Chapter Text
July 1971
“That tomato looks excellent,” Hawkeye said, slipping his hand over the edge of BJ’s cutting board and snagging a slice.
“Watch your fingers,” BJ said.
Hawk raised his hands in surrender, tomato slice hanging limply from his pinched fingers. It was dripping seeds on the floor.
He wiggled his fingers and grinned. “All accounted for, Beej,” he said.
Hawkeye leaned over the sink and bit into his tomato. BJ watched him. He had tomato juice on his chin. His hair was wild. He was wearing a sweat stained t-shirt and BJ’s running shorts. He’d been napping on the couch earlier, claiming it was too hot to do anything else. BJ brought him one of Erin’s popsicles, and had located his reading glasses wedged between the cushions.
“I was going to season that,” BJ said.
“It’s delicious as is. Here,” Hawkeye said.
Hawk tugged on BJ’s shirtsleeve and BJ leaned in to kiss him. He tasted like the garden: warm, earthy, popsicle sweet.
“Thank you,” BJ said.
“You’re welcome,” Hawk said.
He reached out and grabbed BJ by the hips. “Where are the kids?” he asked.
“I don’t think she likes it when you call her a kid,” BJ said.
Hawkeye huffed. “It’s a term of endearment. Besides, I missed most of her childhood. I should get to call her kid for a little while longer,” he said.
BJ didn’t like it when Hawk said missed , like there was something he could’ve done.
“She’s out. She left a note,” BJ said.
Dad,
Went with Benny to the beach to swim or rent a canoe if the weather stays nice. If it gets too hot we’re probably getting ice cream or maybe going to the library or the diner. We’re one of those places. Or we’re back home, in that case disregard this note.
In any case, we’ll be home for dinner.
Don’t worry.
Erin
Hawkeye snorted. “So the kids are somewhere,” he said.
“Hmm,” BJ said.
“What is it?” Hawkeye said, leaning on the counter, chin angled sideways the way it did when he was onto something BJ wasn’t saying.
“She used to sign off with love you . Now it’s don’t worry ,” BJ said.
“Are you worried about it?” Hawkeye said.
BJ looked up at Hawk, at his wry smile and raised eyebrows. The summer sun was bringing out freckles on his nose.
“Quit it,” BJ said.
“She knows you know she loves you. I’m sure she’s just not sure how much you worry,” Hawkeye said.
“Say that five times fast,” BJ said.
Hawkeye sucked in a deep breath like he was going to try, but BJ cut him off with another kiss.
“It’s almost dinner time,” BJ said.
“Then I’m sure they’re on their way home,” Hawkeye said.
The summer was falling into a particular rhythm. They were both working less. The kids were entertaining each other. Weekends were cluttered with lively conversation, tense card games, and BJ’s dinner experimentation. Erin left all sorts of notes.
Dad,
Wandering the woods for woodpeckers. Told Benny he could borrow Hawk’s hiking boots. Wish us luck.
Don’t worry.
Erin
Dad,
Picnicking! Left you & Hawk some lemonade Benny made. I put my sandwich crusts in the fridge. I’ll clean everything up.
Don’t worry.
Erin
Dad,
Made Vi some new toys. (Please don’t throw them out). Testing in the backyard.
DON’T WORRY.
Erin
Hawkeye sat down at the kitchen table and spread out, the way he usually did: legs crossed, foot bobbing in space, showing off the hole at his big toe, and the staticky way his leg hair stood on end, glasses smudgy, reading some new book. He must have finished the paperback he was plowing through yesterday. Hawk and Erin had sat on opposite ends of the couch and read together all morning, until Benny got up and Erin got restless, and BJ returned from grocery shopping.
Hawkeye caught him staring.
“Need any help?” he asked.
“No help, just company,” BJ said.
He sprinkled some salt and cracked some pepper over the tomato slices. He drizzled them with the good olive oil and balsamic vinegar and arranged them on a plate with some sliced mozzarella and fresh basil from the garden. The caprese salad was accompanying a pasta recipe BJ clipped out of a magazine—something with lemon and butter and grated parmesan.
He was going to grill some chicken to put on top, even though every time he grilled Hawk insisted on putting the “Kiss the Cook” apron (a Christmas gift from Margaret) on him and Erin said she was reminded of barbeques in Mill Valley (memories he wasn’t always in the mood to revisit).
“I can see your gears turning. If you think any harder, smoke is going to start coming out of your ears,” Hawkeye said.
They’d been in Maine for a year and a half now. The first anniversary of their Las Vegas wedding ceremony was at the end of the month. BJ was building him a new bookshelf for a gift. He’d made up a whole host of excuses to keep Hawk—who, though he had little interest in BJ’s home improvement endeavors, liked to linger in the doorway and ogle him when he was covered in grease or paint or motor oil—away from the surprise. BJ had talked his way into some wood from the demolished schoolhouse in which Hawk had spent his early days. He’d repurposed some California wood too, disassembled pieces of beach house furniture. It was important to him that the bookshelf had a piece of everywhere they’d been.
