It's been a long, hot summer and as we entered late July of 2002 Kevin's nerves are becoming ragged. Between the unending parade of kids with friends, many of them packing overnight stays, working, creating gardens and picking and freezing vegetables and fruits for winter, we are both mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted.
On a bright, sunny Saturday Kevin goes out in the early afternoon to clear the underbrush blocking the path to expanding our main garden before fall arrives. It's hard, punishing work that can only be accomplished with a machete, so there is little I can do but offer moral support and bring out drinks and try to keep him hydrated. He is so edgy I let him go on alone. He seems to need the space.
I realize in the middle of rearranging a closet pantry it's been a couple of hours but no Kevin has reappeared. It's so hot outside I run to the kitchen to make a huge glass of water to take out to him. He can get so focused he will lose himself completely and forget everything except whatever task he is working on until he passes out from dehydration.
Carrying his glass, I make my way gingerly to the clearing where is working. He doesn't hear me tiptoeing behind him so I admire him from the back. He's stripped to the waist working low on cutting vines, brambles, and blueberry bushes with a long, sharp machete. Any amount of sun turns Kevin a deep tan so after a summer long of basking in it, he is as brown as a walnut. Covered in a sheen of sweat his back and arm muscles have a life of their own, dancing and flexing under the skin as he takes long, hard sweeps with the machete, cutting rhythmically back and forth against the unruly foliage.
I step on a pine cone and he suddenly hears me. The look I catch on his face as he turns a half turn, startled, is fierce and hard. We're more comfortable with each other after months of working side by side, getting to know each other's nuances, expressions and quirks. I'm not as likely to panic over a single facial expression, but still, what I see worries me.
He is tense most days, with a barely controlled energy simmering under his skin. We quit smoking back in the late spring and I've been chalking up what I see to the after effects of the loss of nicotine. As time passes, I'm becoming less sure I'm right. Although his smoking urges appear totally under control, he is still prone to pacing, likely to get up several times a night, eating too fast and with too little interest.
We had sex, of a sort, again last night. Furtive behind our closed bedroom doors, with every other room of the house filled with our kids and random others, it's hard to remember the freedom of roaming the house naked during the school year. Sex this summer consists of muffled movements under hot blankets, lots of shushing from me, and most of my concentration aimed down the hallway listening for footsteps or movements coming our way.
Without a word, Kevin takes the glass from my hand and empties it in one long draw. That's the way he is, I see, after a year of full time living with him. He absorbs the world around him, raking everything in, consuming it. He approaches nothing lightly. Only with me can he ever access that part of himself that is softer. But it's not in his nature to be a romantic so those moments never last for long.
As I reach to take the glass, he steps forward out of the tangle of vines at his feet and catches my upper arm in his hand. "No kisses for me?" he chides me. I try to pull back. "You're all sweaty and dirty!" I laugh. "Where can I kiss on you that isn't totally gross?" He still has my arm and pulls me back closer. "Gross? Really? I'm gross now?" I kiss him on the nose. "There," I tease him, "enough until you get cleaned up. Then, maybe more tonight." I laugh again. He doesn't.
"Why wait till tonight?" His voice is softer, but somehow harder at the same time. He cocks his head at me and casts his eyes around the area. "This looks like a pretty good spot, huh?"
"Outside?" I screech. "Kevin, you have to be kidding me! Outside? Where the neighbors might hear us, or one of the kids might see us?"
He cuts me off deadpan. "Honey, please. We own five acres. We HAVE no neighbors, and the kids don't come out this far in the woods. Ever."
He's right, but still, having sex outdoors is one of my big, huge, unrequited phobias. To be so exposed? So out in the open? What WE do? Me and him? Oh no. NO. NO. NO. I can't even imagine it.
I shake his hand off my arm and take a big step back. "You are nuts. Just stop it. We can't!"
I'm ready to bolt when I see him looking at me side eyed, with eyes that are narrow and black. I walk with purpose back to the house.
Less than a week later, I will regret not taking the look in those eyes more seriously.
The blueberries in the woods behind the house are in full ripeness and we've picked so many gallons of them we've lost count. Taking a blanket, buckets and a bag of supplies out with us we have spent many hours over the last few weeks picking berries, talking, laughing, and exploring the woods together during the hot afternoons. The kids are far more interested in staying inside with the air conditioning. With two older teenagers watching over the house we can leave for as long as we need to without worry. These outdoor expeditions have been our only time alone this summer.
For several days Kevin has been talking up a particular berry patch he found out in the woods when he was surveying the property the previous week. Huge and sprawling, it sits in a clearing so big, as he describes it while spreading his arms open, we could pick enough blueberries in a single day to fill the entire freezer. He's packed up supplies for us to go make an afternoon of it. I can't wait. I love those big bushes, so big we can sit on a blanket together and pick berries side by side, eating our fill as we go, talking about everything that comes to mind.
