A Road To Hope | ls au

III.

Louis ties the clothesline across the side of the house and pulls on the knot twice, making sure it's tight enough. The tall grass under his feet graze his ankles and engulfs around the basket of damp sheets before he has time to hang them.

The wind is merciless, twisting the thin fabric into knots underneath Louis' grip, but he manages, and when he finishes hanging all the large pieces of cloth, they dance like flags in the morning sun.

The farm is silent, Jack is somewhere around the barn, and by the faint distant noises, he can tell that the little boy is within the sheep's' area. Harry has left about two hours ago, in an old blue truck with a good portion of vegetables and seeds in the trunk, headed south towards the nearest city.

Once a week, Harry makes those one-day trips to the civilization. He sells a few things they cultivate and buys what they can't make in the farm. Louis decides to stay back and watch out for Jack and take care of the daily chores around the farm.

It's surreal how easily Louis settled inside their hectic routine. He learned fast how to follow through with the farm's necessities, the early mornings, and the freezing nights. Louis' presence was creating deep and strong roots in the propriety's soil, without him even noticing.

Collecting eggs in the morning were already considered his task. The dusty trunk in the corner of the room had been filled with his clothes. Jack never picked up seeds without Louis by his side anymore, and his small legs would follow Louis around until he had a spare time to cut through the apples and the limes.

Even the chickens were already growing used to his presence. At night, when he went to close their fenced gate, the animals recoiled without a fail, and expected him to show up the next morning for their feeding time.

The farm lodge itself around Louis, and it could be almost considered a perfect fit. Inside Louis' chest, the farm also grew its frame, and created a safe space to be, no matter the darkness living there, the damaged years and broken sentiments. Louis felt himself healing bit by bit, at every sunrise and sunset that he was there to witness.

Jack found a place for himself inside Louis' heart, too. The little boy's soul was too big, too bright to stay in one body alone. Louis felt himself always getting lighter, weightless in the company of the child, in the silence of the task of picking seeds, or amid the noise of feeding the sheep.

Harry sneaked his way into the soldier's chest. Small gestures that proved Louis that the farmer was also a good-hearted man, a golden soul.

It's delicate, the way that Harry shows that he cares. It's like the thin dust that coats old furniture, like the fragile maroon paper that protects the cigarettes from falling out of the package.

It's the time that Harry takes to pick peppermint outside in the early morning, selecting the leaves carefully before making tea just for Louis, because he mentioned once that he missed it. It's the tenderness in which he instructs Louis to do new chores. It's in the way that he smiles at the soldier whenever he can, and when Louis smiles back, he looks like Louis himself has a spot in his heart, too.

It hit Louis the day before, when he was doing laundry in the streak of water a mile away from the farm and didn't find his uniform in the basket of clothing he had selected. It hit him when Harry told him that he had washed his uniform himself days before and put it away in his own bedroom, afraid that it might trigger Louis in some way. After that, Louis couldn't stop grinning at the mere thought of Harry and his subtle affection.

Louis washed his hat, as a grateful return, and Harry looked like Louis had hung the moon when he showed up with the clean accessory.

It's tender and delicate, like cherries' stems, the way that they are slowly getting used to one another. It's painless and effortless. Louis really can't stop smiling.