Sitting there the following day held new weight. When she’d last arrived he had been fully alert, waiting for her. There was something eery about it. Why was he doing that. Though she was certain he wouldn’t have minded her asking, she dared not. No need to know how long. Did it matter. Could he even tell. 

Looking around the barn today, she surmised the answer to as something akin to a no. He hadn’t asked the date. Did that even matter? No way to be sure.

As they days had pressed onward she noticed that Adrian had become considerably more interested in the small details of the barn than he was the outside world. Take today for example. She’d arrived to listen to him think out loud about the mouse that had burrowed near him the previous night – he’d made it a small pile of hay from his own – and the chickadees that sang in the high up windows. Before she’d refilled his water he’d insisted she check for a nest.

There wasn’t one. The disappointment that had covered his face had been hard to look at for long.

He’d stared off that way for a time, his gaze intent but unfocused. Where the birds might live when he was alone. Here they were too.

“When other people’ll’re here everyone gets scared.” He’d explained matter-of-factly, “they’ll come back out once we’re alone.”

“Right.” She tried to be interested.

For the first time in a while she found she’d no idea what to say to him. Here he was, content with the animals when she’d come all this way. It was hot today too. He could at least pretend to care.

Instead he stared off into the corner some more, searching for some critter that was more noteworthy to him that she was. Calling upon her patience, she moves to clear the food refuse and finds that his previously stilled hands stop her quickly.

“Are you leaving already?” His voice reveals some agitation, maybe something else. She can’t tell.  Grace places her palm tentatively over his dry knuckles, careful of where they’d split.

“Not yet.”

He nods, more to himself than in acknowledgment. It goes on a long time.

“Good.” He murmurs, “You weren’t here very long yesterday. I thought there might’ve been some trouble’r something.”

“I just had other things to do is all.” She controls her breathing, patience evading her. Adrian doesn’t seem to notice, his eyes fall back to the corner and they fall into silence.

Grace clears her throat and nose with some force. The stench was worse today, harder to ignore. The temperature over the last couple days had been unseasonal, the inside of the barn held the heat that resembled the end of July or August, not the beginning of June as it was.

Adrian’s presence did not help matters. If he would stop moving around so much he’d likely not sweat as much as he did. Outside this barn he was a furnace all on his own, though she had always seen that as a benefit. In here he was just cooking them both. 

She reaches out and touches his forehead. Hot but not too hot. With the ambient heat she could not tell if he had a fever. Perhaps that was why he fixated on the pests.

Adrian stares at her a moment, the noise of her throat clearing taking him from wherever he’d been. He looked at her as though she were interrupting him. At the very least his eyes seemed to clear, and from seeing this she could tell she had his attention.

“Your hand is hot.” He says flatly. She touches again, this time with the back of her hand.

Warmer. 

“So are you.” 

He laughs a little. “Yeah.”

Something in his throat catches and he grimaces. The chickadees land in the window and chirp. He mimics the sound. His throat catches again, he closes his eyes and goes still. He opens them again and flits his gaze over to her.

“Excuse me one moment.”

His eyes close again.

Frustrated, he folds his leg underneath himself and rests his weight atop his feet. The chain drags in the hay and leaves a tiny trail next to him. He moves it to his side. Using one hand he lifts the body of the lock from the back of his neck gingerly and twists it sideways to sit just barely on the chain itself. His other gathers the ends of his hair away from the chain and into a pile at the crown of his head, creating a space for the lock to sit flat.

Taking a slow breath in, he lowers his chin toward his chest and the hand holding the lock makes gentle contact with the stone wall. Keeping his eyes shut, he takes a few breaths and settles in that position before attempting to manually turn his own head using pressure from his hands. She recalled his doing this a few other times, never quite so deliberately as now. He was being more careful than was probably warranted.

Twisting toward the bad side, he gets about forty five degrees before his face tightens and he returns to the center. To the good side he gets about sixty degrees, holds that a moment. He tries to tilt his ear toward his shoulder – that pinches – he returns to the center again.

The chain looked wet today. Darker, the rust on it looked a deep red instead of its usual orange. Perhaps he was aware of his own sweating. Did that make the chain easier to move? She decides not to ask.

“You really should try and stay still.” Grace interjects his twisting motion. “You’re making yourself sweat. Save your energy.”

He doesn’t open his eyes before replying. “I’m sweating anyway. S’worse than Tom’s tool shed here.”

He ventilates himself by fluttering his shirt against his chest. Grace’s nose pinches.

“You could at least try not to make it worse.”

Adrian still flutters but says nothing.

She looks away, “I mean. You’re not the only one here.”

He releases his hair from his grip. “Try sitting here all day, Grace. Fuck. I’m not doing it on purpose. I need to move.”

She closes her eyes for a second and lets them roll.

“Why don’t I check your neck?” she offers, “We could put some more ointment on, that might help.”

He settles and stares. “Can we work on the lock some more after.”

 What is this new tone. She cannot tell if he is asking.

“I didn’t bring anything for that.”

He goes back to where the mouse apparently lives.

“Do you not want to get me out?” He snaps.

“Why would you say that.” Grace bites. “Of course I do.”

Adrian straightens his legs out in front of him.

“You didn’t bring anything for the lock yesterday either. Come to think of it you haven’t tried anything since you got back from the blacksmith. That was three or four times ago.”

“What do you want me to say?” she searches his face.

“Fuck, Grace. I don’t know. Are you even trying anymore or just checking me off your list?”

