When the Days Grow Short

Chapter 5
Finger Food

Chapter Description: Four meals are waiting at the table. Only one arrives without a fork—and nobody else seems to think that was a mistake.

The table stood beneath an orange canvas canopy at the edge of Harvest Row. Wind worried at its sides, making the fabric snap softly overhead.

Four cardboard trays occupied the weathered boards.

Sophie had a bowl of pumpkin soup and half a grilled-cheese sandwich. Hannah’s tray held a baked potato split beneath sour cream, chives and cheese. Nate had chosen a bratwurst on a dark roll with mustard and sauerkraut.

In front of the empty place sat a shallow cardboard boat filled with sliced sausage, fries, curry ketchup and a scattering of fried onions.

Dan stopped several feet away.

Nate rose halfway from the bench.

“You all right?”

The question was ordinary. His tone was not. It contained too much care and none of the laughter Dan expected.

Dan became acutely aware of the way he was standing: feet separated around the padding, Hannah’s hand holding his, her handbag and the clear sack of wet clothes hanging from her other arm.

“I’m fine.”

Nate’s gaze moved toward Hannah.

She nodded once.

Dan saw it.

Neither explained what the nod meant.

Sophie shifted her soup aside and made space beside her. Hannah guided Dan toward the bench, but when he began sitting at the end, she touched his waist and moved him a little farther inward.

“Here.”

Dan changed direction without asking why.

His knees met the edge of the bench. Hannah placed one hand between his shoulder blades and the other briefly at his hip, steering him until he was properly aligned with the open place.

“Sit.”

He lowered himself.

The padding compressed beneath him.

Dan stopped halfway down.

Its soft bulk spread against the wooden seat, pushing upward around him. Plastic crackled distinctly beneath the cotton overalls. Heat gathered at once where his weight sealed everything closer to his body.

He looked toward Nate.

Nate was taking his seat again, apparently occupied with arranging his napkin.

Hannah applied gentle pressure to Dan’s shoulder.

“Go on.”

Dan sat fully.

The garment settled beneath him with another dry rustle. Its shape kept him slightly raised from the bench, although perhaps he only imagined that. His overalls pulled tight across his waist. The large printed apple pressed flat against whatever he was wearing underneath.

Hannah sat beside him.

Only then did Dan realize she had placed him between herself and Sophie.

The two women occupied either side of him. Nate sat opposite.

Dan looked at the food.

“What is this?”

“Bratwurst and fries,” Nate said. “You liked it at that Christmas market.”

Dan remembered. They had eaten from paper trays in freezing rain while Hannah and Sophie shopped for ornaments. He had liked it.

He stared at the sausage pieces soaked in curry sauce.

“Thanks.”

Nate nodded.

Again, no joke.

The absence of one made the skin at the back of Dan’s neck prickle.

He removed his coat. The movement caused the padding to shift against him. A small pocket of cooler air entered somewhere near his waist, briefly relieving the heat before the garment resettled.

Hannah took the coat from him before he found somewhere to put it. She folded it and placed it beside her.

Dan tugged the hem of his sweater free from the front of the overalls. It had become caught along the top of the thick waistband underneath. His fingers encountered something softly ridged and unfamiliar.

He paused.

There was a faint smell.

Not strong. Nothing anyone across the table should detect. A ghost of the sour, acrid scent from the maze remained trapped somewhere close to him, emerging whenever the garment moved.

Perhaps Hannah had not cleaned him properly.

Or perhaps the smell was only in his nose now, remembered so vividly that his body recreated it.

Dan slid two fingers farther beneath the sweater.

Hannah caught his wrist.

“Leave it.”

He looked at her.

“Something’s folded.”

“I fixed it in the bathroom.”

“It feels weird.”

“I know.”

She drew his hand away and placed it on the table beside his food.

Her fingers rested over his for a moment, holding it there.

Dan looked down at their hands.

He could have pulled free. Instead he waited until Hannah released him.

Sophie tore a piece from her sandwich and dipped it into the soup.

“We thought we’d lost both of you.”

Dan’s face warmed.

“The maze was badly marked.”

“It was,” Sophie agreed immediately.

That immediate agreement was unbearable. She did not tease him about his navigation. She did not mention that she and Nate had reached the exit without difficulty. She offered him the excuse whole.

Dan shifted on the bench.

Heat had begun accumulating inside his new underwear. The padding was dry, he thought, but there was no airflow through it. Warmth clung to his skin. Moisture gathered without any obvious source, turning the clean softness faintly humid.

He moved one leg outward.

The garment followed, rubbing heavily between his thighs.

Sophie glanced down at the movement.

Dan brought his knees together.

That was worse. The padding compressed into a single dense ridge, forcing his legs apart again.

Hannah reached beneath the table and placed a hand on his knee.

“Comfortable?”

He did not know how to answer.

“I think so.”

Her hand guided his knee slightly to the side, adjusting the angle at which he sat. The pressure beneath him eased.

