Wet Grass

They pull off the gravel road into a small clearing lined with boulders and anchored by a large tree. The tree stands as the lone structure across the expanse except for a partially enclosed shelter near the lot line. A sign next to the tree tells them they’re in a conservation area open to the public. All around them is prairie. As far as they can see, they are the only ones here on this June morning. They get out of the pickup and apply sunscreen and bug spray, reaching the spots on each other they can’t reach themselves.

“Ready?” He asks.

“Ready. Which way?” She replies.

“Follow me.”

They’re making their way to a spot he’s been before. He wants to show her the stream he had fished the previous weekend. “They fill the stream with trout,” he says, “and we can fish it”. It isn’t long before they find it. It’s about three feet wide and the water is moving at a leisurely pace. “They added structures like this for the fish,” he points to a log that spans the width of the stream and creates a small dam and waterfall. She is impressed by both the beauty around her and by him. They walk along the bank of the stream while she asks questions about the place they’re in, about the fishing last weekend, about the conservation efforts, about how he discovered the spot. He answers every question enthusiastically and she is happy that he is happy.

After twenty minutes of walking, he says to her, “I want to show you something.” He veers away from the bank and heads for a patch of slightly taller grass. She sees nothing ahead but as they cross the edge of grass they come upon a round pool of water. She looks at him in surprise. “A whirlpool?” He beams at her as he nods. “We didn’t know it was here last weekend, but when I saw it I knew I had to show you.”

Back at the truck on the tailgate, they’re eating the sandwiches she packed and sharing a bottle of Coke he picked up at the gas station on the way. Across the gravel road down a small hill is an old barn, barely standing. The home to which the barn belonged is long gone. They talk for a while about nothing in particular.

They lean against the back of the cab in the bed, taking advantage of the shade from the tree and pass the remainder of the Coke, lukewarm, back and forth and spotting birds, seeing who can name them first. Most of the names they make up. She scoots closer to him and he puts his arm around her and kisses her head.

“It’s getting cloudy,” she says.

“Let’s stay for a little bit longer,” he replies.

She looks at him and after a beat kisses him gently on his mouth. They both linger, trying to encapsulate this day in a moment. He kisses her back, eagerly squeezing her waist. She shivers. She feels a raindrop and flinches. He looks up and realizes it’s much darker than a few minutes ago. The rain comes faster, suddenly, with a purpose. They pack up the scraps from their lunch, throwing it all in the cooler. They scramble to get inside the truck as the rain picks up and thunder roars in the distance. He rolls up the window on the driver’s side and as she works on hers, the handle snaps off and the window is left midway up, rain coming in and hitting her arm, her leg. He pulls her toward him but the console in the cab is in her way. He looks around and spots the shelter as another hit of thunder passes. He grabs the blanket covering the seat and says, “Let’s go in there,” and points to the shelter. They get out and run.

Their clothes are soaked through when they reach cover. The shelter is small and enclosed on three sides, the fourth leaves just enough of an opening to walk through. The opposite wall has an eight inch tall gap about eye level running across it to allow binoculars or a camera to see wildlife while hidden. There is a small bench on the side wall and they sit there, cocooned within the blanket as the rain pelts the ceiling. They laugh at the circumstance in which they find themselves and sink into each other. She feels her body absorbing the heat from his.

After a long silence she asks, “You’ll be fine leaving?”

“Yes.” He looks into her eyes. “I want to go with you.” It is a repeat of a conversation they’ve had many times. They only have a few weeks left here before they must leave for the city. She is relieved he didn’t hesitate to move with her, but she grieves for him. Where they’re going, he won’t have places like these, the prairie, the streams within such easy reach. She knows a part of him lives within the water, the leaves, the very roots over which they walked to get here. But her aspirations reside elsewhere and she wants him wherever she goes. She is selfish that way.

The storm stopped an hour ago and yet they remain laying together on the small floor, his arm around her. She is the first to move, sitting up and turning to look at him. His face is the same as it has always been. Youthful, with a mischievous crooked smile, but now his eyes seem deeper, with visible lines at the corners even when he isn’t grinning. His head is resting on his other arm and the tattoo he got when they were first dating is visible. Their eyes meet and she smiles. Then she stands up and dresses. He does the same, quietly, with an attention one normally doesn’t give to the task. She waits and stands, holding the blanket in front of her. When his belt is buckled, he walks to her, kisses her forehead and grabs her hand. They walk out of the shelter into a bright afternoon, the sun all the more exposing because of the vastness of the prairie. She smells the wet grass as they walk to his pickup. Only when they reach it do they release their hands. She opens the passenger side door and wipes the wet seat with the blanket before getting in. Raindrops linger on the windows and he runs the wipers once, twice, to remove the last of them from the windshield. They look again at each other without saying anything, kiss, and her eyelids flutter. He reverses and as he backs out of the prairie, she looks out her window and watches it pass by while gravel dust unfurls behind them.