Grace stands, her voice raised. “I’m here aren’t I? You’re not even trying to help yourself. All you do is sit there.”

Adrian’s mouth opens and he looks away. He comes up onto his knees and his hands rest on his hips. His bare feet dig into the straw he’d sat on.

“What would you have me do then? Tell me. Really. I’d love to know.”

Grace bites the inside of her lip and curls her toes, fighting the restriction of her shoes. The laces are too tight today.

“If you don’t want my help then I’ll leave!” she snatches her basket off the ground. “I’m trying, Adrian. The least you could do is not be so difficult!”

She storms toward the door.

“Are you even going to finish what you came here for?” His voice is scratchy, contemptuous. “Or did you just come here to watch me suffer.”

Without thinking much on it, she pulls the ointment jar from her basket and hurls it at the wall in his direction. The glass shatters. 

“Why don’t you do it yourself!”

The chain clatters against the stone wall as he ducks, covering his head and neck with his arms. The sound of the jar cracks through the barn before silence overtakes it. Adrian is completely still.

Her vision clouds and she storms out of the barn and into the field.

Catching her breath, she collapses into the tall grass a few paces from the barn’s entrance. From behind her she can hear Adrian’s jagged breathing. She sits there. Not sure how to proceed.

She looks around herself. He couldn’t see her from here. She could just sit a while.

After a few minutes the chain drags against the stone and the sharp sound of the glass shards sliding in the straw and dirt against each other disturbs her quiet. A small gasp is quickly stifled.

“Adrian, your feet.” She calls without moving. The sounds stop.

She gets up and goes back in. As she rounds the pen she sees him, gathering the hay from around himself into a pile. The ointment drips down the wall. Glass shards litter the floor around him.

“Don’t move.”

He freezes. She sets the basket down and approaches, pulling her sleeve over her fingers. The pine and menthol smell covers the older stench.

Adrian scans the floor and pulls several glass pieces from the area around his feet. He leans forward, trying to avoid it. A pinch grips her neck as some of the hidden pieces crunch under his knee caps. He winces and sits back where he was.

Her breath tightens. “I said don’t move. I’ve got it.”

“I just-“

“I’ve got it.” She works quickly, gathering the larger pieces into the bottom plate of the jar, thankfully still intact. Adrian watches her, his knees bent close to him. He brushes a few smaller shards off the tops of his feet and places them near Grace’s pile. She takes his hand and sets it back in his lap without comment. The bites near the crevices separating his toes are worse. There are more bugs than she thought there to be. She looks away.

“Were you trying to hit me?” His voice shakes.

“No.” She replies, curt. “I didn’t think it would break.”

“It’s glass.”

“I know.”

She gathers up the hay from around him, the majority of it worn down into a powder, and piles it behind the old seeder out of view. Hopefully Owen would not notice it there. She takes the fresh straw from back there and distributes it near him, leaving a small pile in the mouse’s corner of the pen. She gestures him to move.

“I need to check you.”

He scoots forward and takes his usual position without a word. She separates his hair into sections, searching for any remaining glass. A few near the crown of his head. The grease held them in place, the rest of his head was damp. A startling amount of warmth emanates from there and the back of his neck. From this position the lock felt like a hot stone.

A few stragglers are lodged in the chain, stuck near the blisters on the bad side. 

“There’s some in your neck. Hold still.”

Adrian holds his breath.

Using her fingernails she pulls them out one by one. His shoulders rise to his ears and he makes a small sound. The final piece of glass pierces the blister as it comes free. He sniffles.

The last of the glass collected, she wraps the pieces in the food cloth and places it back in her basket. Adrian settles around the new straw. 

She looks him over. “Can you feel anything that I missed.”

 He brushes off his clothes and checks them. “I don’t think so.”

Grace nods and gathers her basket in the crook of her elbow. “Okay. I’ll bring new stuff next time.”

“Are you going to come tomorrow?” he asks, not looking at her.

“I’m not sure.”

He fiddles with the buttons on his sleeve. “Sorry. Okay. I. I just want to know what is happening. If I should plan to stretch the food longer than tomorrow.”

Grace says nothing. Without making eye contact she can feel the weight of his eyes on her.

“Could you.” He continues, slowly choosing his words. “If you decide to come. Do you think you could bring something for the lock? Just something small. Anything. I think it would work if it were skinnier than what we had.”

Grace’s gaze falls into her basket. “I’ll see.”

He looks up to meet her directly. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about how we could do it, and I think if we tried again with something like that it wouldn’t be so frustrating for you. I’ve been trying to think of how I could help make it easier to try. When you want to. I mean.”

“Okay.”

He nods and lets his head fall down again, orienting toward the mouse corner.

She turns to leave.

“Grace?”

She stops. “Yes?”

“Maybe. The ointment. Could you bring that next time? The jar-” he looks up at the stain where it had made contact, “I know. I know there’s nothing right now. I just. It does help a lot. I mean. If you had more that you could share.” 

Her legs tense and release. “I said that I would.”

He tightens his hands into gentle fists, shaking his head. “Right. I’m sorry. You said that. Sorry.”

“I’m going to go now.”

“Okay.”

She gets out of his line of sight and moves quickly toward the barn door.

“Grace?” he calls a final time.

She stops again. “Yes.”

“Thank you for coming back in. I’m really happy you are here.”

Absorbing this, she presses her shoulder into the door and feels the summer air hit her face. She takes a deep breath inward and enjoys the walk home.