Pretty as a Peach

by Sawyer Bennett

  Hopefully.

  CHAPTER 23

  Darby

  I’ve never been to a state fair before. We have them in Illinois and I’d venture to say they’re just as big, if not bigger, given how important agriculture is to that state. But the spectacle all around us as we walk over the massive fairgrounds tells me that the state of North Carolina takes this fair business very seriously.

  I’ve mostly enjoyed watching Linnie look around with wide eyes filled with excitement and enthusiasm I just haven’t seen from her in a long time.

  Even though I wore my best running shoes complete with personalized arch supports, my feet are absolutely killing me from all the walking we did. Not only did we traverse the midway at least ten times so Linnie could ride the same rides over and over again, but we had to try all the various foods being sold.

  Crazy food.

  Not only do they have the standard fair fare, like funnel cakes and candied apples, but they have foods that are particular to the state. I had a little bit of Eastern North Carolina barbecue—the kind with the vinegar-based sauce—as well as calabash-style fried seafood.

  Then came the really crazy food—much of it deep-fried. There were fried Twinkies, fried Oreos, and even deep-fried butter balls. That’s right… Frozen balls of butter that were then coated in batter and deep-fried.

  There were pickle popsicles, chocolate-covered bacon, Krispy Kreme hamburgers, and even one vendor truck that boasted chocolate-covered bugs. We avoided that one.

  It’s late afternoon, and we’re all dragging. Colt is gallantly carrying our loot. This includes a bag of gummy bears for Linnie, cotton candy he promised his mama, a goldfish Linnie won tossing Ping-Pong balls into fishbowls, and a huge pink stuffed bear Colt won popping balloons with darts.

  “Look… the line for the Ferris wheel isn’t long at all,” Linnie says with excitement as she points that way.

  It’s been the one ride she hasn’t been on yet but was on her list to try. I silently groan at the thought of waiting for her to ride it. I’m not into the rides at all. No offense to the carnies, but they don’t look like the most reliable workers in the world. My luck, I would end up on the ride where an important bolt was misplaced, and I’d be facing imminent death.

  I wanted to hold to this philosophy with my daughter and forbid her from going on any of the rides, but I couldn’t face her disappointment. So I relented and prayed the entire time she and Colt rode one.

  “Okay,” I say tiredly. I hold my arms out for Colt to transfer all the stuff to me. “I’ll just wait over here.”

  “You should come on this one with us,” Colt says.

  I’m shaking my head before the words come out. “No way. Terrified of heights.”

  And you know, this thing is probably not built very solidly.

  “Come on, Mom,” Linnie pleads. “Just go on one ride with us. This one is really slow, and I’m sure it’s super safe.”

  There’s no way that thing is safe.

  But I also see something in Linnie’s eyes I used to see a lot but has been a rarity of late. She truly wants to spend quality time with me.

  “I have an even better idea,” Colt says as he nods to the Ferris wheel. “You two ladies go ride that, and I’m going to sit here and hold on to everything.”

  “Awesome,” Linnie exclaims without even waiting for my agreement that I’d be a willing participant. She grabs my hand and starts pulling me toward the end of the Ferris wheel line. I look over my shoulder helplessly at Colt, who grins at me. He doesn’t even look the slightest bit worried I might be marching off to my death.

  My stomach rolls the entire time we are waiting, and Linnie just chatters on excitedly about the farm animals we had seen in one of the buildings. She’s trying to talk me into some cows and chickens and has promised she will take care of them.

  It’s not that I doubt her sincerity, but she is only seven and isn’t the best on follow through. Still, it might not hurt to get a few chickens. Carlos can easily build us a coop. It would be nice to have fresh eggs each day.

  It happens all too quick, but we are now at the front of the line and being ushered into one of the carts. A thin-looking bar is placed over our laps, and Linnie starts rocking the cart back and forth.

  “Stop doing that,” I say, clutching onto the bar for dear life. We’re currently suspended two feet off the ground, yet my pulse has gone through the roof.

  Linnie laughs, but she stops the rocking motion. “Sorry, Mom.”

  She doesn’t sound sorry at all.

  “I can get off right now, and Colt can get on,” I suggest. “He’d be glad to let you rock this back and forth.”

  “No way,” she says. She peels one of my hands off the bar and holds it tightly with hers. “I won’t do that anymore. I want to ride this one with you.”

  That was all I needed to hear from my sweet little girl. A burst of confidence and bravery wells up within me, and I give her hand a squeeze back. Besides, if I’m going to fall to my death, at least it will be doing something that makes my daughter extremely happy.

  I gasp when the Ferris wheel goes into motion and we shoot forward and upward a few feet before coming to a stop again, so the next people can be loaded into the cart behind us. I refuse to look down and resolve to look straight out at the horizon.

  In order to take my mind off my residual fears, I ask Linnie, “Did you have a good time today, honey?”

  Linnie nods. Lifting my arm, she scoots under it, prompting me to cuddle her into my side. “I really did.”

  “It was nice of Colt to bring us. We should bake a pie for him or something as a thank you.”

  “My dad’s not very nice,” Linnie says softly, and I jerk with surprise.

