Jonathan was back the next Saturday, and I was surprised to find myself happy to see him. Part of me was comforted to know that our strange day together was not a figment of my imagination, but the other part was genuinely glad to continue our conversation. He’d brought a large picnic blanket this week - plenty big for two - which he’d laid out in the grass, and he invited me to join him laying in the sunshine. I settled in on the blanket, leaving as much space between us as it would allow, and I pulled the book from a backpack I’d brought with me.
“Wow, did you read it already?” he asked, impressed.
“I did,” I sheepishly replied. “I really loved it.” He looked at me with a bewildered smile and turned excitedly towards his own bag, from which he produced a copy of Slaughterhouse Five.
“You should read this one next,” he grinned. “It’s nothing like Solitude, but it will blow your mind.”
I thanked him and placed the book in my backpack. He brushed it off as no big deal and stretched back on the blanket, arms behind his head, the pinnacle of casual relaxation. I laid back on the blanket, attempting to relax. After a few minutes of quiet, he looked over at me through squinted eyes.
“You know, you aren’t gonna get much of a tan with that shirt still on.”
I looked back at him, tempted to object. I hadn’t been undressed around anyone in my life apart from Nathaniel and my mother when I was very young. But I had no decent excuse or explanation, so without a word I sat up and pulled my shirt over my head, feeling Jonathan’s eyes on me as I did.
“Better?” he asked.
“Better,” I answered. In truth, it felt exhilarating lying there, the warm sun against my newly exposed skin.
“You don’t look like you get much sun,” he laughed.
“I don’t,” I agreed, aware of my pale skin next to his. “I spend most of my time doing chores inside.”
He asked what all I did, and I told him. Bits and pieces. About how my mother passed away when I was young and how I’d taken over most of her work around the house. About how my father and brother worked in the fields and really only came inside for meals. About how I spent most of the days cleaning the house or preparing our meals or bringing laundry off the line.
“Sounds lonely,” he said.
“Yeah,” I replied, “I suppose it is.”
“What’s your dad like?” he asked.
“He…” I began, unsure how to answer. “He’s pretty old fashioned. Religious. He doesn’t trust people.” I paused, feeling the weight of the words welling up within me. “It’s like he’s afraid of the world. Of everyone and everything in it. So he just hides from it. Ignores it. Shelters himself on a few measly acres that back up against a swamp. And he keeps us there with him,” I finished bitterly.
Jonathan looked at me sadly. “What about your brother? Are you close with him?”
“Not really,” I shrugged. “We aren’t much alike, never have been. He and my father have always been inseparable, whereas I was very close to my mother. After she died…” I began, but couldn’t find words to continue. “To tell the truth, I think he resents me. I think they both do.”
“Why would they resent you?” he asked earnestly.
I thought for a moment before answering. “I’m not sure,” I finally confessed. “Maybe because I remind them of her. Because I’ve never shared the same interests as them. Because I’m inside doing women's work and in their eyes that makes me less of a man.”
“Well that’s just stupid,” Jonathan laughed. “You’re just as much a man as any of us. You’ve even got the hair on your chest to prove it.” He reached over and playfully scratched at the patch of chestnut hair on my sternum.
Startled, I fell back laughing and swatted his hand away. He laid back as well, shuffling closer to me on the blanket, and for a while we just lay there watching the clouds and listening to the sounds of life teeming all around us.
“For what it’s worth,” he finally said, staring up at the sky. I swore I could see clouds drifting across the blue of his eyes. “I’ve always felt a little different from my family too.”
- - -
After that day, we began to spend nearly all our Saturdays together in the swamp, camped out on our little island far away from the world. He would bring me a new book to read, and I'd trade that out with the one he’d brought the week before, books like The Outsiders, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird. We’d bring food from home and have picnic lunches by the water, and sometimes he’d even manage to steal a beer from his father’s fridge. He began to bring a portable radio, and he introduced me to all sorts of music - people like George Harrison, Led Zeppelin, and The Rolling Stones. We’d lay out on the blanket, listening to the music and telling me all about the artists, what their music meant, how they were changing the world. Some days he’d huddle with me in my spot under the tree, and he’d give me ideas to draw for my animals. Some days we’d talk for hours, other days we’d quietly enjoy the company.
