The Summer He Counted Her Steps

Chapter One: The Wheat Field

Jack left Manhattan for his grandfather’s Ohio farm in June. The farm had been empty for five years. The cornfield fence had rusted. But the wheat still grew—hard red winter wheat, planted before the old man died, never harvested, left to itself.

Jack stayed in the wooden cabin on the east side. The clock on the wall had stopped. A 1978 calendar hung beside it: June showed a black-and-white cow.

He fished. He took apart an old shotgun. He fixed the fence. He pushed a mower through the weeds for two hours. On the tenth day, near dusk, he stood at the cabin door and watched a white egret lift off from the wheat field. It beat its wings, and the sound came back flat across the open ground.

He thought of Lucy. She ate ice cream at midnight, barefoot, spoon scraping the bowl. He used to hate that sound. But he couldn’t remember her face now. He only remembered a scar on her knee—from a bike crash when she was six, like a faded coin.

He started walking the village roads. Ohio heat could blister your neck by noon, but evenings turned cool fast. He wore faded jeans and rubber shoes without socks. He walked toward the pond.

On the fourth evening, he found Emily.

She was nineteen, home from the state university for the summer. Agricultural economics. She lived at the end of the village in a white house with blue-gray peeling paint. When he first saw her, she was kneeling by the creek, washing her hands, parting mint leaves with wet fingers.

Jack snapped a dry twig as he passed. She looked up.

“You’re the city cousin,” she said.

“Jack.”

“Emily.”

She didn’t smile. She stood, brushed a mint leaf off her knee, and tossed it into the water. It floated away.

“Cutting grass?” he asked.

“Sheep feed.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

She didn’t answer. She picked up her basket and moved ahead. The blue skirt clung to her legs in the evening wind. Jack followed, counting her steps. Left foot pressed deeper than right—old knee injury, or habit.

They came to a low spot where the wheat field dipped into a shallow basin. A reddish horse stood near a power pole, tail swishing at flies.

“You cut,” Jack said. “I’ll rest.”

He sat on a stump and rubbed his ankle.

Emily set down her basket and bent over the grass. When she bent, her collar fell open—a white collarbone, the upper curve of one breast, a cotton bra. She pulled a bundle, straightened up, and wiped her face. She saw him watching. His hand was on his ankle, but his eyes were not.

She didn’t adjust her collar. She bent again.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

Jack didn’t answer. The question didn’t need one.

She stood, filled her basket, and walked toward him. Stopped two steps away. Looked at his ankle.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

She crouched and touched it. Her fingers were cold, like well water. She pressed, once, twice.

“Your heart’s fast,” she said.

“Your hand is cold.”

“The first night you arrived, I watched you from my window. You stood at your door looking at the moon. Forty minutes. Then you went inside and turned off the light.”

“You were watching?”

“I pulled my curtain wide open. I wanted to see when you turned off the light.”

She picked up her basket and started back. Jack followed.

The wind carried mint and horse urine. At her back fence, she stopped.

“Same time tomorrow,” she said.

“Yes.”

Chapter Two: The Depression

Emily wore shorts and a white T-shirt the next day. Two tanned legs, no scars. A small mole inside her left knee.

They walked to the ridge. From there they could see the whole village: blue roofs, chimneys, corncobs drying on fence posts, the church cross.

She crossed a wheat patch, bent, touched a stalk. “Your grandfather planted this.”

“How do you know?”

“My dad said. He said your grandfather tapped his pipe ash at the end of each row—he didn’t like the wheat to just stop. He wanted it to keep going.”

Jack had never noticed the ash.

Emily stood. A wheat awn had scratched her forehead—a thin red line, like a lip print.

“You’ve got something on your mouth,” he said.

She licked her lips. “Kernel.”

He stepped closer and lifted her chin with one finger. She blinked. He wiped the kernel off her lower lip with his thumb. Her lip trembled.

“Scared?”

“No. Just not ready.”

“For what?”

“To know what to say when you touch me.”

He pulled back. His left hand was a fist, nails in his palm. Lucy used to tell him he’d cut himself that way.

“Let’s go,” he said.

She didn’t move.

