Page 92 of Upstate

I go upstairs to change into long sleeves and pants that I tuck into my socks. I’m filling a canteen when I hear Sam’s truck pull up. I screw on the cap and meet him out on the lawn.

“Thanks for walking down there with me.” Sam’s back in his uniform of cargo pants and insignia polo shirt. “I wanted to get outside after being stuck in a classroom all day. Ready to go?”

I nod. He pulls a bottle of bug spray from a pocket and aims it at my ankles.

“No, don’t,” I say, waving my hands.

“Lyme disease is no joke, Audrey,” he protests.

“You can spray me, but not near the bees.” I point to the oak. “See?”

“Oh, wow, you’re so right.” As we walk away from the tree, he says, “A wild bee hive is a good sign, ecologically. It means your land is healthy.”

We’re halfway across the lawn before I muster the courage to turn toward him and say, “I’m not always. Healthy, I mean.”

Before I can stop myself, I blurt out the story of Joe and the bees. I tell Sam what I did to my hand, too. It’s the kind of dark detail I’d have instinctively hidden before. Watching him wince, I feel unmasked.

“I get like that, sometimes,” I say finally. “Kind of self-destructive.”

I expect a series of prying questions. Instead, Sam asks, “Which hand?”

I hold it out. He turns the palm skyward and rubs the pad of his thumb along my lifeline. “You’re feeling better now though?”

“I’m working on it.”

“It’s okay if you don’t. Feel better, I mean.”

“I know,” I say. “The hardest part for me is saying stuff out loud.”

Sam lets go of my hand like he’s setting something precious free. “Well, I’m good at listening.”

At the offer of an open ear, my untold stories jostle into line, eager to spill out of me and into him. “Thanks, I’ll let you know. Hey, want to stop by the barn quick and see the goats?”

“Absolutely.”

The wethers lick and leap ecstatically as Sam rubs their knobby heads. He unwraps a granola bar that he breaks in three. The goats gobble it up with gusto.

“Have you named them?”

“I call them Currer, Acton, and Ellis, after the Brontë sisters,” I say, pointing out which is which.

The cantankerous ram, annoyed at the goats’ antics, lets out an aggravated bleat before stomping out of the barn.

“Does that make him Branwell, then?” Sam asks.

I’m impressed; even for Brontë fans, Branwell is a deep cut. “Good guess, but no, he’s a total Heathcliff.”

The goats dash off to join the ram in their shared yard. It seems to me these rambunctious bachelors need more outdoor space. I bet expanding their fenced area is something Sam would help me with.

The barn cat slinks through my legs. She’s become a haughty creature since I freed her from the demands of motherhood by having her spayed, a freedom for which she thanks me with tributes of dead mice left at the entrance of the bookshop.

“My friend Sam thinks I should get a dog.” I scratch between her ears. “What do you say to that?”

The cat hisses and stalks away, disgusted.

“Don’t listen to her,” Sam says. “Cats have a high opinion of themselves, but they’re useless at herding sheep. Where are yours, by the way?”

“Back out in the pasture.”