As the weeks passed, I got the sense that beneath that confident and talkative exterior he was just like me - lonely, misunderstood, dreaming of a place where he might feel like the world around him matched the world that existed in his mind.
One day, he asked me if I ever drew people. I told him that I hadn’t really tried, that I usually just drew animals.
“You should draw me,” he stated. I met his eyes, wanting to see whether he was teasing, but he looked serious.
“Okay,” I agreed. He beamed with excitement.
I had him sit on the blanket, his left arm propped on his knee, looking into the warm afternoon sun. With a mischievous grin, he picked a dandelion from the grass and tucked it behind his ear. And I began to draw.
My hand was shaking as I made the first few marks. The sun was reflecting off of his hair, and he closed his eyes in a peaceful smile. And as I looked at him, studying every curve of his neck, the dip of his shoulders, the muscles of his arms, my stomach became a knot, and I felt as if I might forget to breathe. But I forged ahead, trusting my hand to capture the sight before me. He was a good model, though a bit restless. He kept trying to talk to me, to crack jokes to make me laugh. It helped pass the time.
“Are you done yet?” he asked after nearly an hour.
“Hey, you asked for this,” I teased.
He groaned. “Fair enough.”
“But yes, I am,” I smiled, adding the final few details to his hair. He jumped up excitedly and rushed over to me, sitting close enough to my side that our bare arms touched. I pulled the notepad close against my chest, feeling a bit self-conscious.
“Oh, come on now,” he teased, “show me!”
“Fine, but you have to promise not to laugh,” I conceded. I took a deep breath and brought the notepad out before us.
“Oh wow,” he said, his voice breathy, his eyes fixed on the paper between us. I began to feel my cheeks grow hot in the lengthening silence, and my palms began to sweat. Finally he turned to me, his eyes burning. “It’s amazing. You’re,” he began. “You’re really something.”
After that day, I felt different around Jonathan in a way I couldn't quite name. Nervous. Restless. Self-conscious, but not in a negative way like I often felt back home. I was just aware of myself in a new way whenever I was in his presence: when I would pull my shirt off in the heat of the afternoon and know he was watching me, when our hands would touch reaching for food on the picnic blanket and it was almost like I'd been burned, when our eyes would meet and I would see him looking at me - really looking at me - and feel as if he was the first person who ever saw me in my whole life.
I wondered if he felt this change, too, but he was inscrutable, all warm smiles and cool demeanor. But I noticed we became closer. Not just as friends, but physically as well. He'd pat me on the shoulder or reach for my arm when telling a story; we'd lay side by side on the picnic blanket or rest against one another under the shade of the tree. He was confident in his affection, something I attributed to his closeness with his sister and interpreted as completely normal given my general lack of familial affection back home. It wasn't until weeks later, during a surprise afternoon rainstorm, that I learned I was wrong.
The rain came from nowhere, a wall of water moving quickly across the swamp. We leapt up, grabbing our things and running for the cover of the tree, laughing hysterically the whole way. Huddled together, we watched the rain pour from the sky and heard thunder crack like a broken tree limb. It was a strong summer storm, powerful and beautiful.
“I love the rain,” Jonathan sighed contentedly, sinking closer against me.
“Me too,” I mumbled lazily, settling in against his warm, bare shoulder.
“Thomas?” He asked quietly after a while.
“Yeah?” I looked at him and paused. His eyes were dark, his brow furrowed with doubt and determination. His eyes bore into mine then dropped ever so slightly before returning to meet my gaze. And suddenly, without any warning, he surged forward and pressed his lips to mine.
To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I froze at the unexpected contact, my body stunned and my mind unable to process what was happening. Jonathan pulled away, looking at me with a curiosity that quickly turned to terror.
“I...I’m sorry,” he began, his cheeks aflame, his eyes like glass, fragile and on the verge of shattering. But something in my chest burst open, some part of me waking up and taking control, and I grabbed his face in my hands, returning his kiss with fervor. His lips answered mine, soft and warm and welcoming; his hands cupping the back of my head, fingers combing through my hair. It was a breathless, restless, grasping kiss. I pulled him closer to me, and he obliged, crawling forward and gently laying me on my back, stretching his body out over mine. Our bare chests pressed together, warm and wet in the summer rain. My hands reached around him, running the length of his back, feeling his lean muscles flex and ripple beneath my finger tips. His tongue met mine, sliding into my mouth, an unexpected and electrifying visitor. He ground his hips against mine, and I could feel him, hard beneath his denim shorts. I was surprised to realize I was just as hard - an uncommon sensation for me, but not at all unpleasant - and I pressed up to meet him.
