Read to Me

Tim would be the first to tell you that reading wasn't his thing. Before living with the Taylors and dating Julie, there was a point in time when he had tried very inconvincibly to get Tami to believe he had read The Scarlet Letter.

"You see, it's about a gal…named Scarlet…" Julie would sometimes tease him. She knew, of course, because there was also a time when she and Tami had laughed about the incident. And Julie was capable of a dead-on impression of the words Tim had used that day.

Julie would pull out the impression when Tim would grumble about a reading assignment of any kind, whether it be a novel or a textbook. Tim always faked annoyance at it, even though he thought it was funny to hear Julie try to force her voice as deep as his own.

"I just don't like to read, Jules. The voice in my head is boring."

This was a thought that was unfathomable for Julie, considering her own love of reading. But Julie also knew that out of all the things Tim liked—football and watching rodeos and hearty meals and beer—he himself was not on the list. Reading and allowing his mind to wander probably would not be enjoyable for someone like Tim.

There was one way, however, that Julie was able to get Tim to take part in her love of books, and that was to read to him.

With Tim's head resting in her lap, Julie would read out loud to him. More often than not, Tim would park his truck on a back road he knew. Julie would put her feet up on the dash, and Tim would lean against her.

Tim really loved the sound of Julie's voice. He didn't really care about the stories she read. Truth be told, if you asked him, he wouldn't be able to tell you what it was that Julie read to him.

He liked the feeling in her voice. When Julie read, it was with feeling. It wasn't like a robot, like the teachers at school when they read out loud during school. Plus Tim just liked Julie's sweet voice anyway.

"It was many and many a year ago," Julie read from a thick book. Edgar Alan Poe, Tim read from his upside down perspective. Tim knew he was Julie's favorite author. "In a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee."

Julie's hand worked its way into Tim's hair as she read through the poem.

"And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me."

Since Tim's hair was decently long for a boy, Julie had a habit of twirling his locks around her fingers.

"I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea, but we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee—with a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven coveted her and me."

"What the hell is a seraph?" Tim asked, interrupting Julie's flow of the poem.

Julie moved the book over a little, so she could look down at him. "It's an angel. You're supposed to save your questions for the end."

Tim had a habit of interrupting Julie while reading. Even though Julie always pretended to be mad, she thought it was adorable, and it made her happy to know he was paying attention.

"And this was the reason that, long ago, in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel Lee; so that her highborn kinsmen came and bore her away from me to shut her up in a sepulcher in this kingdom by the sea."

Before Tim could even ask, Julie moved the book aside and said, "A sepulcher is a grave, by the way."

"You interrupted yourself that time, Jules."

"Hush. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, went envying her and me—Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know, in this kingdom by the sea), that the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee."

Tim pulled the piece of hay he'd been chewing on out of his mouth and snapped off the bit he had chewed through. He would never tell Julie, but he kind of got sleepy each time she read to him, so he tried to keep his mouth busy while she read.

"But our love it was stronger by far than the love of those older than we—of many far wiser than we—and neither the angels in Heaven above nor the demons down under the sea can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee."

Julie glanced down at Tim again. Even though she loved to read to him, sometimes she got a little embarrassed about it. She wasn't sure why, but she thought it had something to do with how intimate it felt to read to him. Every time she did, she was sharing parts of herself with him.

"For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee; and the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee; and so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, in her sepulcher there by the sea—in her tomb by the sounding sea."

Tim chewed on his piece of hay, enjoying the feeling of Julie's hand in her hair.

"Julie, every time you read me stuff from this dead guy, it's always so damn sad."

Julie couldn't help but laugh. She knew that he was going to say that. Edgar Alan Poe was her favorite author, and nobody really understood that. Her parents didn't, Matt hadn't, and obviously Tim didn't. But he was more honest with it than any of them had been.

Folding over herself, Julie lowered her head and kissed Tim.