“Jack,” she said, first time she used his name. “Do you look at me the way you look at a flower by the road?”

“No.”

“Then how?”

He didn’t answer.

She turned her back to him.

“Lift my skirt,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you how long I watched you that night.”

She pulled her T-shirt up to her chest. Her lower back was sun-baked, oat-colored. A red line from her bra strap.

Jack stood behind her. The wind lifted the hair on her neck. He put his hand on her waist, through the T-shirt.

“Tell me without lifting it.”

She turned around. She looked at him—not disappointed, just waiting.

“Forty-three minutes,” she said. “Then you turned off the light. I could still see your cigarette glow for three more minutes. Then it went dark.”

He put his hands in his pockets.

“Walk you back,” he said.

They walked shoulder to shoulder, a fist apart. At the crooked elm, she stopped. Put down the basket. Bent to tie her shoe. The shoe was already tied. She untied it and retied it.

“I told you,” she said. “I wasn’t ready. I take time.”

She stood up. Her forehead almost touched his chin.

He kissed her.

His left hand went to the back of her head. Her hair smelled of mugwort and soap. She grabbed the front of his shirt, bunching the fabric.

Twenty seconds.

She stepped back.

“You’re hard,” she said.

“You’re wet.”

She flushed—cheeks, neck, collarbone. She pulled something from her pocket: a dried mint leaf taped to a scrap of paper.

“Picked it by your door yesterday. I kept it.”

He took it. The leaf was brittle, edges curled.

“You carried it all day?”

“In my pocket. Touches my leg when I walk.”

He put it in his own pocket.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Somewhere no one goes.”

She nodded and walked back.

Eight steps out, she turned.

“Jack.”

“Yeah.”

“Your fingers were shaking when you kissed me.”

She left before he answered.

Chapter Three: The Haystack

The threshing yard lay west of the village, abandoned. Three stacks of sun-dried wheat straw sat like small buildings. Wind whispered through the dry stalks.

Emily climbed the left stack. She stepped onto a crate, grabbed a rope, and pulled herself up.

“Coming?”

Jack slipped twice. She grabbed his wrist—thin but strong—and hauled him up. They fell together into the straw.

They lay face to face, a handful of loose straw between them. She turned onto her side, face in the straw, breathed, then rolled onto her back.

“When I was little, I slept on these stacks all summer. Dad brought dinner to the bottom. I ate up here.”

“Dreams?”

“Wheat walked. Lined up and walked from the field to my front door. Asked if I wanted to come.”

“What did you say?”

“Yes.”

Jack leaned over her. Her skirt had slid up her thighs. A thin red scratch from the straw. She didn’t cover it.

He touched the mole above her knee. Her skin tightened.

“What did you do last night after you got home?”

“Watched your cabin. Light on until ten-thirty. Then you put a cigarette on the windowsill.”

“How do you know?”

“Dad’s binoculars.”

“You watched me through binoculars?”

“You sat on the sill. Held the cigarette, didn’t light it. Looked at the wheat. Then you broke it and threw it into the empty flowerpot. Your grandfather used to grow mint there.”

He took her hand, placed it on his chest. She pressed.

“Heart’s fast,” she said.

“So is yours.”

“That’s a beetle,” she said. “On my shoe.”

He looked. A dark brown beetle sat on her shoe rim. He flicked it off.

“Now it’s you,” she said.

He kissed her again. This time her tongue met his—exploratory, a little awkward. She touched his upper palate, then pulled back, then came back to his canine.

He unbuttoned her first button. Plastic, round, tight. His finger slid across her collarbone—salt and damp. Second. Third. The blue skirt opened.

She sat up and unhooked her bra behind her with one twist of the clasp.

Her breasts hung full, nipples pointed slightly up. Deep pink areolae, darker than her skin.

He didn’t touch at first. He watched her breathing.

“You’ve touched other women?”

“Yes.”

“You want to touch me?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not?”

He didn’t answer. He remembered Lucy, waking up to find him turned away, pulling the curtain open without a word, walking into the bathroom.

He didn’t want Emily to do that.

He placed his right palm under her left breast, fingers spread. He could cover it completely. His thumb brushed the nipple base. It stiffened.

“Your hand’s steady now,” she said.

