Sunlight

"Walter! You can't do this to me. All I have on are my panties. Not outside!"

"You've got shoes and socks on. Here's your hoe. There're weeds in the garden."

She took it from me reluctantly and made a few half-hearted strikes at the ground.

"Walter, someone will see me in my panties. May I have something to wear? Oh come on. Please!"

I put my ball cap on her head. "There."

She stomped the dirt with her foot. "More than that. Please! I'm sorry about the guy at the hotel. I was mad."

I pointed my finger at her. "You run, and when I catch you, you'll be lucky if you have just the hat." I turned and walked to the house.

I didn't take but a half dozen steps when I looked back at Aliana. A handful of sparrows had rested on the fence posts. Their heads would tilt from side to side as they watched Aliana. Suddenly, they flew up and weaved in and out stitching the day into a tapestry of sky blue and corn stalk green. I stopped for a few moments and watched Aliana myself. Sunlight glistened on her bare breasts. Aliana's hair would catch the wind and for a few seconds it would billow out like the sails of a yacht breaking over the waves. A bold sparrow or two would fly down by Aliana's feet and take a quick dust bath in the rich soil. The birds would flap their wings making small craters into the ground, as tiny puffs of dust would erupt. Aliana's smile beamed as she watched them. I turned back to house. I had a plan.

Aliana had an outfit in which I really liked to see her. I guess you'd call it a pantsuit but that name might be out of style; business suit might be better. Whatever you call it, it consisted of light gray pants and a small gray vest that she'd wear over a shirt. The vest was lacy and it had only a few buttons to keep it closed. I found a pair of her denim shorts that I knew were too tight. I chuckled to myself; the shorts looked like a postage stamp with a zipper.

While I rummaged through the closet, I emptied one of her shoeboxes. In her end table beside the bed I emptied its contents into the shoebox. I went back out to Aliana.

"Since you made such a fuss, here's a top and shorts."

Aliana struggled with her shorts. I had to turn away to prevent myself from laughing. I watched her struggle with the snap. "Putting on some weight are we now." Her face blushed.

"You picked these out knowing they're too small, you ass."

I handed her the vest. "Here you go. Oh, don't button it."

She slipped the vest over her shoulders. The lacy part didn't cover much and you could see her breasts when she moved. It was short, too, covering just above her navel. She looked cute.

"I look like some floozy Hooter girl without the hoot. Are you getting enough of an eyeful now?" she asked.

"Not yet." I smiled at her dismay. I rubbed my chin as though I was in deep thought. "Hooter girl, hum. Let me run back up and grab a pair of your pantyhose to put on you."

Aliana pounded the hoe in the dirt. "No! Don't you dare."

She must have been too worried about getting something on, because she didn't say a word about the box under my arm. "Go get a shovel," I asked. Her breasts bounced and the cheeks of her butt jiggled out the back of her shorts as she ran to the tool shed.

"What are we doing?" she asked when she returned with the shovel.

"I told you things were going to change when we got back home. I meant it. Aliana, I do like to look at my wife." I jammed the shovel into the earth and started to dig a hole. When I thought I had it deep enough, I pushed the shovel into the ground.

"What's in the box?" She asked.

"History." I opened the lid and showed her the contents. Inside were thermometers, pregnancy testers, charts, graphs, and other baby making paraphernalia. I put the box into the hole.

"From this time forward. No more charts. No more calendars. When we want to make love, we will."

I thought she'd put up a fuss. But deep inside Aliana knew what she was doing wasn't working. Aliana pulled the shovel out of the ground and threw a shovel full of dirt on top of the box. She buried her dream. I heard the shovel fall from her hands and it hit the dirt.

"Walter, I just wanted a child. Don't—"

"We'll keep trying."

Aliana shrugged her shoulders. "I'm so sorry about last night. I just didn't think you wanted me anymore. Lily was so attractive. I could see you ogling her."

"Aliana, I remember the first time I met you. You were standing behind a booth at the Amherst Energy Fair in Wisconsin. I noticed your smile, and I wanted to catch it, and keep in my heart so it would illuminate my soul on my darkest days. I wondered if your lips would taste as sweet as they looked. I remember wondering if your hair was as soft as silk woven from gold—if it was the same color between your legs that I knew just had to be flawless."

"You remember all that?"

My left hand dropped to her butt, my fingers moved up and down between her cheeks. My other hand slipped under her vest, my thumb toyed with a nipple, feeling it harden. "Yes, and more."

