“Well, that was awkward,” Mason says, regarding Leona through half-mast eyes.
Leona laughs, “Was it?” She hadn’t been prepared to see Katie, and she doesn’t really want to talk about the encounter.
But Mason does. “Leona, Tom is going to be totally fine. Totally. And Katie’s not blaming you for a second for what Maya did to her dad. You gotta know that.”
“Maybe so,” Leona says. “I just don’t know. Everything’s different now.” A new silence descends, the animals having moved farther out into the pasture and away from the fence once the muffins and scones were consumed.
“You mean you’re different now.”
She looks at him in a hard way before gathering up the burlap coffee bags, the dry scratch of their fabric feeling as uncomfortable as the moment. Mason is tall, so looking at him seems to involve more effort than looking at someone her own height, and it leaves her feeling exposed. She looks away again. “I have to go.”
The swell of insect song coincides with Mason’s retort. “Well, that’s exactly what I thought you’d say,” he says. “Because you are an absolute mystery these days. And I’m worried, you know? Because you used to have spunk. And you damn sure used to have opinions.”
Leona huffs. “Of all people, you are going to be on my back about this?” He had been her friend possibly longer than anyone, besides Maya. If anyone has the right to be on her back about this, it is probably Mason. She resolves not to show it—a new skill she is cultivating. She draws her chin up slightly and puts a hand on one hip.
He counters, authoritatively. “Are you telling me nobody else has? You left school, for chrissakes. Leo, you worked so hard! What were you, like four minutes from a PhD?! You left Jeff and Cora without hardly a word. He’s broken, Leona. Tore up. And now what? You’re going to sling Maya’s coffee and hang out with your dog? When does life start over!?”
“Jeff and I have talked,” she blurts, but the sting of tears threatening stifles any elaboration. Leona feels angry, but everything Mason is saying is true. She just doesn’t have any good reasons for disappearing from life. And she can’t come clean, even with him. Not about her illness. All these admissions would require swift action. She wants the opposite. She wants a lengthy, uninterrupted, open, and unexpectant pause. On everything.
“It’s complicated, OK? And it’s all just too much, Mason,” she tries to explain. “Everyone is just so heavy-handed. Maya. Tom. Jeff. Even dad. I can’t be like that. I just…I-I just want quiet. Or something. I don’t know.”
She feels his eyes locked onto her, but to look up at him again will shatter the protective resolve. “I gotta go, Mason,” she says, more to the burlap bags than to him. The grass feels deep and entangling now, as if to lift her legs through it to walk would be met with resistance.
Mason backs down, sensing it. “No, don’t go,” he counters again. “I’m sorry, OK? Look, I get it, it’s all been a lot. You’re allowed your space. You don’t have to talk about it. I didn’t mean to be heavy-handed, like you say. We all just miss you; you know? Don’t leave. C’mon, let’s have a beer in the pasture. You can tell me all about the bugs and the weeds and shit.”
Leona doesn’t want to tell him she’s stopped drinking. She looks up at him finally, and into the bright sun at his back.
“All right. It’s all right,” she says, squinting. She drops the bags and starts up the hill. Mason follows. “I just can’t answer anyone,” she continues. “I don’t want to.” She pauses, listening to her breathing before adding, “I don’t know why she did it, OK?”
His long strides instantly put him slightly past her as they walk. He turns toward her, now. “Leona, of course, you don’t know why she did it. Don’t nobody know why, except for Maya.”
Cicadas hum a high octave all around them. Mason swats at some fruit flies in the thick summer air, looks at her intently. “I mean, why does anybody do what they do?”
Leona stops as well, smiles up at him, offering no response.
He chuckles. “See? That’s the million-dollar question, right there. The whole entire quandary, my friend.”