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Tean shook his head.
“It was a one-off, I promise. I did something dumb. I’m not going to do it again.”
“I should have known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did something happen?” Tean asked.
“You should have known what?”
“Did someone say something to you? Did someone make you mad?”
“What are you talking about?” Jem squared up on the mattress to face Tean. “I told you: it was a one-off.”
“But I should have known! You read about it all the time, about spouses knowing what their partner is thinking, about finishing their sentences.”
“That sounds fucking awful, if you ask me.”
“You read about how they’re across the country, or halfway around the globe, and they know when something bad happens.”
“Boring,” Jem said. “That’s not our jam. We like a little variety.”
“Some husband is out working on his tractor, out of sight, on the back forty—”
“The back forty,” Jem said and tried not to rub his temples.
“—and the tractor tips over, falls on him, pins him—”
“Maybe he should have set the safety blocks a little better.”
“—and he’s stuck there, with massive internal bleeding, unable to get help—”
“Think about it this way,” Jem said. “He’s a busy guy, right? He’s finally got a few quiet minutes to sit and decompress.”
“He’s not going to decompress; he’s going to decompose.”
“He’s a farmer. He probably likes that. Circle of life, all that stuff.”
“No, he hates it. He wanted to be a librarian, only his stern and demanding puritanical father made him take over the family farm, and now he’s going to die. He’s going to hemorrhage out. Or maybe the internal bleeding isn’t that bad, and he’s going to be pinned there, in the cold—”
“What time of year is it? Maybe it’s spring. Maybe it’s a beautiful evening, and the fireflies are out.”
“—and the birds are going to peck out his eyes, tear off his nose and his ears, until wolves or coyotes come along and tear out his throat—”
“A real St. Francis kind of situation, huh?”
“—only back home, his partner knows. She has this sudden sense of danger, and she rushes out to the back forty with—with Bessie, their mule—”
“This scenario is getting eerily detailed.”
“—and they pull the tractor off him, and they get him to the doctor, and he’s all right.”
“You didn’t talk about the mountain of medical bills,” Jem said. “What about the inevitable foreclosure on the farm? That evil bank guy from the old Christmas movie? And the guy and his wife end up living on the streets, selling their bodies, only nobody wants them because they’re the human equivalent of beef jerky? Oh, and maybe the guy makes his wife into soup—during the Depression, everybody loved soup.”
“What are you talking about?” Tean asked.
“What are you talking about?”