He kissed along my jaw and down my neck, and my heart felt like it might catch on fire. I slid my hands down his back and underneath the rough fabric of his shorts, feeling the soft, smooth skin below, and the fire in my chest spread to the pit of my stomach, down into my groin. I felt myself gasping for air as his mouth returned to meet mine. I squeezed my hands against Jonnathan’s bare skin and felt him moan against my mouth. I pulled him closer to me, and he responded, grinding himself against me more quickly, fervently, frantically, surrendering ourselves to sensation and instinct, gasping and groaning as a wildfire spread inside of me, building in pressure and intensity, a dam threatening to burst, until finally, throwing my head back and gasping for air, it erupted, and I spent myself into my pants.
Jonathan cried out, gasping and collapsing on top of me. I wrapped my arms around his back and held him, and we lay there, catching our breath, letting the aftershocks shutter through us.
After several minutes, Jonathan raised himself up on his elbows and looked at me, his eyes shimmering with amazement, and he laughed, a warm, generous rumble. I laughed too, unable to help myself in the swirl of emotions. He leaned down and kissed me, a slow, deep kiss, and pressed his forehead against mine.
He rolled off of me, pressing up against my side and resting his head on my shoulder, his fingers tracing lazy circles on my stomach. I put my arm around him and held him in close, and we lay there, listening to the rain.
“Have you…” he began. “Have you ever done that before?”
“Never,” I laughed. “I actually, uh, didn’t know that could happen.”
“Really?” he said, surprised, raising his head to look at me. I felt myself blush.
“I mean, sometimes I have dreams where things happen, and when I wake up in the morning I notice that I’ve, you know, made a mess of myself in my sleep,” I confessed. “But I’ve never done it on purpose.”
“Wow,” he laughed, returning his head to my shoulder. “Did you like it?” he asked, earnestly.
“Like it?” I laughed heartily. “Very much. I want to do it again.”
He chuckled, his body rocking against my chest. “Well you may need to give me a minute, but we can do that again whenever you want.”
And we did. Do it again. Later that afternoon, as the storm passed and the sun reappeared and we laid our picnic blanket out over the damp grass and turned on the radio, “Wild Horses” crackling from the speakers. We stood together in the sunshine, looking at each other as music swelled around us. Carefully, cautiously, his fingers reached out and began to undo my pants, letting them fall to the ground, his eyes scanning down my body. Smiling, he undid his own shorts and slid them down over his hips. We stood there, naked and exposed before each other, staring at each other with bewilderment and lust and tenderness. His member stood tall and proud from a base of dark, curly hair, hardly different than mine. I expected to feel afraid or somehow ashamed; after all, I’d spent my life feeling my body was inadequate to other men. But with him, standing naked and aroused in the sunshine, seeing the similarities in our bodies, feeling his desire for me, all shame disappeared.
He slowly walked forward, closing the distance between us, and kissed me gently, his mouth smiling against mine, and we lowered ourselves onto the blanket.
Our Saturdays became a flurry of hands and mouths and bare skin, of fast music, slow movements, and heavy breathing. With him, on those endless summer afternoons, I felt something click into place, as if all my doubts and insecurities melted away under his touch. My lingering sense of loneliness and abnormality, the fear that I was broken somewhere deep in my core, vanished with him, and in its place a confidence arose, a strength I’d never felt. Out there we were the same, all youth and lust and laughter, exploring one another with the hunger and novelty that only comes to the young. He made me stronger, made me complete. And somewhere, in that tangle of tongues and limbs, the world shifted.
Before, the swamp had been my refuge, my escape from the monotony and disappointment of the real world; but now, this little island and this boy with golden hair were the only things in my life that felt real. It became as if I spent all week asleep, drifting through the motions half-conscious, until finally, for one precious day, I became fully alive again. I began to crave it, to need it. To know it was possible to feel so much - and to be kept from it - was cruel.
