Page 84 of Omega’s Fold

Wyatt is on the south fence line. I know because I watched him go out at first light and I have not heard the truck start, which means he is still down at the south boundary where the wire has been sagging.

The yard is cold. The frost has gone off the grass but the ground is still hard underfoot, and my breath is white in front of my face.

I cross the yard and go through the gate and down the slope toward the south pasture. I can see him from a quarter mile out: the set of his shoulders, the line of him against the pale grass. I would know him anywhere now. I would know him in a crowd. I would know him in the dark.

He hears me coming and he straightens but he does not turn.

“Wyatt.”

He turns.

Pregnancy has softened something at his jaw, and the weight he has put on has filled the hollows under his cheekbones, and when he looks at me now I can read him.

He reads me back.

“What’s happened?”

“You got a good offer.” I tell him all the details.

His hand comes up, slow, and goes flat against the small hard curve of his belly through the flannel. He doesn’t seem to know he’s doing it. He has been doing it for weeks now.

“It clears it.”

“It clears it. It clears the bank. It clears the arrears. It clears the realtor. There is money left behind it.”

His breath goes out of him in a single long exhale, white in the cold air. He puts his hand over his eyes for a second, then takes it away. His eyes have gone wet but he is not crying. Wyatt does not cry where anyone can see him. I have learned that.

“Julian, I need to sit down.”

There is nothing to sit down on. We are in the middle of a pasture. I take his elbow and we walk back toward the gate, slow, his hand still pressed flat to his belly, mine at his elbow, neither of us saying anything. At the gate he stops and leans against the post and breathes.

“Take your time.”

“Don’t tell me to take my time.”

“Sorry.”

He almost laughs. It is a small wet sound that gets caught somewhere in his throat, and he looks at me and shakes his head, and I want to put my mouth on his more than I want almost anything in the world, but I don’t, because Wyatt does not like being kissed in a field where someone might see, and I know that now too.

“You ready to accept?” I say instead.

“Yeah, let’s do it now.”

We walk back up to the house.

He sits at the kitchen table and dials the lawyer. I look at the picture of our baby on the fridge instead. She has been there since November. The thermal print has gone faintly yellow at the edges.

He calls the lawyer first. It’s a short call. We’re told we can expect documents for an online signature by end of day.

Wyatt calls the bank next.

“Mrs. Holloway. It’s Wyatt Briggs.”

A pause.

“Yes. Yes, I’m calling about that. I have an offer.”

I can’t make out the words she says but I can hear the shape of them.