Anna could only watch through the living room windows as Titus hurdled over the fence and ran through the throng of cattle, his large body slowly disappearing until he was a mere speck in the distance. She turned to her mother-in-law, wanting to chase after the two men but knowing she wouldn't be fast enough. “Shouldn't we...do something?”
Tina put a hand up to her forehead, fixing her hair with movements that were so calm compared to the tenseness of this situation of Thrane and Titus literally almost killing each other. “Just give them some time. They usually only take about thirty minutes to an hour or so.” Tina directed a blank look to her husband. “Call the Urgent Care Department and let 'em know we'll be there in an hour.”
She was shocked. Here was an older woman who had just been screaming at her boys to stop fighting, and now that very same woman was going about as if nothing had happened. In fact, everybody but Tobias – who was busy puking into a garbage can in the kitchen – and Jane was going about it like this was no big deal.
Sure, Anna had seen it happen before, but that was when they had been adolescents and not grown men who could seriously do some damage. “Are they gonna be okay?”
Tina's eyes didn't even leave the TV. “Most likely. Trust me, dear. We've seen much worse. This one year, for Tobias's birthday, Thrane blew out the candles on the cake, and Titus took out a tire iron. Thrane threw some rocks, and they both ended up with concussions.”
“But,” she said, “they're so much bigger now!”
“Oh, don't go on telling them that, dear. It'll inflate their already gigantic egos. Besides, this isn't nearly as bad as what happened on this one Christmas.”
From there on, Anna learned all about the list of Cantrell events that had began and endured throughout all of what was going on outside. Tobias had branded Taivon with a cattle prod, Trace had strangled Thrane and had left bruises on the man's neck after his older brother had dropped Callie, and Titan had actually had to intervene one night when Titus had locked Thrane in his room and had thrown some sort of flaming fire ball inside.
“How are they still alive?” she and Jane asked at almost the same time.
“Oh, they love each other. If they didn't, I wouldn't have any sons left.”
The statement was said simply, but Anna didn't take it that way. Instead, she allowed her eyes to bypass the little kids' show on the television and scrutinize the hundreds of acres of field, waiting and watching for any sign of the two Cantrell men.
Nothing appeared. She saw the cattle, the grass, the wind, and the trees beyond, but she didn't see either Titus or Thrane. But her worry eased when Callie crawled up to her and asked her if she could teach her daddy how to braid.
“Please, Anna?” Trace pouted, sticking out his swollen lower lip – the damage most likely having been done by Titus.
She rolled her eyes and let the tension from her body release. For the next long minutes, she and Jane showed Trace how to make the french braid just tight enough to stay in place with a single hair tie but loose enough that Callie could wear it for a full twenty-four hours and not get a headache.
As Trace's long, roughened fingers combed through his daughter's hair with the most tender of strokes, Anna tried not to tear up at the thought of Titus doing this to the child inside of her. It was so easy to see him blowing raspberries on the baby's stomach, brushing his or her hair, and kissing the child every, single night like the father Anna knew he would be.
She didn't let herself think about what would happen after they got the divorce and she moved into a different house or – if she was lucky – got to keep her own house that was so close to Titus's. Clearing the depressing thoughts from her head, Anna went back to instruct the father on another braid, talking for what felt like forever until the front door burst open and Thrane stomped on inside.
He stabbed a finger her way. “Your husband is a maniac!”
His shorts were covered in mud, and what she realized as blood was splattered over his dark shirt. Covered with a few minor cuts and scratches, Thrane's jaw was swollen, and his black hair was sticking up at all ends. But even worse was his left hand. Bruised and being cradled to his side, Thrane's hand looked bad; there was simply no other way to describe it.
“Where is he?” was all she asked, silently telling Jane with her eyes that Thrane's hand should be checked out.
“Out in the field by the creek.” He rolled his eyes. “Now, can I get some ice, please? My hand hurts like a bitch.”
“Thrane,” his mother scolded, following him into the kitchen as Anna heard both she and Titan talk to him about losing his teaching job.
