John Henry looked up, caught her eye, and smiled wide. Even in this dark corner, his bright blue eyes twinkled.
Esther smiled back. She really did care for John Henry. She welcomed him in her arms.
Afterward, when they were putting their clothes back on, an uneasy silence fell upon them. Esther buttoned her shirt back up, watching John Henry thrust one leg into his jeans. His leg was long and covered with fine brown hair the same dark color as the hair that spread across his thin, well-muscled chest and massed upon his head and around his ears. Her hands stilled. How many times had they repeated this scene over the years, she wondered? How many more times till they realized that they could not go on like this forever?
As if he read her mind, John Henry shoved his other leg into his pants and said, “I’m getting pretty tired of pickin’ hay out’a my butt. What do you say we make some decisions? Get ourselves our own bed.”
Esther jerked her head down and her fingers began to fly on her buttons. “Don’t be silly, John Henry. You know I’m waitin’ on this scholarship.”
“You’re always waitin’ on something, Esther. After high school it was junior college. Two years later you wanted to finish college in Burlington. Then your sister up and left her husband and you had to take care of her kids. Then your brother—”
“What does Tom’s death have to do with us?”
John Henry looked contrite. “Nothing Es, only…” He picked up some hay, sorted it a bit, then threw it on the ground. “Only you always have some excuse for why we can’t get married. Now you push this New York stuff in my face and expect me to sit back and wait some more.”
“I’m not asking you to wait.” She whispered it.
“I’m twenty-six years old!” he continued, not listening or hearing. “Tell me, Es. Tell me to my face. What am I waiting for?”
Esther felt more cornered by his words than the two walls she pressed against. She huddled over and hugged her knees.
“Please, John Henry, don’t push me.”
John Henry stood straight, his hands in fists at his side.
“It’s expected that we marry.”
“I’ve never done the expected,” she snapped.
John Henry looked as though he’d been punched in the stomach. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Esther instantly regretted her temper. “You know I can’t abide gossips. Oh, John Henry.” She rubbed both hands in her hair with frustration, undoing her elastic and sending the curls flying. When she looked up she appeared as disheveled as she felt.
“Maybe you should start seeing someone else. I’ve said so before.”
“Not this again.”
“I don’t want you waiting for me. I can’t promise my life to you. It’s still mine. Please, don’t ask me to.”
He knelt down before her and tugged gently at her hair.
“That’s just what I’m asking you to do. I know there are other girls, but I don’t want another girl. I want a dreamer who has two feet on the ground. I want someone who speaks her mind, and gives her heart.”
Esther looked at her knees.
“I want you, Esther. Only you.”
Tears filled Esther’s eyes and she reached out for John Henry. Her hand closed around the fabric against his heart.
“I don’t want to make you unhappy,” she got out. “You deserve so much happiness. Please. I can’t marry you.”
His hand quickly covered hers over his heart. He squeezed tight. “I can wait,” he said urgently.
She couldn’t let him do this. He’d waited so long already on the thin hope that she’d come around and marry him after all. Settle down on his dairy farm. He’d told her he liked the bachelor life, had lots of dreams of his own to live out, too. But she knew he was lying. That he’d walk down the aisle in a minute if only she’d walk it with him.
Esther raised her head to his. His eyes were open, pure. If only there was something mean in him, it would make the telling easier. It was hard to be strong for both of them.
“Face-to-face then,” she said. “Don’t wait.”
She saw him pale. “I tell you of my dreams,” she continued steadily, “but you don’t want to see them. I speak my mind but you won’t listen. John Henry, I can’t marry you.”
He dropped her hand and sat back on his haunches. His face was stricken. “Is it someone else? That C.W. fella maybe?”
“No, no, course not. There’s no one else. More like some thing else.”
John Henry rubbed his hands on his thighs and stared at them. So did Esther. He had long, callused hands with short, chipped nails, scrapes and fine crisscrossed cuts. A man’s hands—a farmer’s hands. Esther felt small inside, remembering those hands when they were short, pudgy, and soft. Remembering how, as children, he’d always let her win at jacks.
“It’s this art thing, right?” he said, tapping those man fingers now. John Henry stood up abruptly. His face had never seemed so hard. He waved his arm like a scythe cutting wheat.
“All right. Have it your way. I’m through with waiting.”
He paced three steps, then angrily jutted his finger her way, his face scowling above it. “But you listen to me, Esther Johnston! While I’m off marrying some other girl, mark my words—you’ll still be waiting. Waiting till they tell you they’ve got more than enough artists in New York already. Waiting for me to come ’round again. Waiting till you realize that all you dreamed of was sitting right here in front of you all the time.”
Esther’s heart was near to breaking when she heard John Henry’s voice crack and watched him draw back, slam his hands on his hips and sharply lower his head. “John Henry…don’t.”
He swung around to grab her arm and hoist her up before him. Holding on to her shoulders, his face reddened and his breathing came fast. Esther wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss her or hit her.
“Do you love me?” he whispered, tortured.
“Yes.”
“Marry me,” he said, his eyes pleading.
“No.”
That one word almost killed them both.
He pressed his forehead against hers and they both closed their eyes tight against the pain. Then he quickly released her, almost pushing her away. He turned away with a choked gulp and took several wild, rounding steps across the hay-littered floor, his hand rubbing his forehead.
“John Henry, I’m sorry,” she said, despairing.
He stopped short and his head pulled up. “Don’t you be sorry for me, Esther Johnston! You just be sorry for yourself.”
John Henry turned heel and stomped angrily from the barn.
Esther leaned back against the wall, blood drained and bone weary. From the dark corner, she stared out the empty barn entrance, wishing he’d walk through it. The straw grass waved in the light outside. A few tires tilted beside a pile of scrap wood.
John Henry wouldn’t walk back through that door. Not this time. Esther closed her eyes, forcing back the tears. She’d known this day had to come, but she’d never known how