Hate You Not

“Tell me something,” she says as I scrub the mud and dust out of my hair. “Something about you, Sly.”

That makes me smile. “Something about me?”

She nods, looking solemn in the shower’s steam.

I don’t know why, but I decide to give it to her: “I like making things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I like making…furniture.” It feels so strange to say it that I stop and cut my gaze downward, away from hers. “Sometimes tables and chairs and things like that. But there’s something relaxing about working with wood.” I shake my head. “I know. You can go ahead and laugh.”

I look up at her, and she widens her eyes. Her face is serious; it’s interested. “I’m not laughing. Do you really do that?”

“Not much yet,” I confess. “But I have done some. I took a few classes, at a community college near my place. It was a table-making class and then a carving class. For stress relief when—” I shake my head.

“And you’re good at it?”

I laugh at her face; she’s practically got confused; recalibrating stamped on her forehead. “I’m pretty decent,” I tell her. “But I’d like to do and learn more.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool that you’re techy and artistic, too. Will you send me pictures—like of something that you made in the class?”

“Sure.”

After our shower, I change out lightbulbs in high places, fix a broken blade on her lawn mower, and am in the yard looking at a crack in her bird bath when I can’t resist a look up at her. I find her smiling at me like she almost always is, and I blurt out, “Tell me something about you, June. You know…something special.”

She does a little twirl, reminding me of the cheerleader she used to be. And she says, “Well, I make cakes. Really good ones. I could be a chef or something, but I like being a farmer better.”

Unlike me, she doesn’t mind sharing about herself, so she shows me some cakes on her phone.

“Damn, that unicorn one…”

She smirks. “Self portrait.”

After that, we seem to drift toward the swing. When we sit down, she hooks her foot behind my leg, and I take her hand. Just one more time before I have to get moving.

She tells me about the peanuts—what her plan is for the year, in numbers. I give a few thoughts, based on the numbers.

Then a boxy, old white SUV is bumping down the driveaway. Which means the kids are back. When they get out, Leah won’t stop grinning at us, and she won’t leave soon enough. I’m not sure when I’m seeing June again, and I want a second to say my goodbyes in privacy. Just when I’m about to give up, Leah finally drives off.

June sets the kids up in front of the TV and steps onto the porch alone, with her hair twisted into curls at the ends, like it is when she’s been twirling it nervously, and a cigar box in her hand. She holds it out to me and smiles as I open its top, revealing a Ziploc baggie of something that looks like hardened caramel.

“It’s Southern candy,” she says with a proud smile. “Homemade peanut brittle.”

I bring the box to my chest. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Burke babe.” As she looks at me, her eyebrows pinch together and her mouth twists downward, like she’s reading our future and doesn’t like what she sees.

“What’s the matter, Juney?”

She blinks fast, then shuts her eyes, and then she wipes them with force. “I’m sad you’re leaving,” she says thickly.

I’m frozen in place, struck to the core by that look on her face. Like something precious is within her sights, but she knows she can’t grasp it.

She closes the distance in between us with two strides. Then her arms are locked around me. Her face is pressed against my chest, and she’s urging me to lean down so my cheek is on her hair. She pulls me down lower still, and our foreheads touch.

“Burke,” she whispers near my ear.

I kiss her temple. “Yeah?”

She just squeezes me more tightly. I wrap her in my arms and lift her off the porch. Then I kiss her cheek, her chin, her nose. She smiles, and it’s like they say in songs and poems—it’s like the fucking sun.

“You want me to send you mail?”

“If the mail’s you.” She sniffles.

“You want me to fly and see you Wednesday?”

Her mouth opens. Then she’s laughing. “What? You’d do that for me?”

I hug her close, so she’s cradled against my chest. Her softness feels incredible. She kisses my throat with her velvet mouth, and I’m surprised to hear a ragged groan pull from my chest. Something weird happens—I sort of shudder—and she hugs me tightly.

“Burke. I wish you didn’t have to leave today.”

“Me too.” I wish I didn’t have to leave her ever. Realizing that I feel this way—that somehow I’ve become addicted to June—makes my heart quicken with fear. But also fills it up with something bright and dense and…necessary. I have the sense that this feeling is vitally important.