“Mayhap someday, but not this day, when it is still my labor to be worthy of thee.”

CHAPTER 33

Zee

   I wondered if the push-ups Gentry did while I was sleeping were part of becoming worthy of me.

“Are you seriously doing calisthenics?” I said, when I woke up around midnight.

“’Tis not my custom to sleep at night.”

I couldn’t complain about it, because he was being quiet. Pant. Push. Pant. Push. Then he switched to sit-ups, and I fell back to sleep. I woke up later to this feeling that people were fighting. The sound of people arguing traveled the way no other noise did, but even when you couldn’t hear it, you could feel it, like static electricity from a thunderstorm.

“Gentry?” I said, but he wasn’t there.

I got out of bed and went to the door, not thinking about shoes or pants. With the door open, I could hear the sound of men raising their voices. Gentry was standing at the end of the hallway, to the side of the window that looked out over the front yard. When I went to him, I was groggy, and my arm bumped against his chest. He stepped back and let the curtain flutter closed.

“Sorry.” I backed up to give him more space, but he stepped forward, so that my arm touched his chest again. Then he put his left hand on my waist, in this very particular way that would have made me laugh in a different situation. Like I was a piece of equipment with a handle there.

He lifted the edge of the curtain, so we could look out. In the front yard, there was an old Lincoln Continental parked behind Gentry’s truck. A guy I didn’t know was leaning against the driver’s door, looking at his phone. Another guy with a beard was standing next to Gentry’s truck, arguing with Dane. The dog paced back and forth at the end of his chain.

I couldn’t make out what they were arguing about, but the guy raised his hand, gesturing to Gentry’s truck. Then he pointed his finger at Dane, almost in his face. Dane shook his head. They went through that a few times, the way meth heads do. Repeating the same gestures and accusations.

Finally the bearded guy smacked his hand on the hood of Gentry’s truck. The dog let out a low woof. Dane went on shaking his head. A minute later, the two strangers got into the Lincoln and backed down the driveway toward the road. Dane walked across the yard toward the trailer parked in the woods. Then it was just the dog standing by himself under the light of the single bulb that hung off the side of the barn.

I didn’t hear Uncle Alva stirring downstairs, so I guessed that was a regular enough occurrence that it didn’t disturb him. Gentry and I went back to the bedroom, but I was too awake to go back to bed. That was the effect arguments had on me. I went to the window and looked out at the side yard. From there I could see a light on in the trailer, but nothing else. I walked back to the middle of the room, where Gentry was standing with his arms crossed.

“Will you kiss me?” I said, thinking at least sex would be a distraction.

He uncrossed his arms and kissed me, but carefully, like he was thinking about something else. I paced around the room in the dark trying to work out the stiffness in my hip. Then I picked up my phone and went through the gestures. Checked messages. Looked at Facebook. Read some news websites. Watched a video of a baby pangolin to cheer myself up.

By the time I’d done all of that, my heart had slowed down, so I laid on the bed and closed my eyes, trying to think relaxing thoughts. There was something I’d meant to ask Gentry, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Then I saw it. Him on the porch, tilting his head like he was listening to a voice, but on the right. I opened my eyes, and looked at Gentry in the middle of the room, head down, scratching his shoulders with both hands.

“Who are you listening to on your right side?” I said.

“’Tis the black knight.” The way he said it gave me a chill. “He is ever at my ear when I joust. He helpeth me fight.”

“He told you to knock Dirk on his ass, didn’t he?”

“Yea. Art’ou wroth with me?”

“No. He deserved it,” I said. “I’m glad you did it.”

I closed my eyes again, wondering exactly how many voices were talking to Gentry. Sometimes he didn’t pay attention when people talked to him, but who could blame him with all that going on inside his head?

“The black knight told me I must trust thee,” he said.

“Trust me?” I’d never thought about whether anyone trusted me or not. I didn’t have any power over anyone, so what did it matter if I was trustworthy? Except for Marcus. I had to be trustworthy for him, but maybe I’d failed at that.

“Yea. The black knight said . . .”

Gentry walked over to the bed and rested the knuckles of his right hand against my thigh for a minute. Without even asking.

“He said what?”

“He said if we two would be bound together, I must trust thee.” He slid his knuckles up my leg until he got to the hem of my nightgown. I thought he might pull it down to cover me up. “That if my oath to thee was not idle words, I should lie with thee, and we would be bound together.”

“The black knight told you to have sex with me? As part of your oath?”

“Yea, my lady.”

I’d never thought of sex that way. Sometimes it was a chore, and a lot of times it was something to barter, like having a little money, even when I was broke. I relaxed my legs and Gentry pressed his hand between them, with just my panties separating us. I wondered, if we hadn’t had sex, would I have said yes to him coming to Missouri with me? Probably not, and I was glad not to be there alone.

“You want to come to bed and bond some more?” I said.

“Weren we elsewhere, somewhere safe, I would grind thee as a millstone grindeth grain to flour, but not here.”

I laughed, because he had the best dirty talk. Weird but filthy.

“No, probably not a good idea,” I said.

“Tho they be thy kin, my lady, I trust them not.”

Gentry was right. I trusted Dane about as far as I could throw him.

CHAPTER 34

Zee

   In the morning, Gentry cooked breakfast. Omelets, hash browns, and biscuits that he made from scratch. I’d hoped it would only be Gentry, Uncle Alva, and me, but Dirk came up to the house as we were sitting down. He seemed excited at the idea of getting breakfast, and since Dane wasn’t there, he didn’t act stupid about Gentry cooking it. Uncle Alva had told me to wait til the morning to talk, so I hoped that was coming, but after he mopped his plate clean with half a biscuit and finished his coffee, he pushed back from the table.