She had not been expecting to go about it this way. There had been so many frustrations, so many hang ups. How was it that on not one, but two farms, no equipment existed to break a simple chain?

Perhaps she did not possess the strength. As the days passed she became impatient for a solution. Owen’s words emanated clearly through her. You two just don’t have the same priorities. He’s never had to be serious about anything. He never will. Sticking around here will only hold you back.

It would have been easier to get them out if he did not have a point. There was an issue. Why else had she been so anxious in these last days?

I’d always seen you as better than that. Owen’s words rang between her ears.

He was right that she had been using Adrian as a shield; a comfort, when she ought to be growing into herself as a leader. As a first born.

Adrian would never have to understand the challenges she would face following her inheritance. All the business matters, the tending to others. How could he?

Surely, she thought, he had his own?

Different ones, she supposed. Managing the temperament of the house, being as supportive of her as he was. He also enjoyed his hobbies. She recalled his wood carving, and the sea of shavings and tiny statues of plants that decorated his window sill. Forged with a tiny knife from bits of tree branch that he’d pocket while working in the field.

On her birthday back in the fall he had gifted her the most beautiful slice of whalebone engraved with an image of the hyacinths that grew along the road toward town. Nearly one hundred tiny petals etched into the surface, somehow all the same size. She would wear it when she wanted to feel close to him. Normally it lived on her window sill alongside other trinkets that he’d created. Three Christmases ago, a palm-sized statue of their cow, Daisy, that he had carved from wood that Ethan discarded. This was his gift. He saw intricate, lively detail where she saw mundanity. But he rendered it so beautifully, she was certain that meant he was the one seeing correctly. Outside his work, he took even something as small as the hyacinths seriously. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

It occurred to her that his life did not include much outside of his work. He always seemed so dedicated to it, she hadn’t noticed that it left him with very little spare time.

Wasn’t that his father’s doing?

Owen must have had his reasons, there was no way he would go to such trouble, give up so much of the summer season to prove a point. Adrian was too valuable. They had not bothered to replace him, either. The field had simply begun to fall into disrepair.

It was this though, that they hadn’t replaced him yet, that had kept her going. They didn’t want him to stay in that barn forever, labouring for breath that would otherwise come naturally. This would not last forever. It couldn’t.

Yet, as she watched him eating the meat and the bread she had brought for him, she could no longer see the image of the hyacinths on the whalebone, even as it was, so tenderly nestled into her corset. The gift that had once meant devotion now felt like evidence – Owen had perhaps been right all along. How had she missed it? Adrian made beautiful things while fields went fallow. His floral etching faced outward and his secret note to her pressed gently against her body. Close. Where it should be.

“What is it?” He called her from thought.

She snaps her vision back into focus. He places the meat bones into the napkin and wraps them gently, settling them into the bottom of her basket. Taking hold of it, her hand tenses around the handle.

A huff of air escapes her lips, her open mouth allowing the dread of the place to fill her person. The stale smell tightened her sinuses. This was not where she belonged. Nor he.

But he didn’t get the choice. She did.

Why did Owen have to be right?

She would miss him.

“Grace what is it?” he asks again, his voice breathy. “I know that this isn’t the best situation, but it’ll be done soon. Can’t carry on forever.”

“What if they can?” she counters, deadpan.

Adrian swallows. “They won’t.”

She looks out the gate, the lines in the field gone, overgrown.

“Look at this.” She gestures around. “They’re not even here! They left days ago and went to town.”

He slides backward and looks down, cradling the water jar in his lap.

She straightens her back but avoids his direction. It was time to grow into herself. A leader. A first born. A serious person. Someone who didn’t choose to spend all her time in decrepit old barns with lower borns.

“I wonder if…this is what was meant to happen?” she trails off. He doesn’t say anything. Instead he flips the jar around between his hands.

She continues, her confidence waning. “I mean, why would no one else have stepped in by now? If it were as wrong as we feel, I mean?”

His mouth opens slightly. A cloud of feeling forms in her stomach, something foreboding, frightening. She stands and moves farther, fleeing its power.

“Grace-” his voice is quiet, the chain pressing on his throat. In her stew of thought that afternoon she had neglected to pack the ointment today. Adrian didn’t complain. He stuck two fingers under the metal links in front of his Adam’s apple, wiggled them into place and tilted his head backward. When the light hits his neck, her cloud thickens, weighing her down and gradually expanding against her sides.

He would certainly have benefit from it, she thought. The blisters that were only forming yesterday had popped, and now oozed blood and clear pus onto the metal at the top of his neck, closest to his chin. Flaking rust collected around the edges of the irritated areas.

She closes her eyes.

She could not do this anymore.

Poking her fingers through two buttons down her front, she stroked the center bone of her corset, allowing the intricate, detailed hyacinth petals to soothe her.

She turns away from him.

“I don’t know if we can see each other anymore.” She blurts.

Adrian’s head shoots down fast enough that the chain rattles. His fingers remove the respite they had provided.

“What?” his voice is coarse, slightly fuller. “What are you saying?”

He quickly rises from his seat and rests his weight on his knees, scooting as far forward as the chain allows. He reaches his hand out to her anxiously, but she backs away farther, out of reach.

“I’m saying that…that I-” she stammers. Choking on her words, as though their flavour repulsed her. “I’m saying that I cannot continue to come here and…and enable this any longer? I think I need to honour what your father wants.”

Adrian’s shock forces his mouth to hang open. He tries to move closer but is pulled backward.