He checked the shelves with the level he’d bought in Seattle. He was going to carve his initials in the base with his army pocket knife. He had to steer Hawk away from garage sales. (He had hoarding tendencies, even though they had plenty of furniture).
BJ was beginning to feel really at home. It wasn’t a feeling he’d had before, and consequently it was a feeling that spooked him. He wanted Erin to feel at home, but she could always see through his false confidence. She was tuned to his anxieties.
Don’t worry.
“I just hope that the kids are having a good time,” BJ said.
“The newly minted adults,” Hawkeye said.
“The intrepid explorers,” BJ said.
“The youthful Californians,” Hawkeye said, eyebrows rising.
BJ frowned. “I’m not youthful?” he said.
Hawkeye smiled, indulgently. “You’re a baby,” he said.
“I’m grateful for all the time we get. Once she’s graduated I don’t know how often she’ll be out here to visit,” BJ said.
“Beej, she’s only a sophomore,” Hawkeye said.
BJ wiped his hands on a dishtowel and placed the plate of caprese salad and a fork down on the table in front of Hawkeye.
“For me?” Hawkeye said.
“For everyone, but for you first. You looked peckish. I’m going to start the grill,” BJ said.
“Hmm…you need your apron, then,” Hawkeye said.
“You don’t need an apron to tell you to kiss me, BJ said.
Hawkeye was arranging a perfect bite of caprese. He stabbed at a good looking tomato slice and arranged the cheese and basil so they wouldn’t slip off when he sopped up the excess oil and vinegar. He chewed and then made a satisfied little noise. He looked up at BJ and then tugged him down by the hem of his shirt, for another kiss.
It was a deeper kiss than before. It was the kind of kiss Hawk gave him before he took him upstairs.
“What was that for?” BJ said, distracted, pleased.
“A balm for your worries,” Hawkeye said, eyes half-lidded.
“Is that so?” BJ said.
“And to remind you that I am a creature driven by lust,” Hawkeye said.
He kissed him again, palms cupping BJ’s jaw. BJ liked these post-nap moods of his, where Hawk got even more sappy and flirtatious and over the top than usual. They’d been doing well, the both of them. Hawk was sleeping well and eating well and keeping a good balance between work and everything else. They were in tune with each other: in surgery, in the kitchen, in the bedroom.
Hawkeye knew everything BJ liked. Sometimes he knew what he wanted, or needed, before BJ had the words to articulate it. Before he met Hawk, desire had been a slippery, unknowable thing. His impulses had confused him. His body had felt alien. He’d spent a lot of time just going through the motions. He’d thought it was that way for everyone, back then.
It was a humiliating thing to admit, but he hadn’t known what satisfying sex was like before Hawkeye. He hadn’t known there was a way to be vulnerable without embarrassment. He’d admitted it to Hawk anyway. The longer they were together, the more BJ felt like he could tell Hawkeye anything.
“If the kids weren’t on their way home, I’d take you upstairs right now,” BJ said, voice low and gravelly in a manner that gave away how much he meant it.
Hawkeye pressed a hand over BJ’s heart, and then trailed it lower: down his chest, over his stomach, trailing along his waistband.
“I had a dream about you, while I was napping,” Hawkeye said.
“What kind of dream?” BJ said.
Hawkeye closed his eyes and hummed. “We were in Paris again, only it was cold. It was snowing, and you kept trying to give me your coat,” he said.
“That sounds like me,” BJ said.
“Well, you also begged me to let you fellate me in an alley. Actually, you were very invested in that scheme. You kept pointing at alleys and weighing their pros and cons,” Hawkeye said.
“That sounds less like me,” BJ said.
“And I was trying to distract you with French puns. French puns about your cock, mostly,” Hawkeye said.
“I take it your French is better in dreams,” BJ said.
Hawkeye stabbed a piece of cheese and gesticulated with his fork.
“I don’t ordinarily have cold dreams when it’s hot outside, but I fell asleep with that popsicle down my shorts,”
“ My shorts,” BJ said.
“Right, right, your shorts. What do you suppose it all means, Beej?” Hawkeye said.
BJ wondered, sometimes, if this was the honeymoon phase. He wasn’t sure he believed in such a thing. He couldn’t imagine being less charmed by and enamored with Hawk. Hawkeye was charming even when they fought. Did dreaming about their honeymoon signify the end of the honeymoon phase? Hawk was smiling, waiting for an answer.
“I think it means I’m just as much a creature of lust as you are,” BJ said.
The front door swung open and closed with a creak. There was laughter in the hallway, and then the clatter of shoes coming off and hitting hard wood.
“I think the kids are home,” Hawkeye said.
“Sorry we’re late,” Erin said.
She was standing in the doorway with her hair in braids and sand on her ankles. She was wearing what Hawkeye had termed her summer uniform : denim shorts, dirty tennis shoes, men’s button down that swallowed her narrow frame.