“There.”

She returned to her potato.

Dan remained exactly where she had positioned him.

He picked up one of the fries.

Curry ketchup coated his fingertips.

Only then did he notice that everyone else had cutlery.

Hannah had a wooden fork. Sophie had a spoon. Nate had a knife for the bratwurst, although he was mostly eating the roll with his hands.

Dan looked around his tray.

There was no fork.

“Nate.”

Nate looked up.

“Did you forget something?”

Nate checked the table. “What?”

Dan gestured toward the tray.

For a moment, Nate seemed not to understand.

Then his eyes settled on Dan’s sauce-covered fingers.

“Oh. Fork.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry. I thought they put one in.”

Dan looked toward the food wagon. The queue now curled around one side of it.

Nate started to rise.

Sophie touched his arm. “Sit down. You’ve only just got your food.”

“I can get it,” Dan said.

Three faces turned toward him.

The words had come out more forcefully than intended.

He pushed against the bench to stand.

The padding bunched beneath him. His knees struck the underside of the table, rattling every tray.

Soup rippled over the edge of Sophie’s bowl.

Dan dropped back onto the seat.

“Careful,” Hannah said.

“I’m fine.”

Sophie wiped the soup from the table.

Nate looked toward the queue, then at Dan’s tray.

“The sausage is already cut up. Just use your fingers for now.”

Dan stared at him.

Nate had said it reasonably. There was nothing inherently juvenile about eating fries or sliced sausage by hand at an outdoor food court.

Still, everyone else had utensils.

“I’ll get one,” Dan said.

Hannah moved his tray closer.

“Your food will get cold.”

The matter appeared settled.

Dan took another fry.

The curry ketchup was sticky and warm. It gathered beneath his nails. Fried onions clung to his fingertips. He ate carefully at first, pinching each piece and leaning over the tray to avoid dripping onto the green bib.

The bench shifted whenever someone sat at the far end. Each vibration travelled through the wooden plank and into the padding beneath him, reminding him of its shape.

He adjusted himself again.

The plastic answered too loudly.

Hannah glanced over.

Dan pretended to reach for another piece of sausage.

It slipped from his fingers and fell against the front of his overalls, leaving a red-brown streak below the bib.

He stared at it.

Sophie passed Hannah a napkin.

Not him.

Hannah wiped the sauce from his clothes.

Dan held himself very still while she rubbed at the stain.

“It’s fine,” he muttered.

“It’ll set.”

“I can do it.”

She gave him the napkin.

He scrubbed at the mark. The motion drove his elbow against the tray, jolting several fries over the edge.

One landed in his lap.

Dan snatched it up.

Ketchup smeared across his palm and the inside of his wrist.

Nate looked down at his own food.

Sophie took a long sip of water.

Hannah quietly pulled the tray farther from the edge.

Dan’s chest tightened.

Nobody was laughing.

He wished they would.

If Nate made a joke, Dan could call him an asshole. If Sophie grinned, he could accuse her of enjoying this too much. If Hannah teased him, he could remind her of the time she spilled an entire glass of red wine down a white dress.

Their careful silence left him alone with the sticky mess on his hands and the warm padded garment concealed beneath his clothes.

He ate faster.

The sausage pieces were awkwardly slick. One broke between his fingers. Curry sauce streaked his thumb and index finger. He licked it away without thinking, then saw Sophie watching him.

She smiled faintly and looked back at her soup.

Dan reached for a cluster of fries. Three fell back into the tray. One dropped onto the table. His fingers no longer seemed capable of separating what he wanted from everything touching it.

A dollop of ketchup landed near the corner of his mouth.

Hannah saw.

She lifted her napkin.

Dan leaned away. “Don’t.”

“You’ve got sauce.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The smear widened across his cheek.

Hannah sighed very softly.

“Dan.”

“What?”

She turned toward him. One hand settled at the back of his head, not gripping, only preventing him from retreating farther. With the other, she wiped his mouth and cheek.

Dan looked past her shoulder.

A family at the next table was preparing to leave. The mother helped a small boy into his coat while the father cleaned the face of an older child with a damp tissue.

The boy wore the same green apple overalls.

Dan closed his eyes.

Hannah cleaned beneath his lower lip.

“All done.”

He opened them again.

Her face was close. She smelled like maple coffee and the lavender lotion she used at home. For a moment, the embarrassment loosened beneath something familiar.

Dan placed his sticky hand against her thigh and leaned toward her.

He wanted her to kiss him properly. He wanted a single gesture that restored the ordinary relationship between them—that confirmed she was still his girlfriend and he was still the man she had driven two hours to spend the day with.

Hannah’s expression softened.

She intercepted his hand before it reached farther up her leg.

“Sticky.”

She wiped his fingers one by one.

Dan remained angled toward her.

When she finished, she pressed a kiss to his temple.

Then she turned back to her potato.

The disappointment was so immediate that he could not disguise it even from himself.

He looked down at his tray.

