nolan goode, [ten.]

i. Imagine this, Nolan Goode, four years old, minding his business and playing in the grassy field outside the feed supply. Tilling soil with a sharp rock he found half-wedged in the dirt, sweat drips down his forehead as the sun beat down on the dry earth. It's warm under his hands, and he let himself get mesmerized by the small creatures crawling around in the auburn soil. Dad had tried to drag him inside by the scruff of his neck, but Nolan had gritted his teeth and seethed I don't wanna so fiercely his father had thrown his hands up with a huff and kicked the dirt up with his boots as he went.

Awhile later, startled by the shouts of a frantic, angry mother from outside the feed store, the few stray customers and workers inside quickly made their way out the open front doors. Most were surprised to realize the commotion was over two small boys, the familiar Nolan Goode with an ugly trail of blood down the back of his neck from where the other boy had thrown a stone at him.

Taught to never be afraid, Nolan had turned around and chased the other kid down to spit in the little boys face and knock the wind from his lungs. He hadn't even thought about it, just acted on instinct despite the pain ringing in his ears. When the kids Mom saw Nolan knock her son into the ground and start swinging, she'd clocked Nolan with her elbow to get him off her boy.

Nolan only grinned, wide-mouthed and proud of the missing tooth now stuck somewhere in the dirt at her feet. He didn't care about the way she was shouting, calling him all sorts of names and sayin' how she ought to find someone to tan his hide.

"You did good, kid," was all his father said when all was said and done. He remembers feeling so tall, taller than he ever had before, and not just because they had rode Breeze into town that day and she was their biggest mare. There are so few days in his memory like this one, where he gets to ride into town alongside Dad to restock on the supplies they need. So rare an event, Dad being home. Nolan swears, even in the middle of the pasture, his father always smells of oil and the sea. "Don't you let nobody talk to you like that ever again."

And that was that. He didn't.


ii. Lila Goode makes for a fine mother.

She wishes Derrick wouldn't work the jobs he does, but she inherited the farm and the land along with it when her parents passed on last year. Plus, Derrick makes even more decent money working on the rigs since the war started. Sometimes her children catch her staring at the horizon a little too long, alone out there in the pasture with the grazing animals. Nolan watched first, with his warm brown eyes and his toothy smile, he'd always be afraid to trail after her. Worried, as if he might spook her, like a skittish horse.

During long hours alone, Lila thinks about it often, what the war has done to Nolan. He was born not long after the first round of air strikes against the people. He has never not know a world that didn't suffer under the constant threat of violence at the hands of those who would monopolize its power. Always hungry, always looming, violence haunted the air like an inescapable ghost. The earliest years she knows he does not remember, knows they were lucky to be where they were, far from any front lines on their quiet homestead; she knows he remembers the hunger though, especially as he grew older, remembers the cold nights they spent huddled around low-burning logs, eating hardtack washed down with vegetable preserves out of jars. She hears the whispers at church on Sundays, sees the way people skirt away from his, leaving the aisle open until he slides into one of the empty pews.

Once, she heard some of 'em snickering, calling him no one, like a name, a label. No One Goode. She'd only hid her face with her hair and turned away.

"Do you think she'd ever come back?" Madeline Goode has the good sense to ask out of her earshot. Not even half his age, Nolan's always felt a little rattled by his little sister's ability to read someone. He hates to think what she sees in him. "I'm not watering those stupid purple flowers if she disappears into the forest one day."

Madeline is still only nine, born the year of the first games. Every time Nolan makes her laugh, he counts the stars in the universe lucky for letting her not be born during the war. Mornings like this always taste precious, and he thumbs the necklace of rosary beads he keeps in his pocket to remind himself he's really here, sitting on their front porch while the May sun warms his little sisters cheeks. She is safe, and happy, and curious. So very curious. For awhile he thought that was horrifying, that she'd poke her nose somewhere it doesn't belong; it scared him shitless, thinking she'd get herself into trouble.

Now he watches her watching on as Mom wipes the sweat from her brow with the back of her sleeve, then goes back to scoring the hillside and planting more bulbs she found by the fence. Now he watches and he realizes that she can already see it all, see the truth of things he's spent years trying to understand and still hasn't quite worked out.

"Yes, you will," we all he could manage. She opens her mouth to quip something back, but he cuts her off with a wave and an eye roll, already knowing she's going to demand he help. "And I'll be right there with you."

Maybe it's kindness that's kept them close, despite the years between them. Or maybe it was fear who she'd be without him.

Lately, Nolan is starting to think it's been the latter.