“You’re right on time,” BJ said.
“How was the beach?” Hawkeye said.
Benny trailed behind her, arms crossed and head bowed. Erin’s friends were usually a little shy around him, but BJ worried he and Hawk were unsatisfactory hosts. Hawk said he was sure Benny would drop some of his skittishness and polite, over-formality in time.
“We dug a big hole,” Erin said.
“Why? Where?” BJ said.
Erin leaned on the counter across from him. Hawk caught Benny’s eye and gestured to an empty chair. He smiled, sheepishly, and sat down.
“Just out of reach of the tide. Don’t worry, we filled it back up before we left,” Erin said.
“Right, but why?” BJ repeated, amused.
Erin had more summer freckles than Hawk, and her uniform had given her an unusual, uneven tan: darker at her neck and forearms, prominent sock lines from favoring sneakers over sandals. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“The spirit of scientific exploration, Dad. Isn’t that right, Benny?” she said.
“We took down the dimensions of the hole, and uh…well, when the tide started coming in closer we investigated everything that fell in the hole,” Benny said. He threaded his fingers together and looked expectantly at Erin.
“Good, wholesome fun, eh Beej?” Hawkeye said.
Benny snickered, palm pressed to his mouth.
“That was a good one, Hawk. I liked that one,” Erin said, expression serene.
BJ was too busy watching her to register the pun. He was trying to recall all the trouble he’d gotten into when he was 19. He was thinking about all the times he’d lied, and the way he’d gotten his face to look when he was being dishonest. Erin had remarkable control over her expressions, now. She hadn’t been that way when she was little. His daughter wore masks. BJ could see them hardening over her face. He could see the ways she slipped out from under questions. He saw a lot of himself in her, and so he often wondered if she was lying to him.
BJ lied to his father a lot, when he was her age.
“You spent all afternoon digging a hole?” BJ said.
She shrugged: one shoulder and then the other. She met his eyes for a second, and then looked away, over to Benny.
“We went swimming too. We wore lots of sunscreen. Don’t worry,” Erin said.
BJ had never worried much about how his father felt, when he told him lies.
“Did you find any treasures?” Hawkeye said.
“Some shells, a couple sand dollars, but we left everything,” Benny said.
“Not everything,” Erin said.
She pushed herself off the counter, stuck her hand in her breast pocket, and produced an amber colored piece of sea glass. She handed it to Hawkeye, who put his reading glasses back on and examined it.
“Well, would you look at that,” Hawkeye said, running his thumb over the smooth edges. “What do you think it was in its past life? Beer bottle, maybe?”
“It looks almost gold in the light. I want to start a collection,” Erin said.
“Erin finds all the cool stuff. All I ever find are pebbles and seaweed,” Benny said.
“Seaweed is cool. It’s all cool. We’re getting glimpses of an ecosystem that’s otherwise a mystery to humanity,” Erin said.
“Oh humanity . You sound like Fern,” Benny said.
BJ thought she sounded more like Hawk, who was looking at him now, gaze steady and loving. He was still wearing his reading glasses. His eyes crinkled. They were very blue and very knowing.
“Try some of your father’s tomatoes,” Hawk said.
After dinner, Erin dragged Benny outside for an evening walk and BJ and Hawkeye went upstairs to get ready for bed.
“I don’t like the idea of them wandering around after dark,” BJ said, syllables muffled around a mouthful of toothpaste.
Hawk was sitting on the lid of the toilet, clipping his toenails.
“It’s an hour before the sun goes down,” Hawkeye said.
“When they get back they’re always giggling,” BJ said.
It was true. He’d heard them in the hall. He’d heard them tiptoeing up the steps, late at night.
“That’s what kids do, Beej,” Hawkeye said.
His head was ducked. BJ looked down at his scalp and counted the silvery strands in his dark hair. He reached up and ran his free hand through his own hair. It was receding. He felt old, older than he had a moment before. He felt silly for worrying over Erin like she was a child. She was nearly grown.
“I just can’t shake the feeling that she’s hiding something from me,” BJ said.
“If it’s important she’ll tell you when she’s ready,” Hawkeye said.
“If she tells me at all,” BJ said.
He spat in the sink.
“It’ll be alright. She’s a good kid,” Hawkeye said.
“I know she’s a good kid,” BJ said, tone edging into snappish. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”
“Then let’s go to bed,” Hawkeye said, gently, getting up and hooking his arm around BJ’s waist, kissing the side of his neck.
BJ slept well in this house now. He slept better anywhere with Hawk pressed against him. Hawk kissed him deeply, then pulled back and tucked his face to BJ’s collarbone. His eyes were half-lidded. His voice was distant and dreamy with sleep.
BJ heard the door open and close downstairs. He heard the peals of Erin’s laughter: rougher, lower, wilder, when he wasn’t around. He was reminded of coming home to the Swamp, mouth sour from cheap beer, conversation spilling out of the O Club and skittering, breathlessly, through the dirt. When he walked home with Hawk, BJ always felt like he was catching his breath.