  We haven’t talked about my last encounter with her dad since the day it happened, when I spent a great deal of time reassuring her that our issues had nothing to do with her.

  Because I resolved I would never utter a negative thing about her father—choosing to believe that Linnie is smart enough to figure things out on her own—I steer away from using words like “nice” and “not nice”.

  Instead, I tell her, “Honey… some people are just built differently. And throughout our lives, we’re going to deal with people who may not act the way we wish they would act and who may say things that could be hurtful. I try to let that stuff roll off my back as much as possible. And I hope you can, too.”

  “Did Dad treat you like that?” she asks.

  She’s talking about our time together in Illinois for the first seven years of her life. Things gradually got worse over time between Mitch and me, but the one thing I never let happen was letting Linnie see her father and me fighting. Much of this had to do with the fact I would often not argue with Mitch, choosing to take the quieter… more subservient route. Sometimes I regret that, wondering if I should have let her see me stand up to him.

  The few times I let my temper get out of control and dared to argue with him, it was always in the confines of our bedroom with the door closed. Linnie had been oblivious to all of it, so watching her father lay into me the other night was an utter shock to her.

  Still, I can’t answer this question because I don’t want to turn her against her dad. If Mitch does that on his own, fine, but my conscience won’t let me play a part in it. “Honey… the things that happened between your dad and me are just between us. They have nothing to do with you. That part of Mommy’s life is in the past now. The important thing for you to know is I am very happy right now, and that’s all that matters.”

  “I won’t have to live with him, will I?” she asks, and my heart breaks from the sound of fear in her voice.

  Not because she’s afraid of her father, but because she’s afraid he has nothing genuine to give her.

  And she would be right about that, sadly.

  I choose my words carefully because I don’t ever want to promise my daughter something I can’t deliver. “I will use all of my resources and fight to
oth and nail so that doesn’t happen. And I’m pretty confident the court would agree you are better off with me. But your father is entitled to visit you. And there are going to be times you’re going to have to go with him.”

  “I know.” Her voice is calm, accepting, and so very mature. “I can handle that. I just don’t want to live with him full time.”

  How did my little girl get to be so wise and profound?

  Sadly, I suspect she grew up a lot that night Mitch showed up at our house a week ago. While I will always want to protect her from anything ugly, I’m kind of glad she has a little bit of an idea what is going on now.

  “I like Colt a lot,” Linnie says in an abrupt change of subject. Well, not quite a complete change since she is talking about a man who is part of my life now.

  I’m noncommittal. “I like him, too.”

  “Will you two get married?” she asks innocently.

  Out of the mouths of babes.

  I lift up my hand that’s resting on her shoulder and drag my knuckles across her temple. Leaning over, I give her a kiss on her head. “Baby, it is way too early to be thinking about stuff like that. But we do like each other and as long as you’re okay with it, I would like to continue to see Colt.”

  Linnie pulls back a bit to look at me. “See Colt?”

  I laugh and give her a squeeze. “Date Colt. Spend time with him. Get to know him a little better.”

  “To see if you would like to marry him?” she asks for clarification.

  I shake my head and smile. “You only marry for love, Linnie. And that is something that develops between two people over time. I don’t know if that will happen between Colt and me, but maybe.”

  “Did you love Dad?” she asks quietly.

  “I did. When I married him, I did.”

  “So you can stop loving someone?” she asks.

  I take a deep breath to get my bearings. It’s at this moment I realize we are at the apex of the Ferris wheel. I had been so engrossed in my conversation with my daughter I did not realize we had been continually moving up. My head spins, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m suspended what seems like a thousand feet in the air or because my daughter has asked me a very complex question about love that’s not very easy to answer.

  I try my best. “There are many different types of love, Linnie. There is love between a man and a woman, like what your father and I had. There is love between a mother and a daughter. Sometimes the bond is just not strong enough between two people, and love gets sacrificed. The only thing I can tell you is the bond I have with you will never be broken. It would be absolutely impossible for me not to love you.”

  I know that doesn’t answer her question about her father. And she’s far too young for me to try to explain to her why I fell out of love with Mitch.

  One day, I will tell her all about it. I will do it in a way so as not to disparage her father but rather to hopefully use it as a learning example. To show her that she doesn’t need to be controlled by anyone and she should make her own decisions all the time. That when people are in a relationship, they should want each other to be the very best they can be in the way they want to be.

  I have so many things I want to teach her, and that is just one of them.

  But it’s not for today.

  CHAPTER 24

  Colt

  I look across the table at Darby, who is pouring some ketchup on her plate for her French fries. “Did you have a good time at the game tonight?”

  She looks across at me and smiles. “It was awesome. Thank you so much for taking me.”

  I had a fabulous time at the state fair with Darby and Linnie yesterday. More than anything, I loved learning about the mother-daughter dynamic between the two of them. It was the most loose and relaxed I had seen the pair since they had moved to Whynot, and I think they both needed that.