He pressed his thumb on the nipple. It hardened, darkened.

“I’ll take your skirt off now.”

“Take it off.”

He pulled it down to her thighs. She didn’t lift her hips; he slid a hand under her waist, raised her, eased it off.

Gray cotton panties, waistband loose, a loose thread.

“There’s a wet patch in the middle,” he said.

“I know.”

He hooked his fingers under the waistband and pulled. She lifted one leg. The panties came off.

She lay bare from the waist down, legs apart. Sparse dark brown hair, soft.

He pulled his own pants off. His penis sprang up, tip already wet, a clear drop on one vein.

She looked at it. “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Is it yours?”

“Mine.”

“Does it listen to you?”

“Sometimes.”

She reached out and touched the tip with one finger. Light, like plucking mint. She looked at the clear fluid on her finger.

“So slippery.”

He wrapped her hand around it. Her small hand covered only half.

“Now it listens to you,” he said.

She pinched the very tip between two fingers, twisted—like the stem of a ripe tomato.

“Put it in.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

She fell back into the straw. Legs bent, knees up, feet planted. Her labia parted, pink and wet, opening and closing with her breath.

He knelt between her legs. He bent and kissed the inside of her thigh. She tensed. He kissed higher. Her breath short and quick.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“I am ahead.”

He eased the glans in—just the rim. Her walls closed around him, warm and wet.

“Hurt?”

“No.”

He pushed half an inch. She lifted her chin. “Full.”

Another inch. The corona was inside, gripped by her tightest ring.

He stopped.

“Can I move?”

“Don’t ask. Move.”

He thrust slowly. Each withdrawal met a contraction. Each insertion arched her back.

Twenty strokes. She opened her eyes.

“Your face—like you’re doing math.”

“What math?”

“Every time you go in, you calculate how much to pull out.”

He laughed. Slowed down. Touched her clitoris. She jerked.

She didn’t speak. Her legs spread wider.

He increased pace. The rustle of straw, the slap of bodies, their breath—all trapped inside the hollow.

A minute. She grabbed his forearm.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“I feel something—not pee, not—I can’t—”

“You’re about to come.”

He thrust again. Deep. Her walls contracted. Her whole body tensed. One second. Then a short cut cry—“Oh”—and her lower half trembled. Inner thighs visible.

He came at the same moment. He didn’t pull out. He emptied inside her. His penis pulsed against her walls.

She lay still, eyes closed. Half a minute. Opened them.

“You came inside.”

“Yes.”

“Will I get pregnant?”

“Safe period?”

“I don’t know what that means. Down there I feel a big warm lump, running down.”

She looked. Semen seeped from her, down her thigh to the straw. She dipped a finger and brought it to her nose.

“Smells like lye.”

“Ever smelled it before?”

“No. Guess.”

They lay in the straw. Sun going down. The church bell rang once, stopped.

“Jack.”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Four: The River

The creek ran three meters wide, water clear, pebbles smooth as a child’s fist on the bottom.

They stood waist-deep. The current pulled at their legs.

Emily waded in first. Her blue skirt floated on the surface like an inverted flower. She bent and scooped up a stone—a brown wavy line across it, like a fish.

“Look,” she said.

Jack waded over. The water reached his waist. He took the stone from her hand, covered her fingers. Cold water, warm hand.

“Keep it,” he said.

“For me?”

“Yeah.”

She put it in her skirt pocket. The pocket soaked through; she didn’t care.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, hands under her armpits, cupping her breasts. The wet skirt clung. He rubbed her nipples through the fabric. They stiffened.

“Does that always happen?”

“Only when you touch.”

He rolled the skirt up to her chest. Exposed wet waist. Bent and kissed the back of her neck. She tilted her head up, neck arched.

His hand slid inside her skirt waist. Through the panties she was soaked.

He pulled the panties down. She lifted one leg, let them go. The current took them.

He entered from behind. Awkward in shallow water, but she braced against a rock, bent over, lifted her hips. He slid in below the waterline. The water swallowed the sound.

Eight minutes. No climax. Current too fast, too slippery.

“Legs cramping,” she said.