“I'm just gonna...uhm...” she broke the taut strung silence. “I'm just gonna go get Titus.”
Jane sent her a look that read, Don't go!, but Anna could only try to smile confidently before toeing on her sturdy Toms and heading towards the field outside. The long grass tickled her legs as she climbed over the tall fence and tried not to think about how easy it would have been for Titus to have caught his leg on the wood and have hurt something else.
She saw heavy footprints indented in the dry dirt and mud and then cringed as she noticed a largely indented spot where Titus had most likely caught up with his younger brother. A few of the calves were brave enough to approach her before retreating back to their waiting mothers, every single bull, steer, cow, and calf creating a path that led her straight to the edge of the property and by the woods where the creek was.
The wind coasted over her just like it had always done whenever she had come over to go swimming and jump off the tree rope. Anna shivered but followed the path all the same and tried not to worry as she noticed a few very large branches that had just been recently ripped off their main trunk bodies.
Anna found him laying in part mud and part dry grass, his hands behind his head while he looked up at trees, foliage, and parts of the sky that could be seen. Evading as much of the mud as possible, Anna walked to him and sat down beside her husband.
He didn't say anything, only continuing to lay down with sweat staining his shirt and some of the blood that hadn't been washed in the creek water soiling parts of his face. The rest of his face and the exposed skin of his arms didn't look any better. Covered in recently formed bruises, he looked almost as beat up as Thrane had but still managed to look strong and secure in this state where she knew he was weak.
“You okay?” she finally managed to ask.
His hands tightened behind his head. “Just fine.”
“You don't look fine.”
“Well I am fine.”
“According to Thrane, you're a maniac.”
He looked at her, beginning to smile and then stopping short when his split lip cracked even wider. “I'm not the maniac. Maniacs start fights. I didn't start the fight.”
“You sorta provoked it, though.” Anna winced as soon as the words were fully out there. She was on his side – really, she was, but any fool could have seen that Titus had most definitely pushed Thrane's buttons on purpose.
“You wouldn't understand,” he snapped.
She scowled, remembering the whole big ordeal with the very last present that had been given to them. It had only been a simple box, and despite her finally realizing what was inside, Titus had freaked the hell out. She still didn't understand why he didn't want anybody to see Rodney, his little stuffed rabbit that she had seen underneath his pillow a countless number of times in the past.
“It's a stuffed animal, Titus. I was attached to mine, too. Really, if you want to keep Rodney to yourself, that's fine with me.”
He didn't say anything for a long while after that, and she was alright with that. Titus was known to act differently when it came to that little rabbit of his. Although she had never been as attached as he had been and still sort of was to the thing, she tried to sympathize, making sure that she didn't react like this was the most adorable thing known to man.
Calling Titus adorable certainly hadn't scored her any brownie points back in the day.
Titus licked his lips, looking at her and then back again with nervous eyes. “Just...I only kept him 'cause I was just kinda lonely, ya know? Please, you were never supposed to know-”
“And why couldn't I know?”
He covered his eyes with one bruised arm. “Because I don't want you to see me like this. I'm not Titus with Rabbit Rodney anymore, okay? I'm better than that.”
“What if I like Titus with Rabbit Rodney?”
He looked at her like a little kid looks up to a parent figure who they thought to know everything. “Really?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I do. I don't care what little accessories you come with. You can have a purse, for all I care.”
“Can we...can we give him to the baby, though? I'd really like that.”
Her heart warmed at the thought of big, bad Titus Cantrell giving away his ancient stuffed animal to her baby. “Just as long as you two don't start throwing punches over who gets to sleep with Rodney,” she said through a throat clogged with emotion. "I'd hate to tell Thrane that you got your butt handed to ya by an infant. He'd really light into ya then.”
“Are you crying?” Titus asked with disbelief, craning his head to look up at her as his fingers reached up to pull at the tie in her hair and let it loose to hang around the middle of her back.
She wiped at her eyes, trying to just not think of her baby and Titus at the same time; those two things together made her much too emotional for anybody's good. “It's not my fault. Blame your mother.”
