Harvest Moon – Tractor Scars

It was a peaceful winter day.

Was.

One rock was the catalyst of it all.

The low humming sound lingered until it was pierced.

The pure white snow was colored with fright.

--

It was just after the winter thanksgiving festival.

Doctor stayed home all day, cleaning up the house while I took care of my animals and bought things in town.

He prepared a splendid dinner: Strawberry milk with honey and roast beef with gravy. For the most part, I was impressed, seeing him actually cooking without my help, despite the winter thanksgiving being the day where it's the girls who do the giving.

That is, until, he needed a band-aid.

Call it ESP or a woman's intuition or whatnot…but I noticed he was hiding something from me. Something good, mind you. Like a birthday present. Doctor was practically smiling the whole day. When I woke up that morning, he was staring at me with a smile.

No, not the smile of a gentle, kind husband. The smile of mischievousness.

"Good morning, Claire!"

"Uh, good morning…what's up?"

"It's the Winter Thanksgiving!"

"It's cold. Hug me."

What he gave me was a kiss.

--

After stopping by to talk with Ann (and getting some cooking tips), I went to the beach. Being naturally a city girl who would sit in front of the AC on high while reading manga, I liked to feel the breeze on my face.

While strolling along the shoreline, waiting for Zack, one of my best friends, to come back (he had gone on the ship to transport goods back and forth), I fished out of my rucksack a chocolate bar I had bought for myself.

Before long, Zack's small ship The Lily (guess who he named that after) came into sight. I ran to the edge of the dock, jumped, and waved at him with a big childish smile on my face.

"ZAAAAAAAACK!"

The Lily tooted its foghorn in reply. From afar, I could see that a slightly bigger cargo ship was behind it.

In about fifteen minutes, they arrived on the dock.

"Hey, there, Claire!" Zack gave me one of his crunchy bearhugs. Lately, I've been avoiding them because, well, Doctor told me to stop coming home with a bandaged chest but Zack's been gone for about a week so what's another broken rib?

"GAH!" My breath was knocked out of me. "Nice…to see you too…Zack…let go!"

"Sorry!" he said with a huge smile and dropped me, coughing on the dock.

"Did you get what I asked for?" I said as soon as I turned my normal color.

"Yup! Just a sec." Zack went into his ship and came out with my DVD player and a boxful of DVDs.

"Yeay!" I jumped for joy in the snow-covered sand when he set it down on the snow-covered bench beside his snow-covered shop. "Took you long enough!"

Zack scratched the back of his head. "Sorry 'bout that Claire. An' I have to bring out the other stuff so I gotta talk to ya later."

I peered at the bigger cargo ship. "Seems like a lot of other stuff…"

"Oh, that? Nah, that's just one big thing. The rest is the usual, y'know," He glanced at the other ship, which I noticed was named October. The sailor waved at us.

I hauled the DVD player and the DVDs into my arms and waved Zack goodbye. I awkwardly walked home, peering over the boxes and occasionally tripping over snow-covered rocks. Only when I got home I was able to walk properly.

"Claire!" Doctor happened to be checking the mail at the farm's snow-covered entrance and he came over to help me. He struggled carrying the snow-covered box of DVDs (which, of course, was at least twice the weight of the player itself). Being the half of the couple that had more bicep, I carried the box of DVDs and he carried the player. No debate over the male ego so it's all good.

--

After dinner while watching an old animated movie, we took a bath while discussing the movie and how the blood shouldn't have been censored with white because it looked wrong, and went to bed. Doctor's mischievous smile had eluded me.

--

I woke up to the sound of paper ripping. Doctor was sitting at the foot of the bed, reading a letter with what I imagined was a smile on his face.

"What's that, honey?" At the mention of 'what's', Doctor immediately crumpled the letter.

"Nothing, dear. Did I wake you up? How are you feeling?" Seriously, not to offend you, my dear, but a 10-year old could lie better than you and get away with it.

