Take Care of Nancy

Boyd was a private. Mayfield was a captain. Boyd did as Mayfield directed him to do. It didn't matter much to Boyd. Sex was sex was sex.

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December 2019

Nancy wasn't at the Amtrak station in Lafayette to meet Boyd at the end of his stint in the Army. Wayne hadn't shown up either. The old farm pickup truck was there, though, its dents and scratches instantly recognizable to Boyd. And the key was in the ignition. This was small-town Indiana, not Chicago, and who would want a Ford pickup from the sixties anyway? The e-mail from Wayne had said the truck would be there to take Boyd home. It hadn't said that Boyd would have to drive the truck himself. All the way back from the East Coast, though, Boyd stewed that this might be the case. No one had said a brass band would be laid on for him.

It was still afternoon when he got home to the farm in Kokomo. Nobody came out of the house to greet him there, either. No one was in the front room of the house to welcome him home. There was a Christmas tree, though, which looked like it had only half-heartedly been raised and decorated. An air of gloom pervaded the house, which seemed deserted.

The door to their bedroom was shut, but it opened when Boyd turned the knob. He wasn't being shut out of the house at least--although he feared there were other aspects of his life that had shut him out.

Nancy was sitting on the bed, turned to the window, wearing her winter coat. The light in the room was dim, the ceiling light not on. A closed suitcase lay on the bed beside her, her gloves on top. When she heard Boyd enter the room, she rose and turned around... and Boyd saw why she had stopped writing and why he'd had the premonition that something was very, very wrong.

When he could catch his breath, he said, "How far along are you?"

Nancy's hands went to cupping her belly. "Five months."

It was sort of a nonsensical question. He been gone a year and a half. Whatever number of months she was gone was irrelevant to the situation.

"I've brought in enough groceries to last you a couple of weeks," she said. "Tammy at the Dollar Store is coming to pick me up. She says I can stay with her until I resettle. Her address and telephone number are there on the table next to the phone."

"Whose is it, Nancy?"

"It's not his fault," she said. "You don't know what a state I was in when I lost the baby. I nearly fell apart out here all alone. He saw how it was with me. He was trying to take care of me, to keep me from going mad. He said that you'd told him to take care of me. It just went further than it should have gone."

The "He was trying to take care of me" is what did it. "Wayne," he said. The last thing he'd said to Wayne Strickland was "Take care of Nancy." Obviously, Wayne had done just that--he'd knocked her up. Boyd had gone off for the Army to save the world and his best buddy had stayed behind and knocked his wife up.

"I initiated it, Boyd. You know me. I was scared of him... at first. You knew that. You knew that before you left. I thought he was safe... that it would be safe between us. But you know how hard it would be for me to do without. I told you it would be. If the baby had lived, I'd have that... but it didn't. I was depressed. And life was so... empty... for so long."

"Why'd you think it would be safe between you and Wayne if you knew you were going to be randy and would be looking for it while I was gone?"

"Well, because you and Wayne... you know."

"No, I don't know."

"Because Wayne was fucking you. I didn't know that would mean he'd be interested in fucking me too."

That knocked Boyd back. "You knew about that... about Wayne and me."

"Sure. I knew what happened at Charlie's Roadhouse--what you could pick up there. I knew you'd picked up Wayne there. I knew you could go with men as well as women. I didn't give a shit about that as long as you gave it to me. But you knew I didn't approve of you going to the roadhouse--or bringing Wayne here to stay while you were gone. You didn't know how weak I could be... how much I would need it--from someone else if you weren't here. But, fuck, Boyd, I still wanted it from you. I've always wanted it from you."

"Even now?" Boyd asked.

"Yes, even now. But I've ruined it all."

"Do you want to go or do you really want to stay?"

"I don't see that there's a choice, Boyd."

"There's always a choice, Nance." He turned and went to the gun cabinet in the corner of the living room. Unlocking that, he took out a rifle.

