Please

You pass tiny little graveyards on the backroads of Iowa, little islands of death in great seas of living green. Someone planted people and stones grew, then eroded with time; beaten by rain and sun and neglect until you have no idea who the seed was for the stone.

Heather liked to stop, when we could, walk through the fields of stone. She read names she could make out, brushed away dirt and leaves, the march of entropy; the fire of life long since cold. I indulged her, it was a connection she needed to make, even in the full sauna of summer; especially then.

“Mom died in August,” she told me one night. We lay naked under a sheet, listening to the rain patter gently after a storm. It smelled new and green and musky, with a hint of lilac; the shampoo she used. “It was so hot, the kind of hot that made you wish you could take off your skin to get nakeder; anything to cool off.”

The breeze brushed the blinds on the window, rattling them gently, our poor-mans wind chime. She rolled next to me, settling against my side, all her soft parts on mine, the closeness intoxicating. “You remember when it was that hot?” She asked.

“I remember when it was so hot that that walking into heat treat was a blessing. It was probably hotter around the forges, but dryer. You’d walk in covered in sweat. It’d be a relief to have that blasted off you.” I said, remembering the years I worked in a tractor factory.

My fingers caught in her hair, a mind of their own, gently combing the silky strands, cool to the touch. We lay there, silent for a moment, a minute, an eternity. She hadn’t fallen asleep, though maybe I had; she’d just fallen silent.

“Run away with me,” she said quietly, almost a whisper.

“Happily,” I said.

“Let’s go to Colorado. Tonight. I need to go to Colorado.” She had a longing, a passion, a primal need to return. I don’t know what prompted it. Maybe we’d walked too many grave yards. Maybe it was just August, she needed to connect with her mother.

“Hrm,” I rumbled. It was a big ask. It wasn’t a plan, wasn’t a vacation. Would I just drop every thing and run off with her? Could I? How long would we be gone?

“Please?” It was distant, mournful, a cry of a child for their parent; a quiet call that flew on the wind, against the wind, across the plains through the corn and up into the mountains in the space of a breath.

“Okay,” I cooed. “Can we leave in the morning?”

She relaxed against me. Tension I hadn’t perceived unclenched. Taut sinew and muscle softened, loosened, weighed on my chest. She gave me a gentle squeeze. The drizzle had stopped, letting crickets call their chorus to order. The blinds tap tap tap tapped at the window as we both fell asleep.

In the morning she was gone.