“I just don’t know how much longer I can stay there,” I muttered, lying on the blanket with my head on Jonathan’s stomach. He combed his fingers lazily through my hair. “If I stay there, I might actually go crazy.”
“Have you thought about leaving?” he asked.
I let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know how I would. I’ve got nowhere to go. I can’t drive. I didn’t even finish high school, so I don’t know how I’d get a job. I just feel…” I pressed my palms against my eyes, fighting back the tears that were threatening to appear. “Stuck.”
Jonathan was quiet for a long time, playing with my hair. I watched clouds drift across the pale blue sky, moving quickly in a summer breeze.
“You know,” he said, softly. “I’m leaving soon.”
His words hit me right in the chest, and I felt my breath stop.
“Oh,” I mumbled. “Right, of course.” I should’ve known. He’d told me several times how he was moving to St. Louis, going to work for his uncle. Or with his uncle. Or something like that. The reality of his departure settled into my stomach, and I sat up, afraid I might vomit.
“My uncle is getting me a job at the bank where he works. It’s good money. He’s already helping me get an apartment lined up, so I’ll have my own place,” Jonathan went on, sitting up behind me.
“That’ll be great,” I said, barely able to whisper.
“Come with me.”
I turned to look at him. His eyes were deep, sincere, endless pools of blue, like the first time he’d kissed me. “I…” I faltered, unsure how to respond.
“Come with me,” he continued. “I’ll have room, and money, and plenty of time to help you get things sorted out.” He leaned forward, placing a hand on my shoulder, staring at me intensely.
I looked away, stunned. I could hear a dull roar in my ears as I processed the idea. Leaving. Moving on to somewhere else, anywhere else. With Jonathan. “I don’t know…” I trailed off.
“Please,” Jonathan pleaded, shuffling closer to me. His hand gently turned my cheek to look at him again, his face inches from mine. “I want you to come with me. To be with me. I don’t want to say goodbye to you.”
I reached up and held his wrist in my hand, meeting his gaze, and I felt the tears well up. “Okay,” I said, laughing. “I’ll come.”
He kissed me, lightly, as if handling something fragile, a kiss that felt like a promise.
- - -
I knew my father would never let me leave, not without a fight, so we’d have to make our escape in secret. We picked our day, the last Saturday in August, just two weeks away. We would meet here, on our island, in the middle of the night. We would take Jonathan’s boat to his car, leaving mine behind, where he’d drive us to his house to load up his things, and we’d be on the road by dawn.
In those final weeks, I became restless and agitated. My chores at home had lost all meaning, and the sight of my father and Nathaniel made my blood boil. Years of resentment and anger tried to fight its way to the surface, requiring all my energy to keep them in line. I saw them so differently now - where they used to frighten and intimidate me, they now struck me as pitiful, pathetic; where I once desperately craved their approval and attention, I now saw they had nothing to offer me. Compared to Jonathan - his hunger for life, his curiosity for the world, the fearlessness with which he gave his heart to others - my father was an empty, wasteful shell of a man, and Nathaniel was just like him. And so, I kept my head down, busying myself with my work, distracting myself with daydreams about the new life that lay ahead. This did not go unnoticed.
My father made snide comments about my behavior, teasing me for my tendency to drift away into my imagination, chiding me for letting myself be consumed by “silly, childish fantasies”. I brushed these empty comments off, steeling myself against his words, until one comment I couldn’t ignore.
“Always got your head in the clouds, just like your silly mother,” he muttered as I began to wash up after dinner. It was my last night at home. In a few hours, I’d be leaving for good, and my nerves were starting to twist into a single, giant knot.
“Good,” I mumbled under my breath, hardly aware I’d said it aloud.
“Excuse me?” My father turned towards me, ice in his stare.
“I said good,” I repeated, squaring my shoulders. “You think you can just get rid of any trace of her around this place, but you can’t. Nathaniel and I are just as much hers as we are yours, and you…” I was interrupted by his hand, hitting me squarely across my jaw. I fell back against the kitchen counter as he towered over me.
“Don’t you ever talk back to me again,” he threatened.
“Won’t be a problem,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?” he roared.
“Yes sir,” I said clearly.