They came out and lay on the grass. The sun dried them. Salt crystals on their skin. She flicked an ant off her foot with a stalk of foxtail.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Five: The Cabin

From the fourth day on, they met every day, but not at the haystack or the river.

Emily came to the cabin.

She stood at the door, scanning the room. “Cleaner than your grandfather left it.”

“I cleaned.”

“For four days?” She touched the copper pipe on the table. “My dad said your grandfather never used a lighter. Matches. Scraped them on his shoe. There’s a scratch here.”

She pointed to the stool leg. Seven or eight horizontal scratches.

Jack looked at her. She knew the place better than he did.

They moved from the floor to the bed to the kitchen counter. Her blue skirt hung over the stopped clock, hem dangling.

Once, afterward, she lay on her stomach on the bed, chin on the pillow, coiling his hair around her finger.

“Ever thought about staying?”

“No.”

“What if I asked you to stay?”

He reached for the water glass on the nightstand. It was empty. He put it back.

“Would you?”

“Ask you to stay?”

“You ask me to stay.”

She buried her face in the pillow. Muffled: “I already said.”

“What did you say?”

“I said—tomorrow?”

Chapter Six: The Dinner

Emily’s father invited Jack to dinner.

Cornbread, roasted potatoes, chicken soup with carrots and celery. Her father sat at the head, drinking cider, glancing between them.

“You two are spending time together.”

“She likes fishing,” Jack said.

“She never fished before.”

“She caught a bass yesterday.”

Emily stirred her soup. Didn’t speak.

Her father set down his glass. “Your grandfather used to fish. Sat by the pond at dusk. Cast his line. Waited until dark. Never caught a thing.”

“He wasn’t fishing for fish.”

“What then?”

“For himself.”

The old man smiled—cold. “You talk like him. Say one thing, mean another.”

He went to the kitchen, refilled his glass, spoke with his back turned.

“Your grandfather told me once: he spent an afternoon with a woman in the barn when he was young. He said it wasn’t love. It was impulse. But after that, he learned to tell the difference.”

He turned around. Set the glass down. Looked at the table, not at them.

“You understand?”

Jack nodded.

Emily touched his ankle under the table with her shoe. A reminder. A confirmation.

Chapter Seven: The Warning

The next evening they sat on the ridge, knees almost touching, a basket of blackberries between them. She bit one. Juice stained her lip.

“My dad asked me a strange question this morning.”

“What?”

“He asked: Do you think your cousin will ever marry you?”

Jack squeezed a blackberry. Juice wet his fingers.

“I said I never thought about it.”

“Was he angry?”

“He said: Good. You’re not at marriageable age yet. I’m not ready to be a grandfather.”

She said it flat, like weather.

“Jack,” she said, “he said impulse is different from something else. Which one do you think we are?”

Jack stood, brushed off his pants.

“I don’t know. But I know it’s not impulse.”

“Then what is it?”

He reached down, took her hand, pulled her up. The blackberry she was holding fell into the grass and disappeared.

“It’s,” he said, “forty-three minutes.”

Chapter Eight: The Crack

Eleventh day.

A call came through on Jack’s phone—Lucy. Asked when he was coming back. She had his mail. A letter from the tax office.

He hung up. Emily stood in the doorway. Hadn’t knocked.

“Who was that?”

“Ex-girlfriend.”

“What did she want?”

“Mail.”

“Your ex-girlfriend collects your mail?”

“She has a key to my apartment. Lives next door.”

“She has your key.”

“Yes.”

She stood at the door, one hand on the frame, one foot inside, one out.

“So you have someone in New York with a key who collects your mail.”

“I’m here on vacation.”

“Vacation.”

She turned and left.

He caught up at the wheat field. “Emily.”

She slowed but didn’t stop.

“I never lied to you,” he said.

She stopped. Turned. Wind blew her hair across her mouth.

“You didn’t lie,” she said. “But you didn’t tell me anything. You said you didn’t know if it was impulse or something else. But you knew you had an apartment. A key. Someone who collects your mail. You just didn’t say it.”

He stood there. Wheat rolled behind him like pages.

“Tomorrow?”

He didn’t answer.

She walked away. Thirty steps. Stopped. Raised her voice.