“Listen,” BJ said.
“Hmm?” Hawkeye said, pressing his nose deeper into BJ’s chest.
“Downstairs,” BJ said.
He could hear the floorboards creaking. He could hear them opening and closing kitchen cabinets. He could hear their voices overlapping. He wondered what they talked about. He couldn’t remember what he talked about with his friends, at 19. He hadn’t had a best friend. He didn’t have a best friend until the war, not really, not best in a way that meant something.
“It’ll eat you up,” Hawk said.
“What?”
“Fretting over them all summer, it’ll eat at you,” Hawkeye said.
Hawkeye shifted, and BJ pressed his face into his hair. He smelled like basil and olive oil.
“I know. I just—”
“You just what?” Hawkeye said.
He tipped his chin up to look at him, attentive, even half asleep.
“I don’t remember the last thing I said to my father. We stopped speaking when I was…well, I wasn’t much older than she is,” BJ said.
Hawk was silent for a moment. BJ studied the lopsided line of his mouth. He focused his attention on the bridge of his nose. It had gotten quiet downstairs, too. Maybe they’d gone back outside.
“Why did you stop speaking with your father?” Hawkeye said.
BJ’s whole body tensed. Hawkeye reached up and trailed his fingers down the length of BJ’s arm.
“You know why,” BJ said.
He’d told him. BJ’s father was a cold man. He was rough. He was stern. He was impossible to please. And he was indifferent, right up until the end.
Hawkeye pressed his palm to BJ’s chest, over his heart. His touch was warm.
“I’m trying to prove a point, darling,” Hawkeye said.
BJ smiled. “I think you’re falling asleep,” he said.
“You care for her. You keep her safe. She’s supported here. She’s got friends. You’re nothing like your old man, Beej. You know that, don’t you?” Hawkeye said.
Suddenly he was ten years old, handing over his report card, hands linked behind his back, head bowed, waiting. BJ felt a dizzying, stomach-dropping sort of fear when he was in a room alone with his father.
Downstairs, the back door swung open and closed again. He heard the kids climbing the stairs. Erin always gripped the railing. She had ever since Peg had tripped on the stairs in Mill Valley when Erin was little. She’d had to get stitches. Erin had cried so hard she’d hyperventilated. Explaining everything was the only way to get her to stop. BJ had gotten out a needle and thread to show her.
Broken things could be stitched back up, he’d explained. It was work that required steady hands.
Hawkeye slipped his hand under the hem of BJ’s shirt.
“Don’t you?” he repeated.
“I do,” BJ said.
May 1978
“I was under the impression that, um, well what I mean to say is…I wasn’t aware you had relations with men,” Hawkeye said, once his ears stopped ringing.
He wasn’t sure why his body’s reaction to the news that Erin was pregnant was to freeze in place. His senses had gone haywire. His vision blurred, dramatically, until his grip on the counter grounded him back to her.
“I don’t, usually,” Erin said.
She scrunched her shoulders up to her ears and then dropped them. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. He needed the details, he realized. Information was the only thing that would calm him down.
“Did someone hurt you?” he said.
She looked at him. “No, Hawk. I’m alright. I didn’t take the breakup well. I got drunk. I hooked up with some man at a party. The condom broke. I don’t even remember his name,” she said.
Hawkeye tried hard to control his facial expressions. He was having trouble reconciling this new information with his understanding of Erin’s character. It didn’t sound like her. She’d never been much for parties. She was doggedly committed to her work, to her students, to spending her weekends reading beat up paperbacks on the couch, and going out dancing with her girlfriend. She was addicted to routine. She wrote all her appointments in her day planner. She had dinner with her mother every other week. She paid attention to time zones, every time she called Crabapple Cove. He only heard her swear when she was angry. She’d outgrown her teenage penchant for cursing and slamming doors and talking over people she thought were ignorant.
To Hawkeye’s knowledge, she hadn’t had other one night stands. Though, when he really thought about it, he knew she wouldn’t tell him if she had. It had taken her years to come out to her family. She was tight-lipped about her personal life. She was like her father.
Erin sipped her tea again. Her cheeks were going a little pink, but the rest of her was pale. She looked worn out. He’d attributed it to her sensitivity, her neuroses. She got herself worked up, like her father. Hawk had been devising ways to better care for the Hunnicutts in his life for years. He could write a paper on them: Erin and Beej, with perhaps an appendix for Peg.
“When did you find out? Have you been to a doctor to check?” Hawkeye said.
“I’m between providers at the moment. Would you happen to know any doctors in the area?” Erin said.
He laughed, surprised. His eyes were growing damp, which was even more surprising. He laughed some more, until the sounds coming out of his throat were wet and strangled.
“I’m glad you can laugh about it,” Erin said.