  But as much as I’m going to include Linnie in my plans with her mother, I also want alone time with Darby. I want to get to know her better and let’s face it, I want to explore the chemistry we seem to have. When I dropped the girls off yesterday at Farrington Farms, I asked Darby out on a date for the very next night. I was a little concerned it would be too soon and that it was Halloween. I knew it was entirely possibly Darby might have plans to take Linnie trick-or-treating. That was okay… I was prepared to ask her out for the following evening if that was the case.

  As it turns out, Jake and Laken were going to take Linnie trick-or-treating outside of Whynot, because there aren’t exactly neighborhoods in our area where kids can walk safely down the street. There is the actual town of Whynot, but there’s not a lot of people there. Most of the residents live on the outskirts, off dark and windy country roads that are not conducive for trick-or-treating. Trixie and Ry invited Linnie to come trick-or-treating in their neighborhood, which is about twenty minutes away. It’s a true neighborhood with sidewalks and street lamps to dispel the darkness, and Darby felt that was much safer.

  Jake and Laken volunteered to take her and that was that.

  When Darby accepted my request for a date, I gave her some options. She could choose which ever one appealed to her the most. The options included going to Clementine’s again for dinner, going to see a college basketball game in Chapel Hill, or letting me make dinner for her at my cabin.

  While she didn’t even raise an eyebrow at the suggestion of coming to my house for dinner—which by the way, was done only with the idea in mind that it would just be dinner—she chose the basketball game as she had never been.

  After the game, we were both hungry and decided to get a late-night burger. We chat about the game, and I fill her in on more of the rivalry between Duke and Carolina. Lowe had given me the tickets as he’s an alumni of Carolina and didn’t feel like going. Said he had too much work to still do at Millie’s so it would be ready to open by late November.

  “How come you never went to college?” Darby asks while waving a French fry in my direction before popping it in her mouth.

  Her curiosity is genuine, and I can tell by the tone of her voice she’s not implying my lack of a college education is a negative.

  “I knew I would take over the farm,” I explain. “It’s as simple as that.”

  Darby circles the tip of her finger over the top of her water glass. “That’s totally legitimate, but you could have gotten some type of degree within the agricultural field to complement things.”

  “I guess. I mean, looking back on it, I never was a huge fan of school. I made good grades and stuff, but I had so much working knowledge from being out in the fields planting and harvesting since I was probably twelve, it just seemed like a waste of time and money.”

  Darby nods in agreement. “I think you might be right. You’re a smart guy but what more could college teach you that you didn’t already figure out on your own or will continue to figure out on your own? I mean, look at you… You figured out how to set up the vineyard and winery.”

  I chuckle and point my finger teasingly at her. “Well, its success still remains to be seen, but I appreciate your belief in me.”

  Darby just stares at me a moment, her expression as clear as her eyes are in bright sunlight. She truly does believe in me.

  “What about you?” I ask to get the spotlight off of me. “You’ve got degrees all over the place. What was so important about getting them to you?”

  Her finger continues to circle the top of her glass, and she gives a careless shrug. “I guess I was always the brainy nerd who wanted to know how things worked on the microscopic level. It made sense to me to want to be involved on the research side of things. Because I came from a farming background with my family, crop sciences just made the most sense to me.”

  “So you want to work for a company where you can do research?”

  She shrugs again, and her eyes look somewhat troubled. “I thought that’s what I wanted. I mean, that’s exactly why I’m finishing up my PhD. But Colt… this orchard project has me second guessing t
hat.”

  “How so?” I ask, putting my forearms on the table and leaning toward her a bit.

  She does the same after moving her water glass out of the way. “It kind of feels like my baby. I may not be researching chemical compounds and the makeup of micronutrients, but I am combining those applications to try to figure out how to make a better yield. It’s still research in a way, and it feels more personal to me.”

  “More rewarding?” I ask.

  “Yeah. More rewarding.”

  “So what you’re saying is you’re considering the potential of staying at Farrington Farms rather than going to work for a big company that deals in crop sciences?” I ask.

  She smiles and nods. “I still want to finish my PhD and I can’t even begin to finish my thesis for about a year so I can have some good data from what we’ve already planted. But then, I’ll need to make a decision on what to do.”

  “You have to lay out the pros and cons,” I tell her. “We’ll get some old-fashioned pen and paper and list it all out one night.”

  “It’s a lot to think about,” she says with a sigh. “But I’ve got nothing but time at this point. I don’t have to make the decision any time soon, and I can continue to get settled in at Farrington Farms.”

  I sit back and settle into the padded bench of the booth we’re sitting in, clasping my hands on the table. “The world is your oyster, Darby. You can do whatever you want.”

  Her pretty face clouds and her eyes darken. She lets her gaze drop to the table. “There was a time in my life that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted.”

  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she’s talking about the years she spent under Mitch’s control. I point out, “You’re out from under him. It’s time to spread your wings.”

  She slowly lifts her eyes to mine and tilts her head. “You truly mean that, don’t you?”

  “I’m all about the women’s lib, baby,” I tell her with a wink.

  Darby laughs and shakes her head. “No, you happen to come from a family that is incredibly loyal and supportive to one another. That’s all I’ve ever seen hanging around any of you Mancinkus people. It’s just in your nature.”