His whole body shot up, Titus's eyes narrowing as he tried to navigate through her head with just that one look. “What'd she do?”
“Nothing bad.” She tried to keep the tears at bay. “Just stories, ya know...about all the different ways you beat your brothers. Real funny stuff.”
“I didn't beat them.”
“Taking a tire iron and trying to set the house on fire is definitely beating.”
“Is that why you're so emotional?"
“No.” She mock slapped his shoulder, mentally trying to tell him that she didn't want to talk at all right now. “I'm emotional because I think way too much.”
Titus played with her hair, tangling his fingers in the messy strands. “What do you think about?”
Anna looked at him, not afraid at how weird this would probably sound to him. “I think about you, and I think about the baby. I think about how great of a father you're going to be to a child who isn't even yours, and I think about how much I'm not going to want to leave when the baby's all grown up.”
The tears flowed out freely then, and she couldn't muster up the strength to make them stop. Instead, she let her shoes, legs, and plain yellow shirt get muddy as she laid parallel with Titus and practically forced him to hold her. She didn't care that she had cried way too much in these past few months or that she wasn't strong at all, because all she cared about right now was this moment. This moment where Titus held her in his arms, and she wet his terrible smelling t-shirt with her tears and runny nose.
“You don't have to leave,” he said after her bout of crying had finished and the sun had set, casting a golden darkness into the trees and onto them. “I'd like it if you stayed.”
Not knowing if he meant right now, while she was being wrapped up in his arms, or later on, when the child was growing up, Anna didn't reply and just looked up at the trees with him, mud covering her shoes and legs until the wind was actually creating goosebumps on her flesh.
“Let's go inside,” Titus said for her before lifting her up until she was standing.
They walked back to the house in silence, Titus sometimes pushing a few of the curious cattle away while she tried to wipe the dried mud off her legs and shoes. The lights were on inside the ranch house, and as they neared, Anna could see a few people in the living room and a few in the kitchen, most likely preparing a big dinner to help soothe Titus's and Thrane's nerves.
As soon as they opened up the door, her ears were bombarded with Callie's giggles, Tobias and Jane laughing loudly together about something or other, and Tina singing to somebody slouched on the chair.
“Hi, Anna!” that very same sloucher said, keeping his gray hoodie on as he swiveled around in the wooden chair.
Thrane's eyes were unfocused, pupils dilated and looking very, very happy – something that Thrane usually wasn't. Especially when the man whom he had just tried to beat to death was standing right next to her. Those dark eyes became almost black as soon as he noticed Titus standing there in the doorway.
Slowly, Thrane got out of the chair, hoodie sleeve covering something thick on his left hand. He approached Titus, stumbling here and there even with Trace and Taivon's help until he was standing toe to to toe with Titus.
Tina poked her head around the kitchen's corner. “Whatever he says, just ignore it. They gave him Vicodin for his hand.”
Thrane giggled. “Vicodin...”
“What happened to your hand?” Titus asked, gently bringing up his brother's left arm to pull up the sleeve and revealing a black cast-like thing that was covering Thrane's wrist and two of his fingers.
“Fracture to his fourth and fifth metacarpal,” Jane said from where she was sitting on the couch next to Tobias. “Ask him to pronounce metacarpal. Seriously,” - she laughed - “do it. It's awesome. Right, Thrane?”
“I can say it!” Thrane slurred, leaning heavily on Titus. “Meh-meh...tapurple...see? I can say it just fine!”
“C'mon,” Titus told him, helping his brother back to the chair, a few spots of blood still on his face as he did so. “Let's sit down, 'kay?”
They were too far away for Anna to hear anything, so she just stood there awkwardly at the door with mud still caked on her legs and now ruined shoes. She did, however, hear Tina screech in the kitchen before she came out with a spatula and chased Titus back to the doormat where Anna was currently standing.
“Titus Cantrell, you know how much I hate mud all over my clean floors!” Tina prodded her son in the chest with the gravy covered spatula. “You get outside and clean off. Take the hose!”