Her bottom lip trembled, but her eyes were bright and alert. The pasta water had risen to a rolling boil. Hawkeye turned away from her and tipped the whole box of spaghetti into the pot. It was dark and still outside. He could hear Vi in the living room, darting around after dust bunnies. If he concentrated hard he could even hear Beej upstairs, shifting in their sheets, rolling over, groaning, and reaching for his glass of water.
“I’m laughing at your joke,” he said, sniffling. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “What do you want to do, kid?”
“I never thought I’d have a chance to be a mother. I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted, really, but I’d made peace with it. Or at least, I figured it wasn’t an idea worth entertaining,” she said.
“I understand that. I understand that more than most people, probably,” Hawkeye said.
“I want to have it. I want to keep the baby. I know it isn’t what anybody planned, and you and Dad will be angry, but—”
“I’m not angry. He won’t be either,” Hawkeye said.
She scoffed. She looked away from him again, like holding his gaze was painful. She looked afraid. But it was a beautiful thing wasn’t it? Carrying life.
“How do you know that?” she said.
“I know your dad pretty well,” Hawkeye said.
“I’m on my own, Hawk. I quit my job. I drove Jess away. Mom’s angry. She wanted me to come home to Mill Valley, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t face her. I can’t face anyone. I just don’t know how,” Erin said.
“Can you grab the colander for me? It’s in that cabinet, bottom left,” Hawkeye said.
She blinked at him and then got up and retrieved the colander. He put it in the sink and drained the pot into it. For a moment they were both wrapped in gentle steam.
Hawkeye recognized the guilty, fearful expression on her face. It was the same look Beej had at the end of the war: down to the crease between her eyebrows, down to the wobble of her chin, down to the distant fear in her eyes, like she was bracing herself.
He’d always thought Erin had a remarkable sense of direction. She was bold and driven and continuously engaged in the pursuit of her goals. She was a workaholic, like her father, and regimented even in her hobbies. Her adolescent obsessions were investigative: puzzles, scavenger hunts, birdwatching, amateur geology. At her high school track meets she ran with a swift and single-minded determination, like the finish line was brighter and clearer in her mind than it was on the asphalt.
She’d chosen her teaching major quickly. It was a natural fit, Hawkeye thought, for a young woman who was so curious and so eager to explain the world around her. Even when she struggled or faltered, she didn’t lose her passion. That’s what it was, really. Erin was passionate. She gave everything her all, even misery, even fear.
“All you need to know right now is which dish you want your spaghetti in,” Hawkeye said.
He opened the cabinet that held their eclectic collection of dishware. There were some dishes from his childhood, the ones that had been spared in the blurry month he’d followed Beej around and sifted through Dad’s possessions. They’d kept the important things: two big, blue soup bowls, Dad’s rotary club mug, Hawk’s birthday cake plate, Mom’s emerald green butter dish, the nice forks and spoons, the ones they got out for company.
There were a few things Beej had brought from Mill Valley. Most notably, he had a dish with Erin’s baby handprints in purple paint. She’d made it in preschool. Beej used it for cereal, even though its dimensions were a little too shallow and the milk came up right to the rim when he poured a decent serving of corn flakes.
Erin selected one of the plates he and BJ had bought together. It was cream, with a print of delicate brown and orange florals. They had a set of four. BJ liked buying things in multiples. He was the same way with clothes. When he found a dress shirt or pair of tennis shoes or tie he liked, he bought another in a different color.
It had become a running joke, whenever Beej came home with shopping bags. He’d hold up a new pair of jeans, Hawkeye would smile his teasing smile, and ask where the other pair was. Hawk’s pair, really: something interchangeable, something he’d picked for the both of them. He suspected that was part of the reason BJ liked things in matching sets. They were something families had.
Hawkeye liked their patchwork dishes in their patchwork kitchen. He liked the things that matched and he liked the things that didn’t. The whole house had its messy, unorthodox order. It wasn’t one of those houses where you were afraid to sit down. It was a house where Erin fit, and would always fit. Whenever she visited she looked so at ease perched on the love seat or writing at her desk or sitting in the shade of the tree in the front yard, that he forgot that this wasn’t always the home to which she returned.
She stood there with the plate clutched tightly in her hands.
“If you’re going to tell me everything’s going to be alright, I don’t know if I want to hear it,” Erin said.
Hawkeye smiled. “Alright,” he said. “How about you cover your ears?”
July 1971
Benny kept his Berkeley joints in a long, rectangular cookie tin. Erin has begun associating getting stoned with the scent of apricot jam.
“Thumbprint cookies, from the last care package my mother ever sent,” he’d told her, the first time he’d brought it out.
Benny always smiled big right before he said something sad.
After dinner, while Erin was doing the dishes and Dad and Hawk were bickering over the crossword clues they hadn’t gotten to that morning, Benny had given her the usual look and she had given him the usual nod and he’d gone up to the guest room for the last of the coveted Berkeley pot.
“I don’t think they’re asleep yet, you know. They can probably hear us out here,” Benny said.
