The Farmer's Son

Epilogue

Down a quiet country lane, under rustling oak trees, inside a one-story red and green house, in a warm kitchen with cannisters of rice and sugar and embroidered red roosters on the oven mitts, Joel and Tommy sat in the sundrenched breakfast nook under the large windows that looked out into their backyard.

"Did you get the tomatoes planted?" Joel asked, pouring two cups of steaming coffee.

"First thing I did this morning," Tommy said, buttering a thick slab of homemade bread. "April is still a little cold for them, but it should be fine."

Glancing up at the other man, Joel smiled, warm brown eyes twinkling behind clear glasses. "I remember when you couldn't keep a plastic flower alive," he said fondly. "Now look at you."

"And don't stop anytime soon," Tommy said with a meaningful look.

As Joel laughed, they heard the clank of metal from outside. "That must be the mail," Joel said, still chuckling, sliding out of his seat and vanishing down the hall.

Tommy heard him at the front door, calling out good morning to the mailman, then his footsteps coming back. "Anything good?" Tommy asked around a mouthful of bread and warm, salty butter.

"The Lindstrom's wedding invitation came," Joel said, as he sifted through the envelopes. "Some bills, grocery coupons—oh."

Third bite into his buttered bread, Tommy looked up to see Joel blink in surprise. "What is it?"

Sitting back down, Joel held up an envelope with a handwritten address. "It's from Ray."

"Oh," Tommy said, blinking.

They looked at each other, as if unsure what they should do. They still felt guilty about what they'd done, and a part of them kept expecting Ray to show up to have his revenge.

"You open it," Joel said, thrusting it out.

"It's addressed to you," Tommy said, withdrawing like it was a striking snake.

Joel hesitated, then before he could chicken out, ripped open the envelope and slid out two folded sheets of yellow paper torn from a legal pad. "It's a letter," Joel said, scanning the pages.

"What does it say?" Tommy asked uncertainly.

It read:

Dear Joel,

How are you? How's Tommy?

I'm sure you're surprised to hear from me. Maybe you won't even read this and just throw it away. But I've been thinking about you a lot lately, about us, and I realized there was a lot I never got to say, so someone suggested I write to you. She said it would give me closure. Her name is Judith, by the way, she runs the bookstore. I think you'd like her. She's getting married to my boss. Well, I guess he's not my boss anymore. I have my own farm now, with animals and a corn maze, like Big Jimm's Poultry Extravaganza, except without the lawsuits.

You remember Big Jimm's? We were there the first time I told you I loved you.

And I did love you. Maybe it wasn't the most mature love, but how could it be? I was a stupid teenager, trying to get your attention by unloading the trucks and lifting bales of hay with my shirt off. What was I thinking! But you know, I still try to show off like that for Alan.

There were lots of moments that weren't embarrassing, too. Like when you were teaching me to lasso inside the barn, and we started messing around and fell on the bags of grain, bursting the seams and spilling it everywhere. Do you remember what we did on it afterwards? Sorry, I'll stop talking about that. I can just imagine the look on Tommy's face if he reads this. But I taught Alan to lasso, too, and he told me later that that was the moment he knew he had feelings for me.