The Gable House – Two Months Later
Heaven. She was cool after a long day
of sweat clinging to her scalp, running down her spine, coating her entire body
in enough animal hair to think she’d become one of her patients. Freya listens
to the now-familiar end-of-day noises of the old house and the small world
beyond. It’s pure, unadulterated pleasure. Gravel crunching as the last client
pulls out. A cow mooing in a distant field. A tractor crossing the street of
Whisper Falls. It’s so hot Freya swears she can feel the heat leeching the
vitality from her bones.
She’s
upstairs, flat on her back, wondering how they are ever going to afford air
conditioning. Trent knew August was the cruelest month in Eastern Washington,
but Freya did not know. The only cool spot in the house is the dank old root
cellar with the spiders. Downstairs in the kitchen, Violet is playing an old
radio she salvaged from the junkyard. Some punk station in Idaho she found one
night when she had Sebastian, her maybe-boyfriend, over for dinner and
pretended that it wasn’t a date.
Freya
chuckles as she wipes the sweat off her forehead. The bedroom windows are open
and a slight breeze shifting through the cottonwood trees mingles with the
river, the earthy scents of harvested fields resting before being planted. It
surprised Freya how easily she’s settled into the rural rhythms, going to bed
early, and rising with the sun. Following the farmers’ lead. Much of this has
to do with Trent. Once she’d ceded control, for the first time, everything fell
into place. Competition, she’d realized had become her life. A simple equation
to bury the grief of losing her parents. It was impossible, she knows now, to
grieve, when her mind was consuming information, cramming herself with facts
and ambition so she could drop, leaden, into sleep.
Aunt
Lilly knew what she was doing, guiding her toward veterinary school. Freya
needed a carrot. Needed to run like hell from the ever-expanding grief that
threatened to swallow her that morning at the breakfast table. Lilly punctured
her world with the sharp knife of a double loss. Then she tried anything, Freya
realized. Anything at all to drag Freya back to life.
Ultimately,
it was Trent. He allowed her to slow down. To stop running from the pain and
allow it to live alongside joy. To cuddle Jorge, befriend Violet, and share her
past without letting it destroy her. Trent softened her. Which was terrifying
for someone who’d cut her way through the world, enjoying her solitude in
university, keeping herself separate except for a roommate who didn’t ask too
many questions.
A
month ago, Trent moved into her corner room at the end of the hall. Freya bent
over backwards making him feel welcome. Offering him the bigger dresser until
they had time to drag the heavily carved armoire he’d used for his clothes into
what they now called the weight room.
Trent
had pursed his lips, amused. “Come on Freya. I can dress down the hall. Don’t
lose all your edge. I love you the way you are.”
It
was the first time either of them had said the word love. Freya had burst into
tears, which made Trent laugh, at first, until she threw a pillow at him.
He’d
hugged her, smashing her against his scrubs, which smelled of bleach and dog
hair. “Well, this is new.”
Letting
go was new. Or, Freya muses, letting go and not thinking she was falling down a
mine shaft, was new. Knowing that Trent was her soft landing. Always would
be.
Downstairs
the door from the surgery slams, shaking the dry timbers of the old house.
Trent’s finally leaving work. This heat has made them switch roles. He’s the
workaholic willing to cover her hours while she sneaks out at five, strips out
of her scrubs, and showers, and lies naked on the bed letting the water
evaporate off her skin. For a blessed moment, she’s cool. Trent’s not fooling
anyone with his kind gesture. Okay, yes, it’s kind, Freya thinks but also, a
girlfriend who’s cool, showered, and not covered in animal hair is far more
likely to have sex than the version that drags herself out of the clinic
overworked, overtired, and hardly in the mood for sweet, sweet love.
Freya
smiles to herself, waiting for Trent to clomp up the stairs. He’ll open the
door, grin, and look at her for a good long while without saying a word. She’ll
smile back and tell him to take a shower. He’ll give her a two-fingered salute.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Afterward,
they’ll get dressed in clean clothes, join Violet for dinner, and listen to her
latest scheme for raising money for an animal shelter in Whisper Falls, because
the shelter in Madison is just too far away.
She
wants to have a fundraiser and make Hank and Bonnie work together. “Those two
are seriously into each other. They are. I know it.”
Freya
will eat whatever Violet is putting on the table and give Violet grief about
her inability to admit that she and Sebastian are a couple and all kinds of
touching is happening. Violet will tell her to shut up bite the inside of her
mouth and try not to glow. Because she’s smitten and Sebastian is a lovesick
puppy who’s fallen hard for his goth maybe-girlfriend.
Groaning
with regret, Freya gets up from the bed. The old springs protest. She can’t
help but smooth down the lovely old quilt even though they’ll thoroughly mess
it up later. Padding across the room barefoot, avoiding the nail she needs to
pound down, she opens the dresser, staring at her stacks of t-shirts and bras
before changing her mind and shutting the door.
Freya
listens to the radio, the water from the shower, the crunch of gravel as
Sebastian, and yes, a glance out the window confirms it is Sebastian, too
focused on the bottle of wine he’s taking out of the front seat of his car to
look up and see her, helps her make up her mind. Opening the door, she sneaks
down the hallway, and quietly opens the door which of course creaks but Trent
can’t hear it over the sound of the water.
Freya
pushes the shower curtain aside. Trent hears and turns, his broad back tan and
slick with water. Those eyes swallow her as they turn up at the corner. “Hey
there pretty lady, come here often?”
Moving
towards him, he opens his arms. “Shut up,” she murmurs right before their
mouths join. His arms encircle her, holding her up, making sure she won’t slip
on the old porcelain.
“Mm,”
Trent groans. “Maybe we don’t need air conditioning if this is the way it’s
gonna be.”
Freya
shakes her head, rubbing her noses. “You wish. We’re taking out a loan.”
Trent
kisses her neck, licking the clean fresh water as it runs down her jaw. “We’ll
see.”
Freya
tilts her head, allowing her throat to be peppered with wet, increasingly firm
kisses. “We’ll see.”
Trent
stops kissing her, pulling back to meet her eyes. “You think you’re going to
win this one, don’t you?”
Freya
rests her forehead on his shoulder, enjoying the way the rounded muscles push
into her breasts. “Trent. Shut up.”