"What cha' gonna do, Boyd?" She came to the bedroom door, the worry obvious on her face. "It's not just me. I'm carrying a baby. None of this is the baby's fault."

"Just going for a little walk, Nance. Why don't you take off your coat and fix us some dinner? It would be real nice to have a homecooked dinner my first night at home. Think you can do that?"

"Sure, Boyd." She was still afraid. Was he going to shoot her there in her kitchen, while she was cooking a dinner? She didn't have much time to think on it, though, because Boyd went to the front door, carrying the rifle, and was gone.

When he got to the cottage on the other side of the farm, he found Wayne Strickland in much the same position as he'd found his wife, Nancy--sitting, with his coat on, and with his suitcase next to him. In his case, he was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking one cigarette after the other. He looked up, taking a shocked expression when he saw Boyd with the rifle, but then, looking tired and resigned, he gave a sigh. "You got home OK, Boyd?"

"Yes, I got home," Boyd said.

"So, you've seen Nancy... and you've talked with her." He obviously wanted to ask if Boyd had done more than talk with her, but he didn't dare ask. He hadn't heard a gunshot. That was a good sign.

"Yes, I've seen Nancy and we've talked. Come, Wayne, let's take a walk on the land. Let me see how the farm is doing."

"OK, Boyd. I understand. I'm sorry, it just--"

But Boyd was already out of the kitchen door and on the back porch. Wayne could have tried his luck, going off in the other direction then, but he was so tired and he knew what he'd do in Boyd's place. It was just a waste. Nancy was a sweet girl, but Boyd, Boyd had been a keeper. With a sigh, he rose from the table, squashed out is cigarette in the ashtray and joined Boyd on the back porch.

They walked the land, Wayne telling Boyd how things had gone for the last year and a half, what had been fixed, what needed fixing, what he should consider putting in to increase the profit. They wound up in the woods, just standing there, for the longest time, watching the sun set over the open acreage of the farm. Wayne had come to love this place and working on it. And he couldn't remember ever having seen such a beautiful sunset.

He jumped when he heard the shot. He'd always wondered if you'd hear the shot that got you. He heard this one, but, as far as he could figure, he didn't feel it. He looked up. The rifle wasn't pointed at him and off, at the other end of the clearing they'd been standing in, he saw the dead fox, lying out on the ground.

"You told me about the fox that had been taking our chickens," Boyd said. "I neglected to tell you that I knew where its den was. I figured we could take care of what needed to be done as soon as I got home."

Both men knew that Boyd wasn't really talking about foxes and chickens. They knew a point was being made and that there hadn't been any great need for Boyd to kill a fox the first thing after getting home.

"Boyd. Man, I'm so--"

"I love you, Wayne," Boyd said. "I love Nancy too. All the time I was coming home from Germany, I was agonizing over which one of you I was going to have to give up. I don't really want it to be either of you. I understand if you and Nancy have something going too. I don't really give a shit if you do. In fact, with what I was learning in Germany... but enough of that. I'm hungry. Let's go back and get your suitcase and take it up to the house."

"What did you learn in Germany, Boyd?"

"I learned you don't have to make tough choices. You can have it all at once."

Nancy was standing on the back porch of the farmhouse, wringing her apron with her hands, as the men approached. She'd obviously heard the shot and figured the worst. Her shock silenced her, as the men passed her on the porch and entered the house.

She heard Boyd call out, "The table's set for two, Nance. We'll need to put on another setting. Now and in the future, if that's OK with you. After dinner, we can go into the bedroom, and I'll show you what I learned in Germany about what two men and a woman could do to please themselves and each other. I'll be careful because of the baby; we'll have to be very careful, for the baby."

Giving a little smile, she went into the house. Boyd had already put the rifle back into the gun cabinet and was locking it. Wayne was standing close behind Boyd, embracing him. Wayne beckoned to Nancy, and she joined them.