Baby Makes Four

by Cynthia Thomason

  “Suit yourself,” Camryn said. “I don’t have the money to put into it right now.” She swatted at a huge cobweb. “And the barn isn’t a big priority at this point. The only time I was in here was when I looked at the property with a Realtor.” She kicked a few clods of dirt with the toe of her boot. “It’s kind of embarrassing how dirty it is.”

  “That’s not a big deal,” Reed said. “I can hire a couple of guys to clean it up.” He smiled. “And I’ve got two willing helpers running around your yard right now.”

  She chuckled, wiping her hand on her jeans. “Willing?”

  “That might be an optimistic statement.”

  She led him to the area where four stalls stood empty. “Do you think these are big enough for your purpose?”

  “Sure. I’d say they’re twelve by twelve. As long as my horses can use some outside territory once a day, this is fine.”

  “You can let them loose on the acre behind the barn. I’m not farming there yet. You might have to cut the growth out there.”

  “No problem. I bought a riding mower.” Reed stuck his hand out toward her. “So, do we have a deal? Four hundred a month, and I pay all expenses for my animals?”

  “Don’t you want to sleep on it at least one night?”

  “Don’t see what difference that would make. I can have the horses here tomorrow afternoon. You’re my closest neighbor. The barn’s within walking distance. Stalls are big enough. Our kids go to the same school, which could be a plus if we ever need to carpool. Once I spruce the place up...”

  He stopped talking when loud voices came from the yard by the house. Camryn ran out of the barn first. Esther, her fists on her hips, was standing a few yards from the house. “It’s not an old lady’s name!” she shouted at the boys.

  “Is so!” Phillip taunted. “I’ll bet you’re not a kid at all. You’re really a little old lady in a short body.”

  “Am not!” Esther was trying to hold her own, but her voice started to quiver.

  Camryn ran to her daughter’s side. Reed hollered at his boys. “Stop teasing her right now.”

  “She can prove she’s not an old lady,” Justin said. “She can climb the fence with us and jump off.”

  “Is that what you kids have been doing?” Camryn said. “Climbing on my new fence?”

  “There’s nothing else to do,” Phillip pointed out.

  Esther wrenched free of her mother’s arm and ran toward the boys. “I’ll show you I’m not an old lady. I’ll climb the fence and jump even farther than you did!”

  “Old lady, old lady!” Phillip taunted.

  Camryn quickly caught up to her daughter. “No one is jumping off the fence again,” she said. “Find something to do on solid ground.”

  “I can do it, Mommy,” Esther pleaded. “They’ll tell everyone at school that I’m an old lady.”

  Reed caught his oldest son by the scruff of his collar. “No, they won’t,” he said in a voice that should make any kid quake in his shoes. “Tell her you won’t, Phillip.”

  The boy looked up into his father’s determined face. “I won’t...maybe.”

  “Go inside the house,” Camryn told Esther. “I’ll be in as soon as I finish my business with Mr. Bolden.”

  Esther tugged on Camryn’s T-shirt. “But Mommy, I really want to jump off the fence.”

  Wonderful. Camryn shook her head. Just what I need, she thought. A daughter with a broken leg. “Go inside now, Esther. We’ll talk about this later.”

  Reed ordered his boys into the SUV and told them to stay there. When the adults were alone, he tried to make light of what had just happened. “I know. They’re horrid.”

  Camryn’s mouth dropped open. “That’s how you refer to your children...as horrid?”

  “Well, when you hear it enough...”

  She remembered Reed saying he was upping his attempt to be a good father. That goal required some determined training and attitude adjustment on everyone’s part. And the first thing he needed to do was to stop thinking of his kids in such negative terms.

  “I’ll tell them not to come over here,” he said.

  All at once Camryn felt bad for Reed’s sons. “They’re children, Reed. Show me a kid who’s never teased anyone else. I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm.”