I stroked his messy black hair. "Is it bad? Something I shouldn't see?"

"Uh, no, it's…just not worthy for your beautiful blue eyes," he said, batting his eyelashes at me while his hands crumpled the letter even more. I pouted.

"I believe I should be the one to judge whether something is unworthy of my 'beautiful blue eyes', shouldn't it? How dare you hide something from your wife." I snatched the crumpled letter from his 'beautiful pale hands' before he could say 'Hey!'

The letter was written with what looked like a first grade student's handwriting, which I could definitely recognize as Zack's. Ha, I could imagine him snapping a few pens with his huge hands while writing this short letter.

The letter read:

Dear Mr. Doctor,

The thing you ordered just arrived yesterday. It's kinda big so I'll have to drive it over there myself, if you don't mind. I'll have to pass through the south entrance of the farm, though. I'll be there around 5pm.

Sincerely,

Zack 

Yup, I taught him the smiley face.

Doctor sighed in defeat, sitting on the bed as I read the letter.

"What's this 'thing'?" I asked, rereading the letter.

"That," he daintily lifted the letter from my hands, "Is a surprise. That's coming at 5 o' clock later this afternoon."

"Tell me now," I said, clutching his pajama collar, holding him close to my face. "Or I'll purposely make myself pass out," Yes, I have that ability of working myself to near death.

First, Doctor just stared at me, ready to give in but after about 3 seconds, he came up with a witty reply.

"Well then if you pass out, you won't be able to see the surprise then, would you?"

"Hmph…that took you a long time to think up. I should probably teach you some smart comebacks sometime. You're such a country boy!" I shoved him back on the pillows and we chuckled while I stood to dress up. It was Wednesday so Doctor could spend the day in his pajamas.

When I was done putting on my winter clothes, he was preparing breakfast. I ran for the door.

"Claire! Don't think you can skip breakfast!" he called from the door as I crunched through the wet snow.

"I'm trying to cut down! I'm getting fat!" I yelled back.

"Skipping breakfast will make you, in your words, fatter! You're supposed to eat so that your metabolism can break down the food and consume…"

By the time he finished his sentence, I was already feeding my cows and sheep in the barn. Science wasn't my thing anyway.

One thing about the farm that Doctor didn't like is the fact that he thought the barns were 'unsanitary'. He thought that cows, sheep, and chickens shouldn't be walking the same place they're pooping, or as my he said, defecating. I'd like to see him toilet-train a chicken, that's what.

On the other hand, one thing I didn't like about his clinic was that they only had one stretcher. The clinic's nice and Elli's really sweet but not if she had more than one patient on a stretcher. There was this incident last winter when Cliff, the guy who works at the Aja Winery, collapsed in the town square. I happened to see him and carry him to the clinic.

Then, two days later, I collapsed while mining for silver. When I arrived at the clinic, I was half-conscious Doctor was beside me but I saw Elli with Cliff over her shoulder, stomping up the stairs! I mean…sometimes I question how my husband runs his business. I did ask him about it and he said that Cliff was put on his bed on the second floor.

Hm…knowing that Cliff works with soil and grapes all day and the fact that Doctor is…quite a neat freak (but in an oh so sweet way), I'd bet a day's eggs that they just put him on a futon on the floor with a warm glass of milk to compensate.

--

"Oh crud, it's 5:00! I gotta go, Ells!"

"Oh, ok! I'll talk to you later, Claire! Tell me what the surprise is, ok?"

"Sure thing, Ells!

I was chatting with Elli at the supermarket. I was buying cooking oil and flour and she was paying the electricity bills for the clinic. I lost track of time when we both started talking about our favorite topic: men. Elli and I are best friends too so of course I knew about her crush on Doctor. Problem was, I did too but we were best friends so we never fought over him. We decided if he ended up with one of us, that'd be good enough.

"Hey wait, you didn't pay for those!!!"

Suddenly remembering Doctor's 'surprise', I ran as fast as I could to the farm, with groceries in hand.