That night, as I crawled into bed, Nathaniel entered the room and began to undress. As he started to pull back the covers, he looked up at me. “You shouldn’t antagonize him like that,” he said softly.
I looked up at him, my jaw set.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
For just a moment, his eyes softened and I saw the traces of the boy I used to look up to, the one who would crawl into our mother’s lap and listen to her stories with wide eyes.
“Just be careful,” he repeated.
“Won’t happen again.” I rolled over and pretended to sleep.
Late that night, lying in bed with my stomach in knots and my mind racing, I could hear Nathaniel’s steady breathing in the bed next to mine, and I knew he was asleep. Carefully, to avoid the creaking of my bed frame, I reached up and checked the time on the clock on the nightstand - 1:20 am.
I rose as silently as I could, grabbing the backpack I had stuffed with a few of my belongings - an extra change of clothes, some money, a picture of my mother and me I kept in my bedside table - and made my way out the front door, waiting to dress until I was at the bottom of the porch steps. I paused for a moment, and looked back at the house, its chipping paint and torn screen door, and for a brief instant I could almost imagine how beautiful it must have been once upon a time, with its cream colored siding and wide porch steps. I imagined that it must have been charming, the idea of a quaint cottage home on a small country farm where you could raise a family away from the noise and nonsense of town, the life my mother might have seen for herself here.
Taking a deep breath, I turned and began to walk towards the swamp. Reaching the boat, I placed my backpack in the bottom of the hull and pushed off as quietly as I could. I waited until I was well within the cover of the trees to light my lamp, and I slowly paddled my way through a tunnel of moss and cloth rags until I reached the turn off where Pa’s swamp ended and my swamp began. The swamp at night was somehow both eerie and comforting, a playground of shapes and shadows as the light from my lantern reflected against the trees. Noises echoed from all around, and occasionally my light would reflect on pairs of small eyes peering out at me from the darkness.
I finally reached the island, drawing my boat to the shore. I decided to stay in the boat, though, so as to avoid leaving any fresh footprints in the mud, and extinguished my lamp, figuring I didn’t need the light while I waited. It had to be nearing two o’clock, though I had no way to truly tell. I estimated it took me about thirty minutes or so to get here from the time I left the house, meaning Jonathan should be only a few minutes away.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the swamp took on an eerie and otherworldly hue. The darkness between trees became a dozen shades of black and gray and violet, all swirling together in the emptiness of night. The chorus of frogs and crickets hummed reliably through the dark, the singing of an invisible choir. As it often did, the sound and the stillness lulled me into something like a trance, and I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of my own breathing, trying to slow the nervous beating of my heart. Then, from somewhere to my right, the snapping of a branch forced my eyes open, and I peered into the dark, wondering if it might be Jonathan.
Another minute with no new sound or sign of movement, until faintly, from somewhere I couldn’t quite place, I heard a familiar noise: the high, clear chime of bells. They began softly, as if floating in from a great distance, like something from the memory of a long ago dream. But this time, they didn’t fade away. This time, they continued to ring, slowly growing louder and closer. And that’s when I saw it - floating gently out from behind the wide trunk of a cypress tree, about fifty yards away, a warm, amber light.
It drifted lazily about, like a dandelion in a light summer breeze, only the air was still tonight. Just as it passed behind a tree, another light appeared, this one closer and off to my left. It illuminated the bark of a tree as it drifted by, like a torch, but I could see no discernable source. Its light reached out in all directions, obstructed by no base or container I could make out. A third and fourth light appeared, the chiming of the bells growing steadier with each addition, and soon a half dozen of these lights danced through the darkness of the swamp. They moved steadily, but absentmindedly, like an animal grazing through brush, exploring its surroundings at a leisurely pace, and though I was frozen where I stood I felt no fear. In fact, a wave of comfort washed over me, filling me with warmth like coffee on a cold morning. More lights continued to pop up all around me, and the bleak night began to glow in the light of a dozen tiny fires.
As the night grew brighter, I felt a sudden heat against the back of my neck and I turned. There, mere feet away, a light floated level with my eyes. Unlike the others, this one made no movement. It remained fixed, and I knew, somehow without explanation, that it was staring at me. An indescribable feeling of love and sadness welled up within me, and I felt I might cry. The light moved slowly and cautiously towards me, and from deep within a corner of my mind, I heard a voice joined by a chorus of bells.