  “Sure. Thanks for understanding, but I have a ways to go to undo years of discipline neglect. Look, it’s milk and cookies time for Justin and Phillip. I’ll go to the car and get my checkbook, and we’ll get out of here. Is two months’ rent enough to close the deal?”

  Eight hundred dollars! Camryn could order more chickens, some brown egg layers, maybe even some of those Ameraucanas that Esther had been wanting, the ones that laid the blue and pink eggs. “Yes, that will be fine,” she said.

  He brought her the check and she slipped it into her pocket.

  “Pleasure doing business with you, neighbor,” Reed said. “I’m sure I’ll see you again real soon.”

  “Thank you.” She watched him walk away, a sturdy, determined swagger to his step. She didn’t for a moment think it was put on. Reed Bolden was a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. Now if he could just control his boys, the goal he said he was working toward, perhaps Esther would make some lasting friends. Maybe.

  She was smiling when she went into the house. She had eight hundred dollars and a renter who only intended to stay until his own barn was built. An ideal situation, right?

  * * *

  AT SUPPER ESTHER picked at her food. Camryn had a good idea what was bothering her. “Is there something you would like to talk about, Essie?” she asked.

  Esther put down her fork and stared at Camryn. “Why wouldn’t you let me jump from the fence? The boys had been doing it. I wanted to show them I could jump as well as they did.”

  “I’m aware of that, honey, but if I’d seen them, I would have stopped them. First, and most important, the fence is almost four feet high. Jumping from that height could be dangerous. What if you twisted your ankle...or worse?”

  Esther took a long swallow of milk as she thought. Obviously she wasn’t buying the danger excuse.

  “And second,” Camryn said, “the fence was only put in two weeks ago. I don’t need rowdy children climbing around on it and putting all their weight on the top rail. What if one of the boards had broken?”

  Esther set down her glass and gave her mother an earnest glare. “Then the fence wouldn’t be any good, and you would have wasted your money anyway.”

  Sometimes her daughter’s powers of observation astounded Camryn. This was one of those times. “The fence is undoubtedly fine,” she said. “But what concerns me the most is that you think you need to prove something to Phillip and Justin. You are an amazing, wonderful girl, and you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.” She almost added, especially two chest-thumping, taunting boys.

  Camryn looked away from her daughter for a moment as memories flooded her mind. She wished she had learned that lesson before she’d married Mark and spent a good part of her life trying to live up to his expectations. But Mark had been the golden boy her parents had always wanted for her. Unfortunately the value of gold was not the same to different people.

  “The world is changing every day, Essie,” she said. “Girls and boys are equal in almost every category.” She smiled. “You’re a smart girl. Smart enough to know not to jump off a fence.”

  Esther didn’t look convinced. Her bottom lip trembled in a pout. “But they called me an old lady and said I had an old lady’s name.”

  “Those are just words, Es. They don’t mean anything. A name is just a name. I’ve told you before that yours is a very special name. It was my grandmother’s, your great-grandmother’s. Esther May Bergeron was the kindest, most intelligent, most loving woman I have ever known. When I gave you her name, I believed I was giving you a gift.” />
  Though her grandmother had been gone for more than five years, Camryn still thought about her and missed her every day. It didn’t matter that Esther May wasn’t a blood relative. Camryn and her twin sister had learned early on that they had been adopted. The Montgomerys were the best parents any two girls could hope for. And the Bergeron side of the family, Camryn’s adopted mother’s side, had produced the best grandmother.

  “I know,” Esther drawled. She moved food around on her plate. “I just thought I might be friends with those boys.”

  “And maybe you will,” Camryn said. “You’ll no doubt see them at school and here on our farm. But I guarantee you won’t be happy with a friendship based on who jumps the highest from our new fence.”

  Esther took a bite of her macaroni and cheese and mumbled some words Camryn only thought she heard correctly. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, no. You said something. I think it was about Auntie Brooke.”

