Page 42 of His Country

He didn’t mind being seen by Ethan.

“I hated the mailbox,” he told him, letting everything else fade away into a fluorescent void. “Every morning my dad would wake up determined, ready to make it a good day. And then sometime in the afternoon he’d go to the mailbox. The man that came back wasn’t the same as the man who left.”

Aiden remembered watching him trudge down their long driveway, hands swinging by his side. Sometimes he’d slow down part of the way there or stop all together, hands still at his sides and head tipped up, like he was looking for some kind of sign. If he found one, he never said because he’d always come back with a mean look on his face.

“So like a dumb kid, I figured the mailbox was the problem. I tied one end of the chain we used to haul posts up with the tractor to the mailbox and the other to my bike. Pedaled hard as I could. I was going to rip that mailbox right out of the ground.” He huffed, thumb rubbing the thread in his pocket into a knot. “All I ended up with was a face full of dirt and a missing tooth.”

It was the first baby tooth he’d ever lost. Put it under his pillow and everything. Took him a few weeks to realize the tooth fairy didn’t come to that part of Texas. Must be all the churches. Jesus didn’t like the tooth fairy. Aiden never figured out why. Jesus had teeth, didn’t he?

“Wasn’t til I was older that I realized the mailbox wasn’t the problem. It was the letters.” They all looked the same, with their plastic windows and crisp corners. Wasn’t til I was even older that I realized bills had to be paid. And when you couldn’t pay them, sometimes the bank lent you money. And they got real angry when you couldn’t pay it back. Then the government decides you’re not paying enough taxes. They never tell you whyor what they’re for, but you’re not paying enough. And it doesn’t matter if you can’t. They’ll take it anyway.”

“Eventually all those letters pile up. They get heavy. Fall over and slice you with those crisp corners. Cut and cut until there’s nothing left to bleed.” Laying it all out like this, putting words to the memories and feelings, it painted a picture he didn’t like. Like one of the paintings his teacher showed him once, the kind that were worth a lot of money but made him uncomfortable to look at.

“My dad grew up on that farm. Just like his dad. And his dad before him, and his mom before him.” It had been in their family so long that they began to think of it as another grandparent. The one who sat in the corner old, dusty and mean. Hard to imagine a life without them taking up space and cutting you with their comments.

“He tried to fight it. Sold off pieces, even though it was like cutting off his own limbs. Sliced off pieces of himself just to keep the rest healthy. But prices kept going up. Big feed lots were built, and they cut out the little guy. Sold beef at a fraction of the cost, even though they destroyed the land to do it. Abused the cattle and stole water from the cities. Didn’t matter. Not to them.”

He looked away from Ethan because it wasn’t about him anymore. Wasn’t about Aiden, either. It was about that little boy with the ratchet and all the kids that would come after him.

“Not to ya’ll, either,” he said lowly, making eye contact with the people sitting around him. “You don’t care about the long-term effects. Ethan just spent an hour telling you why it’s wrong. He got people who are much smarter than me to say why you shouldn’t let them—the ones sitting a table raised just a little higher than us because they never want us to forget who’s in charge—do whatever the hell they want. Take land from farmers who have worked it, loved it, for years. Just so they can buildsome ugly ass resort full of assholes who don’t know how to drive in winter.”

“So if ya’ll don’t care about the cows, don’t care about the land, about all the stuff Ethan just explained, then I don’t know if what I say matters. But I want you to imagine what it would be like to watch your father bleed out. Watch nameless, faceless men talking through a mailbox cut him until he has nothing but watered down whiskey in a glass.”

Aiden’s hands had slipped from his pockets to clench the chair back in front of him. He was leaning forward so he could look at these men and women. Let themseehim.

“And then I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t care.”

By the time he finished speaking, his mouth was dry, and his throat burned. His knuckles were white where they gripped the back of the chair. Pushing himself off, he gathered up what was left of his dignity and tried to calmly walk out the room.

He waited until the door slammed shut behind him before he took a large, shuddering breath. Stumbling through the slush, he rounded the corner of the building to lean against the brick. His hands were shaking. He still didn’t know what to do with them.

Forgetspeakingabout losing the farm, Aiden had never really allowed himself to eventhinkabout it. It was easier to limit it to flashes of memories and generalized feelings. Like a caricature, all broad strokes, and overt lines. The details lost in a haze of bitterness.

Hands on his knees, he tried to regulate his breathing. His lips were numb, and the cold was spreading to his limbs, fingers looking ghostly splayed out across his jeans. But he needed that bite of cold to keep him from spiraling out.

Billy said he never had a childhood and Aiden told him he didn’t understand but now he thought that maybe Billy didn’t need to understand. He saw it. Billy had lived in the oldbunkhouse where his father used to sleep. He’d have his meals with them and hang out in Aiden’s room, teasing him with his lip between his front teeth and laugh lines around his eyes.

In some ways Aiden vilified him. Made him the bad guy in his heartbreak tale. Because that made it easier to leave. And he told himself that Billy wouldn’t care if he left. He had Everett and a future. He’d never miss him.

But then Billy came back, and he’d saidAidenwith so much relief that it stung worse than the cold in his lungs. Because Billy had been his friend, he’d learned to work the farm even though he hated sweating. And he’d told Aiden he was allowed to be angry.

Billy tried to tell him. But Aiden was so busy holding onto his heartbreak that he didn’t see it.

For all of the years Aiden had spent angry, he never truly blamed his parents. It was always the bank or the government. These nameless entities that were so easy to accuse. And they were guilty. Of so much more than the sins they committed against Aiden.

But it was his parents who let it trickle down to affect a child. A child who shouldn’t have had to shoulder the unbearable weight of adulthood before he was ready. A child who shouldn’t know what a bill was or go to bed wondering if he was going to lose his home.

It wasn’t the banks who forgot the tooth underneath his pillow. It wasn’t the banks that made him quit the football team. It wasn’t the banks that made him feel like he was built wrong. They didn’t fill him full of shame.

The bills took his farm, but it was his parents who took his childhood.

Around the corner, he heard the front door open again. Aiden stood as the first few people began trickling out toward the parking lot, unwilling to stick around in the weather.Standing up, he let his head drop back against the brick and opened his eyes. He didn’t know when he’d closed them.

“Aiden!” Ethan rounded the corner, his face lighting up when he caught sight of him. Before Aiden could say anything, he was wrapped up in his arms. He tucked his face into Ethan’s neck, sighing when a kiss was pressed to his head.

“That was amazing. You’re amazing.” He squeezed him tighter. “I’m so proud of you.”

Aiden huffed and grabbed onto the back of Ethan’s jacket. He smelled like paper and the gum he chewed to help him with his cravings. He didn’t know when he’d memorized Ethan’s scent, or why it mattered to him that he did, but for a long moment he allowed himself to have this. To let Ethan hold him without worrying about what it meant or if he was allowed to have it.