Page 202 of These Tears

Like someone else I know.

It’s been three days since the gathering at the Nielsens’. Three mornings of waking to the scuffing of Elias’ boots outside before I even opened my eyes. Three nights of the door shutting between us with a small, final click that somehow sounds louder than a slam.

He has taught me how to bank the fire, so it doesn’t choke the room with smoke – though my nan had already drilled that into me by the time I was twelve. I let him explain it anyway. I let him crouch by the range and speak to the iron mouth instead of to me, because even that feels like a reprieve when the alternative is silence.

He has shown me where to scatter ash on the path, so I don’t split my skull before breakfast. Where to keep the chicken feed. Which latches always freeze. How to reset the generator before the cold starts winning and I end up spending my morning beating ice with a shovel.

Every lesson is clipped, practical and delivered without eye contact, as though I am part of the livestock – with opposable thumbs.

Chop this. Carry that. Don’t leave the smokehouse door open. Now open the door. Feed the fire. Don’t touch the pipes. Feed yourself before you faint. Feed me before I ask twice.

And somehow, even in all that distance, he still expects the old rituals to remain intact: one plate between us. One cup. One spoon. His mouth fed by my hand.

At night, he makes me read. The pages of that godforsaken book have only grown worse, but Elias listens as though I am reciting a bloody weather report. He sits across from me with his arms folded, eyes on the flames, face carved into something calm but not peaceful.

He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t even let his gaze linger long enough for me to accuse him of anything.

That is somehow more grating than the alternative.

By morning, he is always gone before I wake – in the shed, by the woodpile, shovelling paths that are already clear. Anything to keep his hands busy and his body outside. In the evening, he’s back behind the door.

I keep counting: the distance between the snowmobile and the exit. Keys. The time it takes him to cross from the shed to the house. Which hooks hold what tools, which tools are sharp enough to matter.

The snowmobile is useless without petrol and keys. The road is too far without knowing the route. There is no direction save for the one locked in his head.

I growl at myself as I sweep George’s insult along with the straw and catalogue every pointy thing in the barn. The sharp inventory leaves a coldness within me.

I have never hurt anyone before – not intentionally, at least. Not in any way that left blood behind.

But the longer Elias keeps me here, the harder it becomes to pretend running is the only shape escape can take.

‘You named him George?’ His voice breaks across the chill like a snapped twig, scattering the hens in a flurry of flapping wings and startled clucks as he stomps in, zipped head-to-toe in his snow-crusted suit. His expression twists with faint revulsion as he narrows his eyes at the bird.

‘He’s got the belly and the likeability of one,’ I grumble, flicking a quick glance towards Elias without fully meeting his eyes.

‘I advise against naming the animals. You’ll be cooking them at some point,’ he mumbles.

Not having thought about it, I glance at the hens and frown. Not Margaret…

She sits placidly in one of the nesting boxes, blissfully unaware that her career trajectory may eventually end at two hundred degrees Celsius.

George makes a noise to my right and my mood sours further.

Elias follows the beady-eyed little menace as he makes a beeline back to me.

I raise my sweeper with a warning flick. ‘Come on, I dare you. I’ve got a pot with your name on it.’

‘He’s been volatile lately,’ Elias comments dryly, shifting his focus to inspect the half-empty nesting boxes. ‘That’s going to be a problem.’

His boots crunch against the compacted straw and dirt, leaving large, wet impressions.

‘I’ll separate him if he gets worse,’ he says, more to the coop than to me. ‘Or cull him.’

I ease my hold on the sweeper.

Elias hooks his hands to his hips. ‘Even if one of the fertilised eggs gives us another male, he won’t be useful for months. We can’t wait that long.’

George struts past my boot as though he understands none of us have really taken to him.