  Esther had never been very good at backpedaling. Honesty was her strong point. She was too much like her auntie Brooke to play coy. So she stared at her mother and said, “I just was thinking that Auntie Brooke would have let me jump off the fence.”

  No doubt about it. Brooke would have insisted that Esther go over to the fence, shove the boys out of the way and show them how fence jumping was done by a true South Carolina girl. Camryn had always been a bit envious of Brooke’s spunk. There was no challenge too great, no goal unattainable, no date with a handsome guy that couldn’t be had.

  Brooke had always been a doer. Camryn had been a watcher. Still, Camryn wasn’t unhappy with the lessons she’d learned by watching and thinking. She often wondered if Brooke wasn’t a little jealous of Camryn’s ability to nurture all living things. While Brooke made the tastiest salads, Camryn grew the ingredients.

  Their parents had stopped calling the girls “two peas in a pod” before their fifth birthday. They’d stopped dressing them alike and allowed them to make their own choices. As the girls matured, their parents had often marveled at how two such different females could have formed such a lasting bond.

  But they had. Not a day went by that Camryn didn’t talk to her sister in Charleston. Brooke was her best friend, the one person who made Camryn’s minor successes seem like world-altering accomplishments, the one person who had Cam’s back through the divorce and supported her dream to own an organic farm.

  Brooke admitted that she would never feel comfortable on Cottontail Farm, but she’d agreed to try. So far she hadn’t been to the farm, but Camryn had sent her lots of pictures. Brooke complimented Camryn on the quantity of eggs her hens produced—as if she knew five a week was a good number—and made Camryn believe she was the strongest, most clever woman around. Cam longed for the day Brooke would show up and she could share the calm and peace of a country life with her best friend.

  As she cleared the table, Camryn smiled. If her sister had been faced with renting barn space to a man like Reed Bolden, she wouldn’t have blinked an eye. She’d have given him the whole barn and probably thrown in a room in the farmhouse, as well. And Reed’s “horrid” little boys would have been schooled in fence jumping.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE NEXT MORNING Camryn rose early and discovered a burst of energy she usually didn’t feel until she’d had two cups of coffee. She did her chores, woke Esther, prepared her breakfast and lunch, and tamed Esther’s hair into two long dark blond braids. Then she walked her daughter to the end of the lane and waited with her for the bus to arrive.

  Camryn’s phone rang, like it usually did, as she walked back to the farmhouse. Right on schedule. 8:00. Brooke called her about this time every morning when she was driving into work. “What’s up, farm girl?” Brooke said.

  “Oh, the usual,” Cam replied, without mentioning she was expecting two horses and their owner sometime today. “I’ll spend a couple of hours on November’s Alphabet Days magazine and then tend to my garden. Do you have any news?”

  “Actually I have an invitation,” Brooke said. “Mom just called me and said she wants us both, and Essie of course, to come to dinner on Sunday. She and Dad are taking us to a new restaurant in Ocean Cove. Should be nice. It’s on the water.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Camryn agreed. So far she’d managed to stay in touch with her parents at least every other day. “But there’s no way I can do it this Sunday.”

  “Oh, come on, sis. You have to come. I figured we’d have dinner and then maybe do some shopping—you know, girl time. I might even buy you a dress in case you’ve forgotten what they look like.”

  “And in case you’ve forgotten, I used to have a closet full of dresses, fancy ones picked out by my personal stylist, Mark.”

  “And what did you do with all of them?”

  “You know exactly what I did. I kept a couple just in case, and gave the rest to Goodwill. I hope other women are happier with them than I was.”

  “It wasn’t the dresses’ fault that you were miserable in your marriage, Cammie. You know that. Being the kind of corporate wife Mark expected just wasn’t you.”

  Old news, Camryn thought. Old and highly accurate. Two miscarriages brought on by stress, three full-blown panic attacks and too many minor anxiety attacks to count were all the details Cam needed to remind her of her old life.

  “Tell you what,” Brooke said. “If I drop the subject of the dresses, will you come? I haven’t seen you since you moved.”