Aliana's hands guided my head till our foreheads touched.

"The silver cross around your neck. Two buttons on your shirt were open. My eyes strained as they tried to catch a glimpse of your breasts. I knew they had to taste as sweet as your lips-and they did."

Our lips were a hair's breadth apart. "Go on," she said.

I felt our lips touch. I spoke in whispers. "I knew then, twelve years ago, I was going to marry you. I have no regrets. None whatsoever." I held out my hand and she took it into hers. We moved toward the old barn pass a rusty disc cultivator that hadn't moved in decades; the steel had turned a deep chocolate brown as it slowly returned to the earth. A patch of Hollyhocks shot tall slender spikes into the sky to unravel flowers of wine reds and dandelion yellows.

I led her up the barn hill covered in a thick layer of red dog. It crunched beneath our feet. The old sandstone foundation stones had weathered and were covered in a thick layer of green and gray moss. I slid the door open, it squeaked as it rolled in its track, just enough for us to pass through. I pulled a tarp down on to some loose straw. "I want you."

Aliana smiled weakly. "Walter, I was just worried about us." Aliana moved her hands in front of her shorts. "I'm sore from last night."

I didn't want to admit it to Aliana, but I was drained myself. So, I drew her down onto the tarp, pulled her close and then I popped the snap of her shorts open. I moved a fingertip across the front of her panties.

"I don't need sex to love my wife." My fingers pushed her vest open and my lips found her breasts. I kissed her breasts, fisting my hands through her hair, pulling the curls down to her nipples. I palmed the pelt of fur between her legs. I nibbled on the curve of her shoulders.

We heard the distinct sound of a car door slam.

"Crap!" Aliana said while she hustled to get her shorts together.

I got up, and move toward the barn's window. I saw a familiar sight. It was Jessy's white Cadillac. Mary, Jessy's wife, opened the driver's door and started to the house.

"Mary! We're up here." I said through the open door.

I liked Mary. She was a feisty old girl and quite a looker even at her age. Ben, our closest neighbor, told me that in her day Mary was 'stop and stare' good looking. She still was, in a mature sort of way, with her green dress and flawless beige hose on her legs complete with charcoal colored pumps. Her long brown hair had a hint of maturity in it as it looked like someone had painted just a few strands of it silver. Mary was also Aliana's best friend, or rather perhaps more of a mother than friend, since Aliana lost her parents when she was just a child.

"Walter, I can't come out like this. You can see my boobs through this vest. Ooh, you ass!"

"You can't hide in here. I'm sure Mary wants to talk to you."

"But, you can see my tits!"

I turned toward Aliana, and gave her a quick look over. "Naw." I noticed a pink nipple poking out between some lace. "Well maybe just a bit." I opened the door and walked down the barn hill. "Hi, Mary. Aliana is in the barn. She'll be out in a second."

No sooner that I said that, than we heard gravel shuffle. Aliana walked over beside me. Mary quickly grinned, her grin soon replaced by an ear-to-ear smile. I looked down at Aliana's shorts. In her haste to get dressed, Aliana hadn't noticed a handful of straw sticking through the zipper. A few more pieces were caught in the lace of her vest. I cleared my throat, I stood in front of her, and pulled the straw from her shorts. Aliana's face turned parchment paper white, then sugar beet red.

"Mary...ah, we, ah." Aliana struggled to come up with some reasonable lie but couldn't.

Mary patted Aliana's hand. Mary pulled a few errant straws from her vest. I could see a tiny bit of Aliana's breasts though the vest.

"Seventy-seven remembers what it was like to be twenty-five," Mary said.

"I just turned thirty," Aliana said.

"That makes it even better," Mary said. Then she winked at us both. "Let me show you something." Mary handed Aliana a small swatch of cloth. "Jessy and I stopped at the House of Fabric when we were in town. I saw this and I brought the whole bolt. It's a perfect match for you. Don't you think? I have a pattern for a dress that I know will cause the straw to catch on fire. Let me show you."

We all have talent; Aliana's love for growing things, my enjoyment from fixing problems, and Mary, well, put a needle and thread in her fingers and she performs magic. Aliana told me there's a waiting list a year long for Mary to make a wedding gown.

Mary led Aliana to the rear of the Cadillac to inspect the fabric. I walked over to the passenger side of the car, to talk to Jessy. It bugged him that he could no longer drive; the cancer he was fighting left him too weak. I squatted down beside the open door. "How you doing, Jessy?"

