his face. “Sounds good.”

  She gathered Raven’s reins a little tighter in her hand. “Ready?”

  He nodded, and they kicked the horses into a gallop as they headed for the cows in the distance.

  Later that night, Rose was lying in bed, replaying the events of the day, trying to get comfortable in the stifling July heat. She and Bodhi had put the animals to bed and had a quiet dinner, finishing the last of the chicken pot pie she’d made the night before. She’d been enjoying cooking again. It made her miss her mom, but it made Rose feel close to her, too, flipping through the recipe book, knowing that her mom had touched the pages a thousand times, made thousands of meals from the very same book.

  After dinner, they’d sat on the porch, drinking lemonade and talking about Buttercup, who seemed to have turned a corner. She was still small, but she was eating regularly, and that was a good sign.

  When they’d said good night, she’d been almost sure Bodhi was going to kiss her. He hadn’t, but she had wanted him to. She had really, really wanted him to. She couldn’t remember the exact moment her fear had faded into the background, the moment it had become secondary to her feelings for him, but somewhere along the way that’s exactly what happened. Now she couldn’t get the non-kiss out of her mind, and she finally tossed back her covers and got out of bed.

  She slipped on her sneakers and crept down the hall and out the door in her boxer shorts and tank top. Stepping onto the porch, she took a deep breath. The air wasn’t exactly cool, but it was fresher than the stale air in the house, and she stepped off the porch and made her way across the dirt road.

  The moon was high and full, the stars like a blanket of diamonds over the clear summer sky. She’d heard kids from the city say that you couldn’t see the stars there because the lights were too bright. She couldn’t imagine it.

  She stepped over the fence and into the orchard, weaving between the apple trees while she hummed an old song her mom used to sing when they went apple picking.

  In the shade of the old apple tree,

  Where the love in your eyes I could see,

  Where the voice that I heard,

  Like the song of a bird,

  Seemed to whisper sweet music to me . . .

  She was almost to the peach trees at the other end of the orchard when she heard the snap of a twig to her left. She froze.

  “It’s okay. It’s just me.”

  She put a hand to her chest like that would stop the rapid beating of her heart. “Bodhi. What are you doing here?”

  Thirty-Four

  He had been sitting against one of the trees, eating a not-quite-ripe peach and thinking of Rose, when she’d appeared like magic. “Too hot,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d come out to the orchard when he couldn’t sleep. There was something kind of special about it at night, the air scented with peaches and just a hint of the apples at the other end of the orchard.

  She nodded. “Me either.” She made a face at the peach. “I hope you washed that.”

  He grinned. “Nope.”

  “Ew.”

  He laughed. “Looks like no one’s tended to the orchard in a while. Figured I was safe from pesticides at least.”

  She nodded. “That’s true.”

  He swept one hand out like a footman. “Care to take a seat, my lady?”

  She took the tree next to him, leaning back against its trunk and peering up through the foliage over her head.

  “You ever use the fruit?” Bodhi asked. “For cooking, I mean.”

  “Not in a while. We used to come over and pick enough for my mom to make pie, but my dad always preferred the cattle.”

  “Must have been a good-size operation once upon a time,” Bodhi said.

  She nodded. “I remember coming to Sunday dinner when my grandparents still owned it. There were lots of farmhands who worked here in the summer, both with the animals and in the orchard.”

  “Could be that way again someday,” Bodhi said.

  She didn’t say anything for a minute, and he wondered if he’d touched a nerve. “Maybe.”

  “You could make the peach pie at least,” he suggested.


  She looked over at him and laughed. “I think you might have your own reason for suggesting the pie.”

  He grinned. “I might.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, but it wasn’t one of the awkward silences from their beginning. Instead it felt totally natural to be sitting next to her in the dead of night, talking about the farm and peach pie and the way things had once been and might be again.

  “What about you?” she asked, turning to him. “What was your childhood like?”

  His throat constricted, everything in his body rebelling against telling her the truth. He passed another peach from hand to hand, feeling the barely there fuzz of it against his palms. If he told her, would she ever look at him again the way she’d finally started to look at him these past couple of weeks? Would she see the Bodhi who knew his way around a farm, who liked to read and learn? Or would she instead see Bodhi the High School Dropout? Bodhi the Loser?

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  Then again, this was him. He’d never before apologized for who he was. No sense starting now. She’d find out eventually anyway.

  “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “It’s just not a pretty story, that’s all.”

  “I don’t need pretty stories.” He turned to look at her, and she was staring right at him through the darkness, her head still against the trunk of the peach tree, hair tumbling down her shoulders.

  “My dad’s a drunk,” Bodhi said. “Has been for as long as I can remember. There were lots of ‘accidents’ growing up—running into doors, falling down stairs, that kind of thing.”

  “He hurt you?” she asked softly.

  “I got used to the physical stuff.” He cleared his throat. “But he wasn’t exactly equipped to take care of me, you know?” He continued without waiting for her to say anything. “I left when I was fourteen. Never looked back.”

  He heard her surprise in the intake of her breath. “Fourteen . . . that’s so young. What did you do?”

  “Wasn’t easy at first,” he admitted. “I wasn’t really equipped to take care of myself either. But small town people tend to be generous, and that’s where I headed when I was trying to lay low, keep from getting sent to foster care or back to my dad. I got some work, little stuff at first in exchange for room and board, and eventually I guess you could say I actually knew what I was doing.”

  “But didn’t anyone want to call the police? Or Child Protective Services?”

  “In the beginning, I think my bruises told the only story they needed to hear. Later, after I grew some, it was easy to lie about my age. Don’t need working papers on most farms.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  He took a deep breath. “I worked. I learned. I got my GED. Kept working. Kept learning.” He turned to smile at her. “Now I’m here.”