He was sitting—legs crossed and feet bare—in the long grass. He’d been growing his hair out, so it flopped over his forehead, hiding his eyebrows and consequently obscuring some of his more dramatic facial expressions. Erin squinted at him in the dark.
Benny was more concerned with getting in trouble at Dad and Hawk’s than he ever was at camp, which she supposed made sense. She’d assured him that he had nothing to worry about. Her fathers could live with a little mischief. They’d be hypocrites if they didn’t. Furthermore, when Erin was up to trouble, she didn’t get caught.
“The window’s closed, and you’re whispering,” Erin said.
He handed her the joint and she lit it, shielding the flame with her cupped palm. She inhaled, deeply. Benny’s pot reminded her of house parties.
She’d tagged along with Jess to a few of them, and with Benny to a few more. Freshman year had been the year of the plus one . She hoped that in the fall she’d start getting invitations of her own. It was only fair to pay forward the generosity she’d been extended, even if she didn’t particularly like parties, even if fraternity houses made her skin crawl and hangovers came with so much anxiety that she often spend the whole day curled up on her plasticky dorm mattress, counting her breaths and praying she’d be calm enough to finish her French homework come evening.
It was good to step out of your comfort zone. She’d been told that all her life (by Mom, by Dad, by Hawk, by her teachers, by her track coaches, by school counselors, by Benny). They always said it like it was easy, like everyone was walking around with their heart pounding, and Erin was the only one who got so worked up by the stress that she shut down. It was a question of practice, she thought. She’d keep practicing. She’d keep working on herself and one day it wouldn’t feel like she was failing anymore.
“You’re not savoring it. That’s our last one,” Benny said.
Erin took another hit, long and slow, and then passed the joint back.
“I thought these would last longer,” Erin said.
They’d intended to get stoned only on special occasions, but summer in Crabapple Cove was full of long, lazy days, with only each other for company. They had to go into town to find anyone their age, and the locals were insular. The social groups had already been formed. She and Benny were conspicuous and unwelcome outsiders.
This was something that bothered Benny more than it did Erin. She’d always been happy by herself. She was, however, unhappy with the notion that she was an unsatisfactory host. She’d dragged him across the country for his last summer before he was off to the real world. She owed him a good time.
“They’d last longer if you had a little more self control,” Benny said.
He smiled to his eyes. They were already a little red and watery and distant. She laughed, and he shushed her.
“I think we should make some friends,” Erin said.
It got colder at night, when the wind picked up, so she’d put on the sweater Hawkeye knitted her last Christmas. She ran her fingers over its big, loose, stitches. He’d used his softest yarn, because he knew she was particular. Erin was getting awfully tired of being particular. Or at least she was tired of people pointing it out.
Benny handed her the joint. Their fingers brushing in the awkward, fumbling way they usually did. She could feel the calluses on his fingertips. He’d been practicing guitar like a madman. She’d seen him scribbling lyrics in his spiral notebook. He sat out here, in the backyard, and practiced chords in the shade. He was secretive. He tucked away his guitar whenever he saw her coming.
Benny raised his eyebrows and lay back in the grass. He folded his arms behind his head. The smoke curled around them in delicate tendrils. She studied him from above: the tangled mess of his hair, dark and rich against the grass, the half-lidded indifference in his eyes, his long, freckled limbs, and bare feet. Sometimes, Erin thought if she stared at Benny long enough she could figure out what he was thinking, and by extension what he wanted from her, and what she was supposed to say to make something happen.
She lay down beside him. Blades of grass poked through the holes in her sweater. She squirmed and tried to ignore the wave of discomfort. The high helped. Getting stoned made her feel distant from herself. It didn’t make her worries and ruminations go away, it just tucked them away somewhere for a little while. It turned down the volume.
“Do you?” he said.
“Do you ?” Erin said.
Benny laughed again, evidently no longer worried about the noise they were making, or perhaps too high to help it.
“You can never make up your mind, can you?” he said.
May 1978
BJ slept through dinner and then through breakfast. He almost slept through lunch, too, but the bedroom door was creaky, and Hawk wasn’t as light on his feet as he used to be.
“Everything’s spinning,” BJ moaned, shifting slowly, trying to keep his head stationary and move enough to see Hawk, standing between the open closet doors.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Hawkeye said.
He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his dress shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and the fabric was wrinkled and sweat stained at his armpits. He was wearing the same thing he’d worn yesterday, BJ realized. He hadn’t come up to change last night. He hadn’t come to bed. BJ felt very cold all of a sudden.
“What’s wrong?” he said, forcing himself into an upright position.
He watched Hawkeye’s back. There was some tightness in his shoulders. He had something difficult to say, BJ could tell even with Hawk’s back turned.
“Are you going to work?” BJ said.
“No, Beej, and neither are you. I called and explained everything,” Hawkeye said.