He pulled out a new box of Marlboros from a nearly empty carton. His fingers, green bean long and nicotine stained, reached out for a Bic lighter. His hands shook a bit, and then he lit the cigarette and pulled a long deep drag from it. "Thought for sure I'd cough up a lung by now. Never thought I'd have dick rot. Done myself in good."

"Prostrate cancer isn't dick rot, Jessy."

Jessy's hand moved through the few strands of white hair he had. The cigarette was soon gone and he jammed the dead butt into the car's ashtray which already overflowed with filters and butts. I didn't know what was killing him faster, the cigarettes or the cancer. Jessy was just a shell of his former self. His legs seemed like toothpicks covered in jeans that looked ten times larger than he was. His face, long and slender, reminded me of an old workhorse that had been retired to the pasture. He worked another Marlboro out of the box.

As I was talking to Jessy, I didn't notice Aliana had gone to the house and back. I looked over at the pair and saw Aliana standing in the middle of the driveway wearing the highest pair of heels I ever saw. Mary was bent over measuring for the dress. It looked so utterly odd; Aliana wearing a tiny vest, shorts up to her butt, and standing in white high heels. I began to laugh. Jessy looked over the dashboard of the Cadillac, and then raised both brows. "Ah to be young again," he said.

Jessy drew in a long rattling breath then coughed it back out in abbreviated gasps. He hocked a yellow glob of phlegm in front of the right rear tire. "I b'lieve I done myself in with these damn smokes. Might just cough up a lung after all. That sure would piss off the docs in the VA hospital wouldn't it? Hell all this time they were a working on the wrong end."

Jessy leaned back in his seat. "I'm not goin' mess with anymore of them zapping me. Ain't going to do me no good. Besides, who wants to glow in the dark?"

"I can't say I don't blame you Jessy, but—"

"Stage four. Not really sure what he meant about that, but the way doc was a looking at me, it wasn't good."

"How long, Jessy?"

He shrugged his shoulders. He lit up another cigarette. "With luck, I'll make Christmas."

Mary had her measurements, Aliana changed back into her sneakers, and Jessy just snuffed out his fifth Marlboro.

Mary walked over the car, while I helped Jessy back into his seat. "I'll need to come over next week for a few final tweaks, Aliana."

"Sure thing, Mary," Aliana said, "next Saturday night, why don't you and Jessy come over for a bite to eat." Aliana looked at me sternly. "I won't be hanging out everywhere then."

"Don't you worry about what's a showing," Mary said with quiet vehemence, "I'm so happy you've got a man that comes home for a tumble in the straw with his wife instead of quick screw with some whisky whore in a cheap motel. Aliana, honey, ain't nothin' to be embarrassed about. You do good by your man. Keeps ya young."

Mary pulled the car door shut and the Cadillac rumbled to life. They pulled out our drive and turned down the road.

Aliana draped her arms around my neck. "So, where were we? Oh yeah, I was being felt up in the barn wasn't I?"

"What do you suppose we should do about that?"

Aliana took my hand and walked a few steps up the barn hill. "Finish what you started." She snapped her shorts open and then pushed them down her thighs. "Here," she said as she handed them to me. "I want your eyes to fill with me. I surrender."

We slipped through the door. I closed it. My wife and I cuddled, kissed, and touched each other in the straw. It was a good day.

****

Saturday arrived at last and Mary and Jessy came over as promised. While Mary made a few adjustments to her measurements, I chatted with Jessy as he puffed away on his cigarettes. The four of us sat around the fire, and after an hour or so Jessy started having a rough time. Mary decided they should go back home. Aliana and I settled back and watched the flames flicker and dance in the quiet of the night. I tossed another hunk of wood on the fire and an army of whispery orange ambers rose up several feet then fell back.

I jumped when my left hand was touched by something wet. Ben's old dog, Bo, gave my hand a slobbery kiss. And where Bo was, Ben couldn't be too far behind. Sure enough, Ben appeared out of the darkness and limped over to the fire pit.

Ben leaned on his cane, his shoulders hunched a bit, then pushed the front of his John Deere hat up on his head, exposing a few silver hairs. He was wearing blue jean overalls, the kind that look like suspenders going over the shoulders. I don't think he owned any other type of clothing. The overalls were frayed and worn so badly, they looked like they were one wash away from becoming rags. He had a red plaid handkerchief stuffed into his left breast pocket, and his ever-present pipe sticking out of the right pocket. His long shirtsleeves were rolled up his arms just a bit. His exposed knuckles were hairy and several of his fingernails were black and cracked from a few misplaced hammer blows.