  “You know where I am, Brooke. I’ve been so busy setting up my fields I haven’t left the farm in two months. And it’s only a little over an hour’s drive for you.”

  “Sure, I can come there, I suppose. Can’t wait.”

  Camryn smiled. She figured that when her sister finally visited Cottontail Farm, it would be a spur-of-the-moment decision. One day, Cam would step outside and see her sister’s BMW pulling up the drive. With the windows closed, of course, to avoid getting farm dust on the upholstery.

  “Look, Brooke, I’d like to come. I really would. But I’ve got two dozen hens being delivered on Saturday. I want to make sure they adapt to the rest of the flock and get settled in their new home.”

  “Really? Two dozen new hens! How exciting.”

  Camryn chuckled at her sister’s sarcasm.

  “Are you even making money with the egg business yet?” Brooke asked.

  “I am. I’ve got three dozen good layers right now and the new ones coming Saturday. At the farmers market I get four dollars and fifty cents a dozen for my eggs. The ones I don’t sell I take to the diner in town. They give me three dollars a dozen for the ones I have left over.”

  “That’s a start, I have to admit,” Brooke said. “I’ve heard that free-range eggs demand a premium. I’m used to paying a dollar eighty-nine at the supermarket.”

  “And I hope to make between one and two hundred a Saturday with my vegetables. I chose fast growers when I got here and I’m harvesting those plants now. The tomato bushes left by the previous owner just needed some fertilizer, and...”

  “Stop, Camryn. Have mercy.” Brooke laughed. “I’m about to fall asleep at the wheel.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “Is Mark still ponying up with his financial obligations?”

  “He’s been wonderful, actually. Hasn’t missed an alimony or a child support payment. And I got fifteen thousand for that ten-acre parcel I sold.”

  “Okay, Cam, you’re obviously rolling in it—money, I mean. Among other things.”

  “I’ve got to go, Brooke. Speaking of rolling in other things, I’m cleaning my chicken coop. And a neighbor is coming up my drive. And you have to be at work in ten minutes, don’t you?”

  “I do. Talk to you later. Love Essie. Love you.”

  They always ended their calls the same way. Even if they’d had a disagreement or a full-fledged arg
ument, they didn’t disconnect without saying I love you. Camryn was constantly amazed that two little infants could have been so lucky as to have been born together and adopted by the generous and loving Montgomerys.

  Sliding her cell phone into her jeans pocket, Camryn went to meet the SUV heading down to her barn. She smiled to think of Brooke’s reaction if she were at Cottontail Farm meeting this particular neighbor.

  * * *

  ALL REED WANTED to do was hang up the phone. He had two day laborers in the back of his SUV and a barn to clean before noon. And he wouldn’t mind having a conversation with his cute landlady currently walking across her yard toward the barn, that scruffy watchdog following her. But he had to finish with Helen first.

  “So you’re sure the boys are okay?” she asked for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was all Reed could do not to say, “If you’re so concerned for their welfare, why don’t you visit them once in a while?” But he held his tongue, knowing he would only instigate another argument.

  All Helen ever did was ask the same questions over and over, her attempt to assure herself that her ex-husband was fulfilling his obligation as a parent, the obligation she’d wanted no part of.

  “Yes, Helen, they’re fine.”

  “Can I talk to them?”

  “What? Helen, I realize Rio seems like a planet far removed from South Carolina, but you are in a time zone only three hours ahead of us. Where do you think the boys are right now?”

  She paused. “Oh, right. They’re in school.”

  “Yes, and I’ve got a lot on my plate today, so...”

  “I really wish you hadn’t taken them from Bucks County,” she said.

  Reed sighed. “We’ve been over all this, Helen. You had left the country, and the judge decided the move would be good for the boys. Case closed.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if you paid the judge off, Reed. Maybe that sounds cruel, but you got everything you wanted in the divorce, including full custody of the kids.”