“Yes, ma'am.” Titus hung his head before tromping outside slowly.
Her mother-in-law's eyes investigated her muddy legs, looking up and down until she seemed to find her answer. “You can go upstairs and use the shower,” she said sweetly as if Anna didn't have more mud on her clothes than Titus did.
Anna shook her head. “That's alright. I think I'll go get cleaned up outside, okay?”
“I'll get you some towels then.” Tina left and then came back with a few dark blue towels a few seconds later. “Here you go.”
“Thanks,” she said and with that, Anna left the house and went to the side of the house where they kept the long, green hose for the gardening and for watering the trees.
Titus was busy hooking up the hose, bending down in the bushes to twist the knob until ice cold water splashed out and created a puddle that reached her muddy shoe covered feet. She scooped some of the water up onto her legs and washed the mud off as best she could as Titus just pointed the hose's mouth his way and covered himself from head to foot with water.
After her shoes were soaking out and her legs were mud-free, she turned around to grab one of the cotton towels when an extremely cold spray of water hit her square in the back and drenched everything underneath. Tan shorts now uncomfortably clinging to her backside, Anna turned around, trying not to laugh and remain serious like a normal wife would.
But, she realized as she saw the boyish grin, the split lip, and swollen nose, on the man who was standing in soaking wet clothing, Titus wouldn't have a normal wife. His wife would act and be much, much more different than proper wives, so she let herself be unproper and scooped up some thick mud before flinging it at him. The brown, heavy mass hit him square on the chest and dirtied his recently cleaned and soaking wet shirt.
“Anna,” he growled. “You got my shirt dirty.”
She put a hand on her hip. “Wow, Titus. Nothing gets past you.”
“Funny.” He glowered and then aimed the hose right at her.
Trying not squeal as the cold water covered every inch of her, Anna ran to the cover of a row of fruit trees, effectively keeping the icy spray from hitting her. Water dripped down every part of her body and effectively chilled her to the bone until her teeth were chattering and Titus's taunts were filling the air.
“C'mon, Anna,” he cooed right spraying the other side of the tree, her sides getting most of the water. “You need to get cleaned up.”
“Let's call a truce, please?” She poked her head around the tree and watched as he crossed his heart and hoped to die.
Tiptoeing around the tree with her arms crossed to ward off the cold, she approached the towels and was just about to warm herself up with one when the water hit her again. Anna put on her best mean face, glowering at Titus while laughing at the same time. She would tackle him if necessary, and with his wet clothes weighing him down, she just might be able to do it.
But she didn't get the chance. Instead, Titus's mouth dropped open, and he just gaped at her, his face going impossibly red. Anna followed his line of sight, following and following the path until her eyes connected with what he was so transfixed by.
It was her bra. Through her thin, soaking wet yellow shirt, her whole body looked as if somebody had taken some transparent paint and had covered her chest with it, using just a little bit of red to form her everyday, normal bra that was underneath.
She looked up just in time to see the playful expression drop from Titus's face and be replaced by that mask he put on whenever he tried to close everybody off from his true feelings. He almost looked angry as he wrapped up the hose and walked over to her, bending down to pick up a towel before covering her with it.
He didn't say anything as they both went into the house, up the stairs, and into his room. Titus went into the bathroom first, coming out with a fresh set of clothes without even taking a shower. Not even looking at her, he just dumped his wet clothes into the hamper and kept his back turned to her.
She hated him whenever he was like this – whenever he tried to push her away because he wanted to keep her from things. Despite the mishaps, it had been going so well today. It had used to always be like this. No shutting her out but just letting her see everything that he was, and she had liked that time. But that time had been before they had entered into this fake marriage.
Now they were in it, and she could tell it was tearing him up. She hated doing this to him, but her child needed this more than she had ever realized before. “I'm gonna go take a shower,” she told him before scooping up her clothes.
He grunted. As she closed the bathroom door, she got one last look of his face. It looked angry, and it looked tormented, and it wasn't hard for her to figure out that she was the cause of this.