Ben quit farming decades ago. I'd guess he puts in forty acres of dent corn each spring. He's the local fix it guy all the farmers come to for equipment repairs for the last thirty years. He makes a tidy living welding and fixing things.

Aliana and I have known Ben since we brought this property. As a matter of fact, we purchased this land from Ben. He's a hard man to figure out. He can be bit brash, and yet he'd give you the shirt off his back in the middle of a blizzard.

"Pull up a chair, Ben. I just tossed on a log."

"I figured you two might still be up. It's been a while since me and Bo have been down here to see you two."

Ben was quite a character. No one really knew how old he is; rumors said he was anywhere from eighty-six to one hundred. One thing for certain, Ben was one hell of a conservative—and not afraid to tell you so.

I knew that he served in the military during World War Two. He won't talk about it. I think that's where he got his limp. But he's mum on that subject, too. I kind of figure that the guys that spew out never ending war stories never saw the battles they described. Guys like Ben that did; they won't talk about what they witness. I've asked, and all Ben would tell me was "before I pass on, I'll tell ya." I've never pushed it, figuring if and when he wants to, he would.

But there is one thing that Ben will talk about—politics. Oh, he loved to talk politics. If you needed a simple repair on a three-point hitch, something that should take twenty minutes, and if the democrats did something Ben didn't take kindly to, well, that twenty-minute repair could take two, perhaps three hours.

Sure enough, within minutes Ben tried like mad to draw me into a debate with him about what the current administration was doing in the White House. I've learned a long time ago to just agree with Ben, as a full one-on-one argument about politics would be fruitless. I'd lose.

I guess an hour had passed when Aliana began to tire. She curled into a chair, pulled her knees up to her chest, then wiggled her toes at the warm flames of the fire.

Suddenly, Aliana jumped up and pointed at the sky. "Walter, look!" she said as her fingers rose above her head.

Ben and I looked up. The sky filled with the prismatic hues of colors that varied from deep purple to hazy blues. They were gorgeous. The light appeared to cover the entire sky. It appeared like a luminous cloud that drifted on winds we couldn't feel. Only the brightest of stars dare poke their light though. An indescribable softness and delicacy seemed to envelop everything.

"The Aurora Borealis," I said. My voice had a tone of urgency in it. Seeing the Aurora this far south was highly unusual. Out and out rare as a matter of fact. The Aurora didn't just show up in spotty patches across the sky. No, from horizon-to-horizon the sky looked like it was on fire.

Aliana's eyes dilated in the dim light. "They're beautiful. I've never seen anything like it before. What did you call them?"

I reached out and took her hand into mine. "They have had many names throughout history. We call them the Aurora Borealis after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas."

Ben sat in his chair, and watched the sky shimmer in liquid colors, but never said a word.

"Oh, Walter, they seem magical," Aliana said.

We heard Ben's chair creak. He pulled his pipe from his mouth then he reached down and tapped the bowl against the heel of his boot. A cloud of un-burnt tobacco flashed into an orange flame then as quickly as they ignited, they fell to the ground as a scattered pile of ash.

Ben reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small white envelope full of tobacco. He stuffed the pipe's bowl full and pressed it down with his thumb.

"I've seen 'em before but not like tonight. This ain't right," Ben said while he reached for his lighter. He flipped the top of his Zippo open and flicked the flint wheel a few times with his thumb before the fire took life. The orange flames danced on the top of the lighter, and Ben's eyes followed the flicking light for several seconds.

"That ain't right." Ben drew on his pipe sucking the flames down into the bowl. A large puff of apple scented smoke whiffed pass our heads. We heard the snap of the lighter as it closed. Ben leaned away from his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. He shook his head.

"Damn it, Walter, you know something is wrong."

"Ben," I said trying to calm his jitters, "we're just starting solar cycle twenty-seven. Mr. Sun is just blowing his nose at us. That's all. My ham radios haven't been working either. Too much solar activity right now."

Aliana sat back down, her eyes still watching the sky.

Ben shook his head. His boots scratched at the gravel. I tried to appease his demons. "Ben, charged particles from the sun collide with our magnetosphere. It's kind of like a force field. The Earth's magnetic field directs them into our atmosphere. It's just basic physics."