Most of the food remained.

He no longer wanted it.

Beneath the table, his hand drifted toward the front of the overalls. He pressed lightly, trying to understand the layers between his palm and his body. The cotton yielded first. Beneath it, the padded garment gave with a faint papery compression.

Warm.

Dry, perhaps.

He could not be certain.

The humidity inside made every surface feel suspect. For one horrible second, the acrid scent returned more clearly. Dan’s stomach dropped.

Had something happened again?

He had felt nothing.

His fingers pressed harder.

Hannah removed his hand.

She did it without looking away from Sophie, who was describing a baby name Nate had already vetoed. Hannah simply reached beneath the table, enclosed Dan’s wrist and drew his hand back into view.

She placed it beside his tray.

A moment later, it drifted down again.

This time Sophie noticed.

“Dan.”

He looked at her.

Her gaze flicked meaningfully toward his hand.

Dan realized where it was.

He pulled it away at once, mortified.

“I was adjusting the overalls.”

“Leave them alone,” Hannah said. “They’re sitting properly.”

He looked from one woman to the other.

Neither appeared embarrassed by the exchange. Sophie returned to her soup. Hannah ate another bite of potato.

Only Dan’s face burned.

He pushed the food around with one finger.

Across from him, Nate finished his bratwurst and wiped mustard from his hands. His eyes remained lowered, but Dan had the strange impression that he was deliberately giving him privacy.

That, too, was unbearable.

A gust lifted the canvas above them. Cold air swept beneath the table and struck Dan’s ankles. The chill sharpened the warmth around his hips. The contrast made the padding seem larger, sealing him inside its own humid pocket.

He shifted again.

Hannah’s hand returned to his knee.

“Stay still.”

“I’m uncomfortable.”

“What hurts?”

“Nothing hurts.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Dan could not say.

The garment was too warm. Too thick. Too loud. It smelled faintly wrong even though Hannah had called him clean. It touched him everywhere and belonged nowhere in the version of himself he understood.

He looked toward the distant car park.

“I want to go home.”

The other three became quiet.

Nate folded his napkin.

“We’ve still got most of the farm.”

Dan stared at him.

“We can come back.”

“It’s a two-hour drive.”

“So?”

Sophie’s hand moved to her stomach. “I don’t really want to spend another four hours in the car today.”

Guilt reached Dan through the fog.

Of course she didn’t. She was pregnant. The entire trip had partly been planned for her—a calm autumn day before the weather worsened, before everything became appointments and preparations and the arrival of a child.

He looked down.

“I know.”

Hannah rubbed his knee once with her thumb.

“We’ll take it easy.”

Dan did not remember agreeing.

Somehow the discussion ended there.

Hannah asked whether he had finished. When he nodded, she collected his tray even though half the food remained. She wiped his hands again, cleaning ketchup from beneath his nails and between his fingers. Dan watched her do it without resistance.

Nate carried the empty trays to the bins.

Sophie studied the map.

“The pumpkin field and haunted barn are all the way over here.”

She pointed to the far side of the farm.

Dan leaned closer, but the map seemed busier than before. Orange paths looped around illustrated barns and fields. He could not identify where they were sitting.

“How far is it?” Hannah asked.

“Fifteen-minute walk, maybe.”

Sophie looked at Dan.

“Can you manage that?”

He blinked.

“You’re the one who’s pregnant.”

The old response rose automatically, carrying a trace of his usual humour. He expected them to laugh.

Sophie only smiled.

“I know.”

Her eyes moved briefly toward his overalls.

Dan followed the glance. His clean hands lay on either side of the bib. The green fabric puffed faintly around his waist where it could not settle flat over the concealed padding.

Nate returned.

“There’s a hayride leaving from behind the cider barn. It goes straight to the far field.”

The solution was accepted instantly.

Nobody asked whether Dan wanted to walk.

Hannah stood first. She picked up his coat and held it open behind him.

Dan remained seated until she touched his shoulder.

“Up.”

He put both hands on the bench and pushed.

The padding released from the wood with a soft crinkle. Its warm shape settled heavily between his legs as he stood.

His right hand moved toward it again.

Hannah caught his fingers halfway there and redirected his arm into the coat sleeve.

“One arm.”

Dan obeyed.

She drew the coat around his shoulders, then turned him slightly and guided his other arm into place. Her hands straightened the collar, closed the zipper and tugged the hem down over the apple on his backside.

“There.”

She took his hand.

Dan looked at their joined fingers, then across at Nate, who was helping Sophie rise from the bench.

That at least appeared normal: a husband helping his pregnant wife.

Then Sophie was standing steadily on her own, while Hannah kept hold of Dan as they started toward the hayride.

The new underwear rustled beneath his overalls.

A little hot.

A little humid.

Still carrying, every few steps, the ghost of what had happened in the maze.

Dan tried not to think about it.

Hannah’s fingers tightened whenever his attention drifted and his pace began to slow, guiding him onward through the crowd.