Farmer Ex-Husband

Jack wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand and leaned against the fence post he’d just set. The sun was high, hot enough to bake the dirt into cracked clay and make the air shimmer over the fields. Picked up the hammer again, gave the post one more unnecessary tap. His muscles still tense from the morning’s labor, he let out a breath through his nose. Jack ran a hand down his beard, a bit more gray in it now than last summer. “Should’ve shaved,” he muttered to himself, but made no move to do it. Too late now. The low rumble of tires on gravel finally reached his ears. He looked up, fingers curling slightly around the handle of the hammer. The truck pulled up slow, he knew the sound of it, the exact pitch of the engine when it idled. You stepped out and for a moment,