“They watch over us, like lights in the darkness, spirits of the loved ones who keep us safe and give us direction whenever we feel lost…”
“Mama?” I asked, my voice thick and hoarse.
The light stopped moving but had grown close enough that I could feel its warmth on my face. Through the ringing bells, I could hear the faint sounds of a boat approaching from the west and knew that must be Jonathan. A feeling of sadness returned, taking the air from my lungs, and for a brief moment I felt like I was ten years old, watching clumps of soil be scattered into a freshly dug grave. Cautiously, unsteadily, as if propelled by the thousands of things I never got to say, the thousands of memories I’d never get to share, I raised my hand and stretched it toward the light. Its heat was undeniable but didn’t cause me pain, and I slowly stretched out my hand towards its center.
I could hear behind me the splashing of oars rowing in the water, and with the desperation of a child I made contact with the light.
I gasped, and all went silent.
- - -
I woke up to the gentle rattling of Jonathan’s truck. The sun had risen, late morning by my guess, though I had no idea how long we’d been driving or how long I’d been asleep.
“There he is,” Jonathan greeted me with a warm smile and a gentle pat on my thigh.
“How long was I asleep?” I placed my hand on his, interlacing our fingers together.
“A couple hours,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
I nodded and smiled, unsure what to say. The anxiety and adrenaline of the last twenty-four hours had made everything a blur, and in the daylight it all felt so surreal. I tried to remember last night, meeting Jonathan, leaving the swamp, getting to his truck parked on the side of the road, but it came to me only in flashes, drowned out by another, stronger memory - the warmth of a fire, the glow of a lamp, the clear chiming of bells.
“Mind if I turn on the radio? Didn’t want to turn it on and wake you,” he said sheepishly.
“Of course,” I nodded and looked out the window. We rode in a comfortable silence for a while, listening to the radio. The DJ mumbled an introduction and the first notes of “Me and Bobby McGee” began to drift from the speakers as we passed a road sign: ST LOUIS - 50 MILES.
I thought of my father and Nathaniel, who surely by now would have realized I was gone, and I wondered - How long would they try to look for me? Would they be angry with me for leaving? Or would they be glad to finally be rid of me? I thought of them and the small life they would continue to live, a life defined by ignorance, arrogance, and fear, and somehow in the rapidly growing distance between us my anger melted into pity.
I thought of my mother, taken by a man from her life in town when she was just seventeen and confined to a small plot of land on the edge of a desolate swamp. How many regrets she must have held, how many dreams she must have let go of. Her life as she knew it ended at seventeen, and I felt like my life was just beginning. I was being given the chance to live the life she never got to have, to feel the love she never got to experience.
I smiled as the music swelled and felt a tear slip down my right cheek. I knew that if she were still alive today she’d be happy for me. Proud of me. She lived every day with a smile and a song, defiantly refusing to let her circumstances crush her spirit, as if from the very beginning, from those mornings in the kitchen, she was preparing me to do the same. I think she always saw me in the way only a mother could; she knew that I was different, that I’d one day have to leave in order to find a life for myself. Well, now I was being given a second chance, and goddammit, I was taking it. I knew she’d want me to.
“You alright,” Jonathan asked, looking at me with a furrowed brow.
“Yeah,” I smiled back as a few more tears escaped, “never been better.” He returned a warm smile and reached over for my hand.
“I’m so happy you came with me,” he said sincerely.
“Me too,” I squeezed his hand, holding on for dear life, letting it take me to St. Louis, to tomorrow, to the rest of our lives.
The last thing I realized was that, for the first time in my life, I had no idea what tomorrow would look like. I’d lived so long in endless repetition, staring at the same trees, doing the same chores, hearing the same prayers at the dinner table. But those were all gone. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to expect, and such freedom was exhilarating and terrifying.
I felt butterflies in my stomach and for a brief second thought I might be sick, but like I always do when I get scared I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and remember my mother - smiling at me across the table, humming a song while she hung laundry on the line, dancing with me in the kitchen - and I feel comforted knowing that in her own mysterious, indefinable way she is there, that she loves me, and that she’ll always be looking out for me from her place of rest, there among the lights of Idabel Swamp.
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