He turned, finally, so BJ could get a better look at him. He hadn’t shaved. There was stubble on his chin and down his neck. His eyes were tired and dimmer, like he hadn’t slept. He ran a hand through his hair.
“Explained what?” BJ said.
“Erin’s weeding your garden. She’s going to talk it through with you when you’ve gotten something to eat,” Hawkeye said.
“Hawk, this ominous, somber thing you’re doing is scaring me,” BJ said.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and leaned forward, resting his cheek on his leg, propping himself up.
Hawkeye sighed, tension seeping from his shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to. I—it’s good news, well, it’s complicated news. It’s not my news to share,” he said.
“But our daughter’s waiting for me in the garden?” BJ said.
“Sounds like the start of some quest, doesn’t it?” Hawkeye said, unhelpfully.
BJ rolled over and buried his face in Hawk’s pillow. His side of the bed was cold, but still smelled like him.
“She’s not rushing out of here, is she?” BJ said.
The afternoon sun was bleeding in through the curtains. He could feel its warmth on the side of his face. He breathed, slow and shaky. His head still hurt. He needed an aspirin, some coffee, and Hawk’s cooking.
He felt the bed dip, and then Hawkeye’s hand on the small of his back.
“You never told me you got these headaches during the war,” Hawkeye muttered.
“Erin told you? Did you tell her what’s been going on with me?” BJ said.
“You’re going to have to fill her in eventually, Beej. What do you want to do, lie?” Hawkeye said.
“No,” BJ said, though sometimes he wasn’t sure what there was to tell. He didn’t know why his migraines had started up again. He didn’t know why his nightmares were getting worse and more frequent. It was all a big question mark. It wasn't something he could explain to her. He didn’t like going to her with mysteries, especially not mysteries that scared him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hawkeye said.
BJ thought back to the migraines he’d had in the Swamp. He thought back to all the times his vision swam and his stomach turned and the pain felt so intense and consuming in his skull that sometimes he was glad for it. When he had a migraine in Korea it was hard to think about anything else.
“I didn’t tell you a lot of things back then,” BJ said, into Hawk’s pillow.
They were both quiet for a beat. Hawkeye was rubbing BJ’s back in small circles.
“Still,” he said.
“Knowing wouldn’t have helped,” BJ said.
He turned his head to one side and squinted sideways at Hawk. The years they’d known each other collapsed inward, like an accordion. Sometimes BJ felt he could only move forward if he kept tucking things away. Memory was a powerful, fragile thing. He could look at Hawk, now, sitting at the edge of their bed, and see him as he was years ago: eyebrows knitted together, martini glass in hand, eyes watery with concern.
He could even, in his mind’s eye, get this Hawk to speak: You should’ve told me. I could’ve helped.
“You don’t know that,” Hawkeye said. He brushed his palm over his stubble. He yawned.
“I’ll get up and shower and you go to bed. It’ll be easier to get your rest without me,” BJ said.
Hawkeye pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.
“I’d still rather share a bed with you,” he said.
Erin was in the garden, as promised. She was wearing one of his gardening shirts: blue, stained, with a rip at the collar. It hung off her. Her hair was in a long braid and her face was shadowed with a big, drooping sunhat. It had been too long since he’d seen her.
It had been too long since he’d seen his garden, too. He’d started planning in February. All winter he’d had only the houseplants to tend. His basil, parsley, mint, the aloe vera he kept in a pot in the kitchen (for Hawk, in case he burned himself). He’d made sketches of the general layout: carrots, spinach, kale, zucchini, and Hawk’s favorite tomatoes. They needed a lot of room. He’d hoped to improve on last season’s missteps: sturdier stakes to keep the tomato plants from sagging, new fertilizer, more careful pruning, building up a robust compost pile. He wanted to try out some flowers too: petunias, marigolds, sunflowers that shot up taller than Erin.
Of course, now all his plans were out the window. His garden was a graveyard. It was overgrown with weeds and layers of dried up brush. If he wanted to do things properly, he would’ve tilled the plot weeks ago. Erin wasn’t wearing gloves. She was sticking her hands directly in his wasted plans, yanking them up by the roots.
She looked up at him, and for a moment it was like they were strangers. She’d drawn a mask up over her face. Her expression was stiff and apprehensive.
“Hi Dad,” she said.
“Hi kid,” BJ said. “You don’t have to do that. I’m getting a late start this year. Nothing’s where it should be, yet.”
Erin looked down at the dirt in front of her. Her knees were pressed to the grass. It looked a little like she was praying.
“Well, isn’t the first step just to rip all this up? You know, so you can start again?” she said.
“Sure, but that isn’t your job. I’d need to get my wheelbarrow out here. I’d need to go to the nursery and get fresh soil and seedlings,” BJ said.
“Well, are you?” Erin said. She didn’t meet his eyes. She was picking dirt out from under her fingernails.
BJ hesitated.
“I don’t know if it’s in the cards, this season,” he said.
“Because you’re through with gardening?” Erin said.
“I didn’t say that,” BJ said.
