Weight Carried Quiet (chapter)

The air had turned warm again, the kind that coaxed sweat out slow and steady. By midmorning, the sky sat wide and open, cloudless, a little too bright. Jed was on the roof, hammering shingles where the storm had peeled a strip back near the ridge line. His shirt clung to his back, and the sun pressed on the back of his neck like a warning.

Down in the pasture, Joel moved along the fence line with a spool of wire and a pair of pliers, checking tension, testing nails. He worked methodically, but the rhythm was off. Not enough to notice if you didn’t know him. Jed did.

They’d said little over breakfast. Joel had refilled the coffee, Jed had washed the plates. A nod. A passing of the butter. But nothing more.

Now the hammer struck sharp. Jed winced as he shifted on the sloped boards—his knee catching wrong, then holding. He muttered a prayer under his breath, the kind that didn’t ask for much—just another few hours before the aches got worse.

He paused, squinting out toward the field. Joel had stopped walking. He stood still, one hand resting on a fence post, the other hanging loose. From this distance, Jed couldn’t see his face. But he could tell something had pressed pause in him.

Then Joel moved on, shoulders squared like they were carrying more than tools.

By late afternoon, the air had grown heavy again. The sun felt closer than it ought to be. Jed climbed down from the roof and stretched his back until it cracked. His shirt was soaked through. He wiped his face on the inside of his collar, then turned toward the shed.

Joel was there, setting the fencing tools back on their hooks. He didn’t look over when Jed approached, but he didn’t leave either.

“How’s the line?” Jed asked.

Joel nodded. “Holds.”

Jed waited, but nothing more came. Just the soft clang of metal settling on wood.

Then Joel said, quiet, “That last corner near the creek… one of the posts is starting to rot.”

Jed rubbed the back of his neck. “We’ll pull it tomorrow.”

Joel nodded again. “Yeah.”

He turned, walked back toward the house.

Jed stood there a moment longer, the silence trailing behind him like smoke.

At supper, the quiet stayed. Not cold. Just weighty.

They ate side by side at the table—chicken, rice, greens. Joel passed the salt without being asked. Jed refilled his water when Joel wasn’t looking.

Afterward, Joel cleared the plates and washed them while Jed wiped down the counters. 

Jed caught himself watching the way Joel dried his hands—slow, like every movement meant something. Like his thoughts were someplace else.

Later, with the porch light off and the night settled around them, Jed stepped outside for a final check on the animals. A faint breeze stirred through the grass. He rounded the barn and saw the gate open—just wide enough for a person.

He moved closer.

The gate was fine. Still latched. Nothing loose. But there, set square on the porch rail, was Joel’s knife.

Clean. Closed. Resting easy on the weathered wood.

Jed picked it up, turning it once in his hand. The same blade Joel had carried since he arrived. Kept in his back pocket. Used for hay bales, twine, and once for slicing a loaf of bread when they forgot the kitchen knife at lunch.

It wasn’t left by accident. Joel didn’t misplace things.

Jed held it a moment longer. Then turned, stepped into the house, and down the hall. The weight of it felt familiar—but what Joel had laid down wasn’t just a tool. It was trust. A kind of surrender. Jed thought of the cedar plank in the shed. Maybe it was time to start carving something that could hold what they were beginning to give each other.

Joel’s room was quiet. Door open a few inches.

Jed pushed it gently, crossed to the desk by the window, and set the knife down where the morning light would hit it.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.

Back in his own room, Jed pulled off his shirt and sank onto the edge of the bed. The window was cracked, letting in the hush of crickets and the low rustle of wind through high grass. He sat with his elbows on his knees, head down.

Psalm 51 came again.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

The same verse, still asking to be meant deeper.

He reached for the Bible. Didn’t open it. Just rested his hand on the cover and sat there, letting the quiet speak for both of them.

(Chapter from Weathered Fields in the Jed and Joel series. Contact me if you’d like tor read the full story!)