Nature
The light grows slowly outside of her window. It’s early, but not so much so that she can’t drag herself out of bed and into the protection of her slippers and robe. This late in the year, there is not so much work to be done, but they still keep to the habit of rising with the lazy sun and checking on the crops and the animals. The old cow, Angie, is still going, but she has fallen into a bit of a wheezy breath lately, against Ava’s best efforts. They’ve patched the barn thrice and leave a blanket draped over her massive back now to keep her warm.
Robin is still asleep beside her, and Ava allows her to stay that way. She doesn’t doubt the woman will be up soon, but she deserves even the thinnest sliver of extra rest when she works so hard throughout the day. As she nudges past the cats to get to the stairs, intent on starting breakfast, she realizes that she never cared to do this for Connor. If she was up, so was he. The same was true of him. But she loves Robin enough to let her sleep in those precious extra minutes. This is also, she suddenly notes, the first time she’s thought of Connor in nearly two weeks. A new record! And this was no idolization either, but simply a recognition that what they had probably wasn’t the best.
No matter what, she feels the closest to content she’s come in a long time as she cuts up fresh vegetables for an omelette. Connor’s photo no longer lives in her bedroom, instead keeping a calm residence on the counter next to a picture of Isaac as a calf (he’s moved onto the ranch, now, too far to visit) and Robin’s mother. There’s even a frame around his young face now. She doesn’t reach out to touch the photo, like she once might have, but she feels the urge when she looks at his smile for too long before turning back to the cutting board.
Once she actually gets working on the stove, she loses herself in the rhythm of it, easily focusing on something that exists here and now. Breakfast is real. Robin is real, when she presses up against Ava from behind and kisses her neck.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
Robin kisses her again before pulling away. “Good morning to you too. The rascals fed yet?”
“Not yet.”
As Ava finishes breakfast, Robin puts out food for the dogs and cats, both of them finished at the perfect time to sit down for food within minutes of each other. Ava means to be rational and calm about the whole thing. Unfortunately, her mind has far less charitable ideas about it. She thinks of Connor. Last night gave her another dream of his body on the floor. So cold. So bloody. Messy. She thinks of it when she bites into a strawberry, and Robin must see the look in her eyes because she goes all soft around the edges of her smile and reaches out to hold her hand.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Like always, Ava says no. She hasn’t reached the point where she can acknowledge the pain she’s been through, or her own role in what happened. Not to someone else, anyhow. She’s fairly certain that Robin knows the story, though, since it was on national news.
Robin doesn’t push her, but she does love her, and strokes a thumb over Ava’s knuckles to remind her of this fact.