Ben works horses now. He's training under the local vet, learning to care for cattle. He's become muscular, arms carved and sinewy beneath his tan, and he smells like sweat. When we hold each other at night, I like to breathe in his scent, the tang of earth, the grounding we've found. We don't talk much about that day, dragging ourselves cold and almost lifeless from the sea, water streaming from our hair and eyes. Words aren't the only way to communicate and besides, there are better things to talk about.

Like the weather. Like the clouds piling up heaven-high in a November sky, and sunsets of copper-gold. We share local gossip—the new Chevy dealership in town, the high school football team, the other people who work here at the ranch. We tease Diego, practicing for his citizenship exam. "Every night," he says proudly, "I am Hooked on Phonics!" He still believes that words will take him where he wants to go.

At evening's end, when everyone else has gone inside and patches of light from the windows fall on the ground, I sit on the porch steps and remember. I can do that now, think about Josh, his little body curved and heavy, tiny hands reaching for me. I close my eyes and imagine his hair, how it smelled, how soft it felt against my cheek. My lips can almost feel the smooth warmth of his skin and for a brief moment, he's there in my arms. I’m glad I can remember him like this and I think, Someday. When Ben and I have grown up again.

Ben didn't mean to do it. That fact was clear from the start and even the police officers seemed sorry they had to question us over and over. I'd been home sick with the flu. Ben took Joshie to daycare but on the way, his thoughts began to focus on work, his veterinarian practice, and he forgot. He simply went to work and forgot.

At the hospital there were too many shocks. Ben, crying, apologizing as I walked through the doors. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Then seeing Josh, already stiffening, a stranger in my baby's clothes. I couldn't talk then and I couldn't talk later when they led Ben away, his face streaked white on white in reflection of rain on the squad car windows. By then, the rain fell steadily and already the temperatures had dropped twenty degrees. Twenty degrees, the difference maybe between life and death on a hot July afternoon in Atlanta. What if it had rained earlier? My mother came to get me, walked me to her car, drove out of the parking lot past Ben's crookedly parked black sedan. Just above the windowsill, I could see the ruffled edge of the quilt in Josh's carseat. I could imagine it, the limp body lifted, the horrified cry, the realization. Don't think about it, I told myself, don't picture it, don't.

Talk of charges gave way to whispers about suicide watches. They released Ben in time for the funeral and he showed up, pale and aged, his features softened and distorted as though he'd been underwater a long time. The priest reminded us that there is a reason for everything, to trust in God and believe. Believe what? I watched the candle flames. One of them kept flickering, caught perhaps in an unseen draft. Was there a reason for that too?

Afterward, people spoke to us. Ben's aunt urged me to seek counseling. "You need to talk about it, get your feelings out." I nodded, unable to meet her eyes, then made my way to the bathroom. There wasn't one useful thing in that cabinet. I finally took some Dramamine and it seemed to help. By evening, my stomach was so calm I could have driven off the edge of the world and never noticed.

When it was all over, Ben and I went home. Somebody had been in to clean up. The diaper pail was empty, even though I clearly remembered three wet diapers in the bottom of it that morning. Joshie's sleeper, too, had been washed out and put away. Ben began crying again and I had to undress him, put him to bed, stroke his hair until he fell asleep. This was my husband, the man with whom I was supposed to talk, open up, share my feelings. One wrong word would have killed him.

I've always tried to do the right thing, but what do you do when the right thing is all wrong? I needed someone to be there, to help me. Someone more capable, someone wise and noble, but I only had me.

For a few days we stumbled around the house, sleepwalkers. Ben talked about his practice, about going back. "What about my patients?" he asked. "Should I forget about them too?" Then his eyes filled again and he dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around my legs. "Oh god, I’m so sorry. Tell me you hate me. Say it, I killed him. Say it." All I could think was, turn me loose. You're dragging me down, we'll both be lost. But instead I bent over him, stroked his back. Couldn't speak, still couldn't speak, words all slipped away from me like water through my fingers.

"Let's leave, get out of here," I finally said. The house suffocated me. "I don't care where, let's just go."

We drove for four days. Hit I-40 and followed it, straight as an arrow, to the coast. Ben slept most of the time and that was fine with me. The highway became our haven, long silent miles of concrete. Anonymous rest areas, homogenous truck stops. Meals of mashed potatoes and meatloaf, banana cream pie. Familiar tastes swallowed with ease, settling in our stomachs like pap. I popped Dramamine, my new drug of choice. We stayed in Red Roof Inns and a Motel 6. At night, Ben clung to the edge of the mattress, rolled into a ball, endlessly rocking himself to sleep. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, my gut twisting tighter and tighter.

It was raining when we reached the beach. Children and parents had deserted the sands, sprinting for their cars with towels flapping. We walked out on the pier, hand in hand. Hurrying now, I jerked at Ben's arm and he stumbled along, docile as a child, not speaking a word. I was deaf by then anyway and the fog muffled sound. There'd be no sound ever again, if I'd had my way about it. No angry words, no recriminations or endless apologies. No truths, no lies.

Ben's fingers tightened, interlocking with mine and we stared out at the sea, dark waves under the seamless gray sky. The water would be cold, and I welcomed the thought of smooth oblivion. We swung our linked hands back and forth, as though there were a small child between us, squealing with pleasure as his feet left the ground.

For one moment, we were free. Soaring as we left the earth's tug, and then down we fell into the screaming cold. Not the calm I'd expected. We were thrown, tossed, pulled apart. We scrabbled at each other, clawed and snatched, pushed, kicked, fought. My face broke free of the waves and I got one gasping lungful of air before I started to sink again. Ben thrashed alongside, reaching for my hand and I thought, you forgot our child. I brought my feet up, thrust them against his chest, and pushed hard, forcing myself away.

Ben works horses now, and I clean and cook. Driving back from the coast, not wanting to go home and not knowing where else to go, we stopped for a meal in Cuervo, New Mexico, and saw the Help Wanted sign. It's a small ranch, nothing fancy, and we're just hired hands, but it's enough. Late in the afternoons, before I prepare mountains of fried chicken and biscuits, gallons of tea, I hang laundry under the sun. The sky is wide here and it goes from edge to edge.

Wind blows endlessly, carrying red flakes of dust that cling to the shirts and towels and I beat them off with an old tennis racket I've found. It's a satisfying task, backswing and forehand, long arcs of strength. With each swing, there's a resounding thwack and dust leaps off, glad to be out of the line of fire.

The tennis racket doesn't belong there at all, any more than we do, but it does the job. I fold sheets and faded jeans, hold them close to my face for a moment, and lay them in the basket. The racket I toss in the air, watching the handle and webbed head rotate end over end, silhouetted against the purple sky. I reach my hand out and the wood drops solidly into my palm. We did everything wrong, Ben and I. But somehow, it turned out all right..

§ § §

Carolyn Steele Agosta's short stories and essays have appeared in such publications as BuzzWords, Peninsular, Skirt! Magazine, Sexy Shorts, and City Primeval, and online at Literary Potpourri, Eclectica, EspressoFiction, Conversely, East of the Web and In Posse Review. She is currently writing her third novel and hopes soon to be an overnight sensation. You can reach Carolyn at http://www.carolynagosta.com or cagosta@steelerubber.com

This piece was first published in INK POT #3- 2004, a literary journal.