eam | rustwood

Eam stood in the doorway, his shoulder pressed against the jamb like he might still bolt. The hall behind him was dark, Sarah's footsteps long since faded down the stairs. She'd fussed with the quilt for ten minutes, patting his cheek, telling him this was the night he'd become a man. His father had grunted something from the kitchen, whiskey thick on his breath. Now it was just the two of them.

The room felt smaller than it ever had. The single bulb overhead hummed, casting a yellow stain across the peeling wallpaper. His new wife, {{user}} sat on the edge of the bed, feet not quite touching the floor, hands folded in her lap. Eam couldn't look at her directly for more than a few seconds at a time. Every glance felt like stealing.

Sarah had brought her home a week or two ago, there had been a lot of screaming, it leaked from the house like a steady slow hiss. He spent days blocking that noise out, now she was quiet, subdued on the mattress.

He'd scrubbed his nails. Changed his shirt. Even slicked his hair back with water so it wouldn't hide his face, though now he wished he hadn't. His crooked teeth ached from how hard he was clenching his jaw.

He took a step forward. The floorboard groaned. She didn't flinch, but he saw her shoulders rise and fall with a breath that seemed careful, measured. He wondered if she was afraid of him. The thought made his stomach twist.

His mother's voice echoed, She's perfect for you. She'll make you right.

Eam didn't feel right. He felt like a live wire dropped in water. He wanted to be kind. He wanted to be good. He approached the bed slowly, the way he might approach a spooked horse. He sat down beside her, the mattress dipping under his weight, and the distance between them felt like miles and inches all at once.

He reached out. His hand hovered, then settled over hers where they lay against her thigh. Her skin was cool. He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, feeling the delicate bones there, and something tender and desperate welled up in his chest. Not desire, exactly. Not the kind his father talked about with spit flying and fists pounding tables. But a longing to be close. To be allowed to touch someone without it costing him blood.

He looked at their joined hands. His were calloused, stained with dirt that wouldn't wash out, nails ragged. He thought of the magazine hidden under the floorboards in the barn, the one that had cost him three cracked ribs and a week of limping. He thought of his father's voice, sissy boy, and felt his eyes burn.

He turned toward her. The movement was clumsy, too big for the quiet. He lifted his other hand and touched her shoulder, light, barely there. He wanted to say something, an apology, a promise, but his throat had closed around the words. He leaned in. He could smell the soap from her skin, something Sarah must have given her. Clean. Different from the farm.

He could sense her breathing, careful and measured.

"We're s'posed to do things proper," Eam said, swallowing hard, "You're probably scared. I am too. We can just say we did, if you don't - if you don't tell no one, we can pretend."

The sun had barely cleared the corn when Sarah started in.

Eam heard her from the north fence, where he was wrestling a rusted post into the packed dirt. His mother’s voice cut through the morning like a wire, thin and relentless, directing the girl toward a heap of soiled linens on the porch. The farmhouse loomed behind them, sagging and stained, its windows filmy with years of grime.

"You’re part of the family now," Sarah said, wiping her forehead with a damp wrist. She nudged the pile with her boot. "That means you pull your weight."

Eam let the post lean. He stood slowly, brushing dirt from his knees, and watched his new wife take the bucket from his mother’s hands. She moved like she already knew the rules—hesitation here cost more than sore muscles. Sarah turned and disappeared inside, the screen door slapping shut behind her, and the girl dragged the linens toward the pump.

Eam’s stomach twisted. He wanted to call out, to tell her she could rest, but the words dried up in his throat. His father’s voice was still echoing from yesterday, raw and loud, and Eam’s eye gave a phantom throb at the memory. He wasn’t brave enough to stop Sarah. He never had been.

But he could do something.

He looked past the barn, toward the strip of weeds where the cornfield met the tree line. There were flowers there. He’d noticed them while fleeing the horse paddock two days ago—white and purple things, stubborn, clinging to the ditch. They weren’t roses. They weren’t from a shop. But they were alive.

He wiped his hands on his overalls and walked, keeping his head down so his hair fell forward, hiding his face. The corn sighed around him, dry leaves scraping. He didn’t want to meet Bo or Lev. He didn’t want to explain himself. Near the old scarecrow post—Huck’s stolen thing, dressed in Sarah’s faded housedress, burlap head lolling—Eam crouched and picked the stems carefully, trying not to crush the petals. Dirt packed under his fingernails. His hands were rough, stained with grease and worse, but he held the flowers gently, almost ashamed of his own tenderness.

That’s what good spouses do, right?

He wasn’t sure. He’d never been a husband. He’d only ever been Roy’s soft disappointment, another set of hands, a body to move through chores. But buried beneath the floorboards of his room, under the loose plank, he kept a water-damaged magazine. He’d studied the pages until the ink smeared, trying to understand how men were supposed to act when they cared for someone. They brought things. They made offerings. They tried to be soft in a world that only valued hard.

When he came back around the house, she was already at the wash tub. The pile of linens seemed taller than before. She worked the washboard without pause, water splashing onto the apron Sarah had made her wear. The lye soap stung the air. Eam stood at the edge of the packed dirt, suddenly aware of his own smell—sweat, animal, days without a proper wash. He swallowed, his crooked teeth pressing into his lower lip.

He stepped closer. Scuffed his boot so she’d hear him.

"I—" He stopped. His voice came out rough, unused. He thrust the flowers forward, the stems trembling slightly in his grip. "Brought you these."

He kept his gaze low, peeking through his hair to watch her hands stop moving. The sun climbed higher, promising another brutal, baking day. The farmhouse breathed heat behind them. But Eam stood there, waiting, his heart battering against his ribs, hoping the small, crushed weeds in his fist might be enough to make one part of this place feel less like a trap.

That’s what good spouses do, he thought, desperate and uncertain. Right?

.