  She returned his smile before her expression grew serious again. “What about your mom?”

  “She left when I was little,” Bodhi said. “I don’t really remember her, but I can’t imagine she was anything special.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  “She left, didn’t she?”

  “That doesn’t mean she didn’t love you. Maybe she wanted something better for you. Maybe she was setting herself up to give you a better chance.”

  “Then why didn’t she come back?” He turned his head to look at her, wondering what he would see in her eyes. But she was still Rose, and she still looked at him just the same.

  “I don’t know,” she said softly.

  The silence stretched between them. Bodhi let it sit, listened to an owl in the distance, the faint scuffle of a squirrel or mouse nearby.

  “Do you ever get scared?” she suddenly asked. “I mean, you know, scared that you’ll just keep doing the same thing or that nothing will change? Or maybe that everything will change?”

  Tell her, a voice said in his head. Tell her you’re leaving. That you do get scared; scared you’ll never see her again, scared you won’t even get to love her in the here and now because once she knows you’re leaving, she won’t want anything to do with you. Tell her you’ve never been so scared of anything in all your life.

  “I do,” she continued. “And I think I’m just now beginning to admit it to myself.”

  “What are you afraid of?” He didn’t know why the other words wouldn’t come out.

  “The truth?” she asked.

  He met her eyes. “Always.”

  “All of it. Things changing, things staying the same. Most of all, I think I’m just afraid of people leaving, you know?” She said the last part quietly, like maybe she hadn’t realized it until this moment. “People say they won’t, but no one can promise that, can they? People get sick and die or they get in accidents or something else happens and they just have to go. No one can really say they’ll never leave you and mean it.”

  He thought he might choke on the words in his throat. He spoke around them instead. “It’s part of life, I guess.” He felt like a jerk. Telling her something that would make caring about him okay without telling her the rest of it.

  But he couldn’t. Not right now. He needed to think it through more. Find the best way to tell her. She’d had enough hurt. Enough of people leaving.

  “I guess,” she said. “But it sucks.”

  “I can’t say that I disagree.”

  They sat there for a few minutes longer before she got up, brushing the dirt off the back of her legs. “I better get back. We have to be up in a few hours.”

  “You should sleep in,” he said. “Let me handle the animals in the morning.”

  “No way.” She looked down at him. “You coming?”

  “I think I’ll stay for a bit,” he said.

  “Maybe you should sleep in tomorrow,” she said. “Let me handle the animals in the morning.”

  He smiled. “No way.”

  She started walking, holding up a hand as she went. “See you soon.”

  Thirty-Five

  “Would you like more cake, John?” Maggie asked Rose’s father.

  “I wouldn’t mind some, if there’s enough, that is.”

  Rose tried to keep her face impassive. It was just cake, and it’s true that she had kind of guilted her dad into coming to dinner at Maggie’s house, that he still looked pale and thin, but at least he was participating.

  Maggie had called earlier in the week to invite them—Bodhi included—to dinner. Rose had tried hedging, but Maggie Ryland wasn’t someone who took no for an answer, and before Rose knew it, she was agreeing to be there promptly at seven p.m. on Friday.

  Her dad had been quiet through dinner, but he’d answered Maggie’s questions and tried to smile at all the right times. It was something.

  “I just don’t know what is going on with this weather,” Maggie was saying. “Haven’t had a lick of rain in three months.”

  “It’s hurting us on the farm,” Rose said. “We’re feeding the herd our own hay.”

  “Well, that can’t be good for business,” Maggie said, pouring more coffee. “What will you do?”

  “Pray for rain,” Bodhi said. “Not much else we can do.”

  Maggie took a sip of her coffee. “Well, I hope it happens soon. My flowers are barely surviving, and I’m worried about watering them too much. Don’t want the well to run dry. Although I realize that’s a small concern when compared to the farm.”

  Rose smiled. “Not small at all. The garden is beautiful. You must have put a lot of work into it.”

  Maggie laughed. “If that’s work, I’d happily work all day. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane now that Frank is gone. That and the store and this old place. They keep me busy enough.”

  “Mr. Ryland was a nice man,” Rose said. She remembered him as a barrel-chested firefighter with a voice—and a laugh—that carried. “He always brought candy to Fire Prevention Day at school.”

  Maggie smiled. “That man could eat
sugar like a six-year-old. He probably told you he bought it for you. More than likely it was from the stash he kept in his truck. The one he thought I didn’t know about.”

  They laughed, and even Rose’s dad smiled a little.

  “The garden sure is nice this time of night,” Maggie said. “Why don’t we sit outside for a bit?”

  Rose had planned an early getaway. Dinner and conversation with Maggie and then right back to the farm. It had been a while since she’d felt normal around other people, and she hadn’t expected to feel that way tonight. She still missed her mom, still hurt when she thought about her. But it was nice to be somewhere other than the farm, to be talking to Maggie and laughing over dessert with her father and Bodhi like nothing tragic had happened to them. She hadn’t forgotten, but she had set it aside a little to make room for something else, and so far nothing terrible had happened.

  “That would be nice,” Rose said. She looked from Bodhi to her dad. “That okay with you guys?”

  Her dad nodded. “I think that will be just fine.”

  “I’ve got nowhere to be but here,” Bodhi said.

  It was something she liked about him: how he always seemed present. She never felt like there was anything more important than the moment they shared, even if it was an unremarkable one.

  They moved outside to the porch. Her father started to sit on one of the wicker chairs, but Maggie stopped him by speaking gently. “John, I was wondering if I could ask you to take a look at our mower. Darn thing was giving me trouble the other day.”