“If I said I don’t care you have that key—but I wish you hadn’t taken that call in front of me. Can you tell the difference?”

She left.

Chapter Nine: Going Back

That night Jack didn’t go to Emily. He sat on the windowsill. Cigarette unlit. Held it. Snapped it in two. Threw it into the flowerpot.

Next morning he met her father at the fence.

The old man was mending with a spade. He didn’t stop working.

“You two had a fight?”

“She said some things. I haven’t answered yet.”

“She said some things too.” He straightened up. Wiped his brow. “Her eyes were swollen this morning. My wife said she cried last night.”

Jack reached to steady a loose rail. The old man moved his hand away.

“My daughter doesn’t pick men well. First one worked at the gas station. Married. Second one studied veterinary. Afraid of dogs. You’re the third one I’ve seen her bring into the wheat field.”

He pushed the spade back into the earth.

“I want you to know she chose you with open eyes. She chose you as someone she’s willing to wait for. You understand what that means?”

Jack nodded.

The old man went back to work.

Jack turned and walked to the pond. Emily sat on the slope, a basket of blackberries in front of her. She wasn’t eating. She was looking at the basket.

He sat beside her, a fist apart.

“I didn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.”

“About the key. The mail. What I didn’t say.”

She touched the largest blackberry.

“I don’t have the key anymore.”

“What?”

“I gave the key to Lucy’s friend. Asked him to pass it to her. Told her to change the lock.”

She turned to look at him.

“Changed the lock?”

“Yes.”

“Then how does she get your mail?”

“Forward it.”

She touched the blackberry again. Pulled her hand back.

“Still angry?”

“No. But one question.”

“Ask.”

“I passed your cabin just now. The flowerpot on the windowsill—there was a broken cigarette in it. You broke it.”

“Yes.”

“When are you going to plant mint?”

He thought. “Tomorrow.”

She took the largest blackberry and handed it to him.

“Plant this. Blackberries live longer.”

Chapter Ten: The Goodbye

Last day.

Jack packed his backpack: clothes, an old canteen, a worn book—Field Crop Protection Manual.

Emily stood at the door. Didn’t enter.

“Three o’clock train,” he said.

She nodded. Leaned against the frame. Watched him zip up.

He slung the pack over his shoulder. She shifted to let him pass.

They walked through the wheat field. Past the pond. Past the elm.

At the old oak she stopped.

“Here.”

He put down the pack.

He touched the hair behind her ear—the same place his fingers had gone that first night on the haystack.

“You’re the first person I’ve met who made time feel like it moved and nothing changed.”

She blinked. Took his hand, turned it over, traced his palm line.

“Will you come back?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

He thought. “Next summer. Or winter. Or the spring after that. But I’ll come.”

She let go. Stepped back. Pulled the stone from her pocket—the fish-shaped one from the river.

“Take it.”

“Why?”

“If it stays with me, I’ll always feel you’re still here. If I give it to you, I’ll stop thinking.”

He took the stone. Put it in his pocket.

He bent and kissed her forehead—brief, like a stamp.

He picked up the pack and walked toward the village exit.

Forty steps. He turned.

She stood under the oak, hands in her pockets, blue skirt lifting, an old oak leaf at her feet.

She didn’t wave.

Her lips moved.

He couldn’t hear it, but he knew what she said.

He turned and kept walking. The stone pressed warm against his thigh.

Afterword: One Year Later

Jack moved to a new apartment in New York. On the balcony he planted mint in his grandfather’s old flowerpot—the one he’d brought from Ohio. The rim had chipped on the way.

The mint grew.

One autumn night he stood on the balcony, looking at the lights across the street. He remembered Emily’s question—the one about whether he’d stay standing if she stayed standing.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the stone.

He placed it in the flowerpot, beside the mint.

Back inside, he opened his laptop and booked a train ticket to Grantville, Ohio. For next summer.

He didn’t text her. He saved the screenshot, put the phone on the table, and went to the kitchen. Boiled water. Cooked noodles.

As the water rose, he remembered her stove—the iron pot, the black ring around the rim. The way she lifted it to toss, her arm pulsing.

He ate the noodles.

The mint on the balcony swayed in the night wind.