Page 78 of Josephine and Clay

“Clay.”

I don’t answer.

Boone exhales through his nose. “You’re my brother. Not a burden. Not a project. Not some stranger we’re stuck with. We’re just trying to keep you from climbing the walls.”

I stare at the horizon harder.

Because the problem with Boone saying something real is that I never know what to do with it.

“Fence is fixed,” I say finally.

He nods once. “Yep.”

And just like that, he lets me off the hook, which makes me feel worse.

The afternoon settles hot over the ranch.

After lunch, Mom corners me before I can disappear back into my room.

“Come with me,” she says, already heading for the pantry.

I pause in the hall. “That sounds threatening.”

“It’ll be more threatening if I have to ask twice.”

So I follow her.

She’s canning peaches, because of course she is. The kitchen counters are covered in bowls, jars, and towels, sunlight slanting in through the window over the sink and catching on the steam rising from a big pot on the stove. The whole room smells sweet, warm, and too much of my childhood.

Mom points at a chair by the table. “Sit.”

I lower myself into it carefully and eye the assembly line she’s got going. “What exactly am I contributing here?”

She hands me a paring knife and a bowl of peaches. “Peel.”

I hold up the knife. “You trust me with a blade but not a beer.”

“I trust you to sit down with a knife. I don't trust you drunk on pain pills.”

“Fair.”

For a while, the only sounds are the soft scrape of skin peeling away, the clink of jars, the hum of the old refrigerator in the corner. Mom works with that brisk, efficient focus she brings to everything. There’s comfort in it. Even now.

Maybe especially now.

I peel slower than she does because she’s had forty years of practice and because I’m distracted by the ache in my leg and the quieter ache under that.

Eventually she says, “Boone said you helped him this morning.”

“He lied. I handed him nails like some kind of decorative assistant.”

Mom snorts softly. “You always were dramatic.”

“Runs in the family.”

Her mouth tightens, almost smiling. Then it fades. “How bad is the pain today?”

I shrug. “Manageable.”