“Darling – please – do you not love me? When we talked about this before you said that none of this had any effect on your feelings.”

She bites her lip, the cloud envelops her.

He releases a ragged, raspy breath.

“Did someone speak to you about all this? Tom, or my Dad, or someone else?”

“No.” A sharp pang of shame pinches the back of her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye.

He thinks for another moment.

“Then what is this? You don’t want us to be together anymore?” He chokes on the words more than she had. “That’s what you’re saying?”

The pain in his voice consumes her, and she turns back to face him. She opens her eyes and takes him in.

No.

Pushing her eyes shut again, she slowly nods her head.

“I think that would be for the best.”

Adrian deflates, lowering from his position on his knees into the floor. “Love, you don’t-“

Her tears push through her resolve. “I don’t think you should call me that.”

“Okay. Grace. Two weeks ago we were planning to spend the rest of our lives together. Where is this coming from?”

She cries harder. Backing into support beam in the center aisle, she presses into it and slides to the floor, burying her face into her knees.

Adrian rests his hands on the floor and leans forward toward her.

“What is going on? You’re clearly so upset by this. I can see how much its hurting you. Is this really what you want?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Please, Grace, help me understand. I know that I’ve been, a lot lately. It’s not what I want either. It’s been really hard for me too. But, I love you. And…until a minute ago I was very convinced that you loved me as well.”

Grace swallows and lifts her head. Immediately his pointed gaze pierces her, his worry enough to send her reeling. She forces herself backward into the beam, the rock in her stomach trying to drag her to him. Take back everything, melt into his arms. She regret not bringing the ointment and the cloth. Just looking at his neck was enough to make her own prickle.

“I do” she agrees. He nods gently, only slightly reassured.

“Then why are you leaving?” he nearly whispers.

“You’re not understanding.”

“Then help me to.” He reaches for her again. “Please? Maybe, if I get it, then I could be helpful.”

She stands quickly, a flutter of something she didn’t recognize. She sticks her fingers back between her dress buttons and counts the petals on the whalebone. Slowly the heat inside of her reduces.

“You remember, forever ago, about your parents being gone?” He calls toward her, his strained voice hardly filling the room. She leans her head on the beam.

“I do. For a while there you were real angry. You weren’t sleeping. I thought you were missing them. You said that it was about the extra chores, but that wasn’t true. You force yourself to do things when you’re sad, even though what you actually want is a break.”

“That wasn’t the same.” She dismisses. He stands back up on his knees, trying again.

“Think about it. We had a nap in your room that afternoon, remember? You said it made the house feel less empty.”

He pauses and stares at her, as though he were willing his ache into her body. She feels the silence echoing off the walls.

“I’ve been missing you a lot too. Is that – is that what this is?”

Grace’s tears finally boil over, wetting the collar of her dress. She breathes heavily out her nose in an effort to stifle the noise.

Why did he have to say so much?

She presses a finger into the whalebone harder, prying it from its holster through force of will. It stays put.

Adrian is not deterred. “Maybe you’re feeling something different than you think? We haven’t really gotten the time together that we’re used to, so. It would make sense.”

Her chest tightens. An involuntary breath catches in her throat and she holds it. How was she supposed to leave now?

“If you want, I could hold you for a little while?” He offers, his voice painfully gentle. “That usually helps us both feel better.”

She quickly removes her hand from the inside of her dress and instead twists the button vigorously.

“I’m not mad at you. You can talk to me, Grace. I’m here.”

The button snaps off and she closes her hand around it, the edges digging into her palm. She drops it.

“Quit trying to make this harder than it needs to be. I have made my decision, now honour it.”

She continues toward the door. The chain clatters against the wall behind Adrian.

“Please wait.” He calls again, the dark tone becoming scratchy under stress. She stops.

This is the last time.

He pants audibly, reinserting his fingers into the chain.

“Are you going to come back with…food and… anything?”

She gasps inward, letting her hair fall into her face. Her jaw clenches.

“Not after today.”

“Grace.” He starts, his tone veering on frantic. “You said yourself they’re gone. If no one came here I would starve.”

Grace says nothing, using all her effort to straighten her back and lift her chin, even though she wouldn’t look at him.

“Is that what you want?” he asks, his tone serious.

“I think that may be your father’s wish.”

Ear-shattering silence fills the barn for a time. Grace doesn’t dare move.

“You’re going to leave me here then?”

Again she says nothing, too afraid to speak. To afraid to confirm his words. He knows what he’s doing. Her hand rested rigidly on the door, eager to push it open, disappear, will herself away.

“I don’t think you want that.” He continues, his tone darker with each word until it finally cracks. “I don’t want to die, Grace.”

“Adrian, I-” she stutters, her voice cracking under the pressure. “I don’t want you to die in here.”

He nods, a sound of agreement. “So what is it then? Did I hurt you?”

She shakes her head.

“Because, if you leave and you don’t come back, that is what will happen. Please do not leave me here alone. I will not be fine just because you are afraid, okay? I will starve.”

A long silence. She feels his eyes burning a hole in her back.

“Grace. Please.”

The noise of this overwhelms her, an agonizing cascade knocks the wind from beneath her. You don’t have to listen to this. This is what he does. Owen’s cadence, familiar and certain. She clings to it.

“I can’t be here Adrian.”

She pushes the door open.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The barn door slams behind her. As she speeds through the over grown rye, the chain clanging around behind her, fading farther with each step.