I hadn’t planned my chicken gesture very carefully. I don’t have a coop or anything to keep the girls safe from raccoons, and so I decide to put them in my house since I don’t really have anything downstairs.
Abigail suggests I move my computer equipment upstairs so the birds don’t shit on my keyboard. I’m reminded again how wonderful it is to have someone at my side who can think of these details. I need to work as hard as it takes to keep her.
I’ve managed to earn her forgiveness this time, and I don’t intend to have to try again. With the chickens clucking happily around a bowl of corn, Abigail and I head to bed, where she seems very pleased at my offer of a shoulder massage.
As a gesture of my commitment, I attend the Autumn Apple festival with her bright and early the next morning. I do not voice my dislike of crowds or other humans and consciously work to overcome those feelings. I try to focus on Abigail and how much she is enjoying her Autumn Apple debut.
I stay by her side the entire day as she cheerily sells apples to all the townspeople, who introduce themselves to her as they chug hard cider in front of the library. The Acorns start on the cider early, and by the time they begin their special Tai Chi demonstration, they’re all teetering a bit. Abigail raises her eyebrows at me when some of the Acorns stop by the apple cider booth to thank me for the Kivin method.
“It was a good article worth sharing,” I tell her, nodding to Mary Pat when she ducks out of the co-op for more “donations” from Abigail’s cider keg.
Soon, half the town is gathered around Abigail, staring at us. I keep my arm securely around her, massaging her arm while she flushes, and assure them all that the Gazette article got almost everything wrong.
“But you really did buy the jumbo pack of condoms?” Enid, the constable, stares wide-eyed in fascination at the thought that someone could have enough sex to warrant purchasing the large box from Oak Creek Drug.
Mary Pat slings an arm around Enid’s shoulders and points at me with her cider cup. “Of course he needed the jumbo pack. Dr. Crawford is who got Lamar to go downtown.” She waggles her eyebrows drunkenly, and I begin to seriously consider whether I should start a lecture series at the college about the anatomy of the vulva.
My mother comes floating by the cider booth a few hours later, escorting the foreign alumni she’s got staying in my brother’s old bedroom. “Hiiiii!” She says, waving at us merrily. “Bruno, Angelica, this is my oldest son, Hunter, and my senior communications strategist, Abigail. We have her to thank for almost everything smart I say.” Ma’s guests laugh and Abigail hands them cider after verifying they’re over 21.
Abigail accepts approximately 15 offers to have dinner or coffee with various locals, turns away scores of undergraduate students, including half of mine, and beams with delight as Archer hauls away a third crate of cash to the safe he’s got in his office for all the festival funds.
“What are we earning money for anyway? I never asked…”
I shrug. “I always just thought it paid for the fireworks,” I tell her.
As darkness falls, my father comes over to the cider booth holding a plaid blanket. He drapes it over Abigail’s shoulders and tells her the entire town thinks she’s the best thing to come to Oak Creek since sliced gluten-free bread arrived at the co-op.
“Hey, Dad,” I ask as he prepares to take over for Abigail so she and I can wander around the festival. “Can you help me build a coop for the chickens tomorrow?”
“Son,” he says, grinning. “There’s nothing I’d enjoy more.” Abigail and I start to walk off, holding hands—something I’ve never particularly desired before but suddenly don’t want to stop. Dad hollers to stop us, saying, “Oh, Hunter, Sara said she wanted to talk with you.”
Abigail and I roam the Autumn Apple festival, planning to see Sara before the fireworks. Abigail stops for a funnel cake, and I bite back the urge to explain how awful such foods are for her metabolism and cardiovascular health. Sometimes a treat just tastes good, I decide, and take a nibble of the fatty, sugary dough. Abigail pulls me down for a kiss, licking powdered sugar from the corner of my mouth and sending me into a state of arousal that has me looking for the nearest dark alley where we can retreat.
Resisting the carnal urge and wanting to hear Sara’s news, I stop by the apple bobbing stand near the Inn. I promise Abigail to bob with her in the bin filled with other people’s saliva, just as soon as I talk with Sara. Abigail rolls her eyes and joins an intoxicated Mary Pat at the galvanized tub of bacteria water, leaving me to chat with my lawyer.