“Alright, then why can’t I do it? Would you let me help? I’ll do it however you say,” she said, gesturing to the earth.
She wobbled a little, in her squatting position. He thought about all the times he’d seen her fall over, as a toddler, and a grade schooler. She’d had a bad habit of running around with her shoes untied.
“Are you here to stay, kid? Did your mother say something? Because I don’t need any more looking after. That’s Hawk’s job,” BJ said.
“You’ve been sick. Hawkeye said you haven’t been sleeping,” she said.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about. I’ll be okay,” he said.
Erin stood and wiped her dirty hands on her shorts. She crossed her arms over her chest and stood stone still as he came closer.
“I do worry about you. It’s my business to worry about you. Have you seen a doctor?” she said.
He laughed, and Erin flinched.
“Yes, kid. I’ve seen a doctor,” he said.
“And?” she said.
“It’s psychosomatic, probably. Hawk wants me to take some time off,” he said.
“Good,” Erin said.
“Good?” he said.
“You work too hard. You always have,” she said.
BJ thought back to all the long hours he’d spent at the hospital when she was young. He was gone too often. Even when he was in the picture perfect Mill Valley house, his mind was really elsewhere. It was a full time job in and of itself, convincing everybody that he was where he was supposed to be, convincing himself that none of it weighed on Erin.
“That’s another reason for me to help get your garden started. You’ve got laborious hobbies,” Erin said.
“You’ve got a busy life. You can’t drop it and walk off on my account,” BJ said.
“Why not?” Erin said.
The wind caught flyaway strands of her hair that frizzed around her face in a honey-colored halo.
“Hawkeye said you had some news?” BJ said.
“I do,” Erin said.
She stayed rooted in place, hugged herself tighter, and swayed.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Give me a second. It’s not…well it isn’t something I planned,” she said.
Her chin tipped upward, toward the clouds. She blinked rapidly. Her eyes were watering, he could tell, even with the garden between them. He studied her. She looked too thin, and weary, like she’d slept badly. She was gripping her forearms tight enough to bruise. The sunhat slipped back on her forehead.
“Is it work? Because there are other jobs. And we’re here for you, Hawk and I. We can help. There’s no shame in that. You’ve been doing awfully well in Sacramento, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be setbacks. That’s just part of life. I know a lot of things can feel like the end of the world when you’re young, but trust me…there will be new opportunities. Your career isn’t everything, and—”
“It’s not work,” Erin said. “Well, I mean…I quit my job, but that’s only part of it.”
BJ tried to keep his expression neutral. “Are you and Jess—?”
“It’s on the rocks, Dad. It’s…I messed up. I messed up a lot of things. I’ve let you down. I’m sorry,” she said.
“You don’t need to apologize to me. Whatever it is, I’m just glad you’re here,” BJ said.
He stopped himself before he could say anymore. If he kept going, his fears would only grow more obvious and unwelcome. He was afraid every time she was home. He was afraid she’d slip out the back door and take off running. She had long legs. She was fast. She was his kid. He was afraid she’d inherited his penchant for fleeing, though Erin had always been better at leaving notes.
Her apologies had always baffled him. She seemed to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. She seemed to be bracing herself for his rejection. In his mind, it was the other way around. He’d given up on a relationship with his father when he was 19. He’d run from everyone who’d ever loved him. In the case of Hawk, it had taken him years to find his way back.
Now, he held on too tight. He smothered Erin the second she was near, and yet here she was. Here they both were, at the edge of a garden where nothing grew.
“I’m going to have a baby, Dad. Do you think I can stay here awhile, while I figure things out?” Erin said.
“You’re going to have a baby,” BJ repeated. He stared at her, mouth agape. “How are you—? What—?”
“You see, when a man and a woman really love each other—” she started.
“Erin,” BJ said.
He wished there was something or someone around to lean on, but he was too far from the house and Hawk was asleep upstairs. He felt faint. It would be bad to faint in the yard. Erin would be concerned if he keeled over in the grass. This was the reason she went to Hawkeye first, when she had big, life-altering news. The wobble in BJ’s knees was evidence enough as to why. It had been the same way when she came out, and when she’d moved to Sacramento. When she was in college he had to brace himself for her calls. Every time she had car trouble or a big exam coming up or was planning a trip with her friends he had to stop himself from saying something paranoid or overbearing.
“I know, not the time for jokes. Let’s go sit on the porch. You look pale,” she said.
She came nearer, and then her hand was at BJ’s elbow, guiding him.
“I’ll explain everything, Dad. Don’t worry,” she said.
He looked down at her. Her hands were shaking.
“Erin,” he repeated. Even when he couldn’t say anything, he could still say her name.
“Dad,” Erin said.
He wrapped her in a hug, palm cupping the back of her head. She put her arms around him and squeezed. She buried her face in his shirt and shook, like all the tension, and all the adrenaline, was pouring out of her, like rain, or like sprinklers over parched crops.