“Hunter!” Sara grins. She holds up her phone. “We got them.” Sara tells me that Heather’s legal team has reached an agreement—a payout that seems extremely reasonable. No further claims on my future patents. No ongoing alimony. A lump sum and I can move on with my life.
I clear my throat and try to temper the swell of emotion I feel at finally being able to finalize my divorce. “Sara,” I say. “I just…thank you.”
“Ah, come here, you dumb genius,” Sara says, rising to her feet. She pulls me in to a bear hug, pounding me on the back. I glance over to Abigail, and gesture for her to join the hug until the three of us are spinning around the fading glow of the Autumn Apple festival.
“Good news?” she asks.
“Definitely satisfactory,” I say, planting a kiss on her forehead and inhaling the sunshine and cinnamon scents lingering around her.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ed Hastings’ voice comes over the megaphone and the tittering crowd slowly quiets. “It is now time for the annual Autumn Apple Harvest Fireworks. Please enjoy this year’s display, and remember. Open containers of alcohol are absolutely prohibited in Oak Creek. Our constable may be incapacitated at the moment, but our laws are still in force!”
I guide Abigail over to a nearby hay bale and pull her against me to watch the display. I’ve always enjoyed fireworks. Chemistry wasn’t my preferred science, but I have always appreciated the beautiful reactions when the barium chloride and strontium carbonate light up green and red. “You know,” I whisper to Abigail in between launches, “I was in the Space Station over the 4th of July. A lot of the astronauts watched the fireworks on the Internet, but I didn’t want to leave the lab. There’s not a great sense of time passing up there anyway.”
“That sounds sad, Hunter,” she says.
“Well,” I tell her, slipping her another kiss as one of the starburst fireworks sizzles, “I was up in the galley very late, and we happened to be orbiting over the US at the time. It was a clear night, so when I stood at the window, I really thought I saw the faint glow of fireworks over the southwest, where there’s no other light pollution. It was a really nice moment of connection. Made me think of being home, just like this.”
Only then, I didn’t know that home could feel this way. As it turns out, that would have been right when my wife was leaving me, turning my life upside down. Really, though, she was just adjusting my trajectory toward home. I had no way of knowing then that I could have a woman by my side who wanted to be there. Who I wanted desperately to stay in my orbit.
As the finale begins, I tug Abigail to her feet, gesturing my head toward home. I feel a desperate urge to make love to her. I can’t even speak as I pull her in the front door and carry her up the stairs. I try to let my kisses express the words I cannot summon, gently pressing my lips against hers, softly caressing her tongue with my own.
“Oh, Hunter,” she sighs, and I love hearing my name on her lips. I undress her quickly and kick off my clothes. Abigail lies on her back and crawls up the bed, beckoning me to lie on top of her. As I settle in between her legs, I hear the final crack of the fireworks, followed by a crack of thunder. I briefly look up from my lady to see the flash of lightning out the window, but I like how the gentle rain forms background music for the symphony I want to create in here with Abigail.
She rocks her hips beneath me, urging me to enter her, and I exhale as I slide home. Abigail is always so wet and ready for me, so eager to pull me inside deeper, deeper, and deeper again. “More,” she whispers into my ear, and the feel of her breath against my skin sends shivers through me. Abigail wraps her arms around me, holding me tight against her naked chest.
This moment is so intense. I feel absolutely vulnerable and yet totally powerful all at once. In another flash of lightning I see Abigail’s face melting in delight, feeling pleasure that I am bringing to her, that she says is due to me being with her. “Abigail, I am yours,” I groan, feeling her body contract against me as she comes, moaning my name.
The pulsing, tight warmth of her body sends me soaring into my own ecstasy, and I come, gushing inside her, wanting to stay connected to her always. Afterward, I don’t rush out of bed to clean up. I don’t even want to do that. I roll gently to Abigail’s side and pull her against my body, raining kisses on her as she catches her breath.