Emerald

by Elle Casey

  Most days I spend with Sadie or at least have her nearby while Sam works on his music in the studio shed. But every night is for him and me alone, and we couldn’t be more perfectly suited to each other. Our bodies fit together like they were made from the same mold, two halves pulled apart and set down on opposite ends of the country to be brought back together again by fate.

  “And you know Fleur?” Sadie asks.

  “Yes, I know Fleur the chicken. What about her?”

  “Well, she’s missing some feathers on her butt. I think we need to take her to see Rosie.”

  “You may be right about that. Maybe she has mites.” Good thing I have Rose around to help me take care of those kinds of things, although unless I have a sick animal or a spare hour to help out at the clinic, I hardly see her. She’s taking all her meals out there now and sleeping there often, too. The best we’ve been able to do is a few midnight chats, but they’re good enough for me. I’d never demand that Rose spend time with me when she has patients who need her.

  “Maybe we can go see her after we have our lunch,” Sadie suggests.

  “Maybe.” I bend down and point out the man sitting under the tree she hasn’t yet noticed. “Look. There’s your dad.”

  Sadie gets ready to run, but I grab her hand and hold her back. “Go softly. Maybe he’s meditating. We don’t want to interrupt his peaceful moment.”

  She starts tiptoeing, making a big show of listening to me. It’s hilarious because she’s making such a ruckus, Sam has no hope of any peace now that his daughter is in the meadow.

  When he turns around and sees her coming, a grin lights up his face. He stands and opens his arms. She runs right into them. I pause for a moment to enjoy the scene. He’s got a thick sweater on to protect against the coming winter, and the skin of his face and hands has a healthy glow from all the time he’s spent outside. As it turns out, Sam is pretty handy with a hammer. He’s been fixing fences all over the property. It’s made his hands rougher, but I like it. I feel like I’m in bed with a real workingman when he touches my skin with his callused hands.

  When I get closer, I hear Sadie chattering on about the picnic basket’s contents. Sam acts as though he’s really excited about his ham-and-cheese sandwich.

  “I’m sure it’ll be the best one I’ve ever had,” he says. He smiles at me. “I hear I’m in for a gourmet lunch today.”

  “You bet.” I set the basket down and pull out the rolled-up blanket from inside, spreading it under the tree. Soon enough, I have the whole thing unpacked and we’re munching away. Sadie’s favorites are the tiny carrots dipped in ranch dressing.

  “I think I’m ready to write some music,” Sam says. He’s staring out into the meadow.

  “Really? That’s great.”

  “I’ve been working out some things in my head.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it.” So far I haven’t been privy to anything he’s been working on, but I have high hopes that he’ll let me do that one day.

  He faces me. “I’m glad you said that, because I have a plan.”

  “What is it?” Now I’m suspicious; he’s got an evil glint in his eye.

  “We still have that bet, remember?”

  “No, I don’t remember. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I look around, refusing to meet his eyes.

  “Here’s the plan. We’re going to do it here. I play, you paint.”

  I gesture around. “Here? No problem.”

  He shakes his head. “No. In town.”

  My sandwich gets caught in my throat, and I have to cough to release it. “What?”

  “In town. At the farmers’ market.”

  “You’re nuts.” He went to the market with me one time, and all he did was complain about how cold it was.

  “Yeah, I was thinking we could get this bet out of the way, and then I could use the two hundred bucks I’ll win to buy a couple new T-shirts I saw.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re into hemp now.” I saw him eyeing the things last week, but I can’t believe he’d actually buy one. Besides, he doesn’t need that bet money from me if he wants to change his wardrobe. I know he has some from the band. Amber made sure the deal was still solid between them, and he’s already gotten a percentage of his fee.

  “Hey, it’s natural fibers, man. You gotta be friendly to the environment.” He holds out his hands and frowns at me. “Hello? Intentional-living community? Sound familiar?”

  I laugh, totally charmed by his attempts to fit in. And those attempts are working. All the regulars have accepted him as one of the family, especially when they see how much effort he puts in. The only one who seems a little reticent is Smitty, but I don’t care what he thinks. He’s just bummed that he’s not going to be getting any booty calls from me. Not that he ever did.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Sam shrugs. “Or you could just forfeit the two hundred bucks. Save us both the humiliation.”

  I shake my head. No way am I letting him get away with not performing his music. “Forget it. It’s on.”

  He slaps his hands and laughs. “Yeah!”

  “Why did you say, ‘Yeah,’ Daddy?” Sadie asks.

  He jumps up and grabs Sadie, swinging her around in the air. “Because I’m happy!” he shouts.

  She shrieks with glee.

  “You don’t need to be that happy about it,” I say, trying to sound grouchy. Truth is, I’m a little nervous about painting in front of the people at the market. I know a lot of them, but I’d rather not expose that part of myself to them. I almost think it would be easier doing it in Central Park, a place full of strangers.

  Sadie’s face is pink and she’s giggling her head off. “That makes my tummy tickle,” she says gaily.

  “Oh, yeah?” He throws her high up into the air. “How about that? Does it make your tummy tickle too?”

  A shriek is her answer. Her arms are spread like eagle wings. “Do it again, Daddy!”

  I spend the rest of my lunch break watching the two of them be silly, running around the meadow, playing tag, spinning in circles, and falling exhausted to the cold ground. This trip has been so good for them. I really don’t want them to leave, but everyone is due back from Japan tomorrow, and I know our time together here is coming to a close. Sam will need to go to New York to work with the band. Ty and Amber have offered him and Sadie rooms in their apartment.

  Neither of us has mentioned what comes next, and my upbringing tells me to just let things lie. Around here, we don’t do the commitment thing. People come and go as their moods and the weather change. It was easy for me to say all kinds of things about our future when I was temporarily living outside of my normal life, but now that we’re here and my world has mostly gone back to normal, it’s hard to be that “other” Emerald anymore. I belong here. I have no desire whatsoever to move to Manhattan.

  My heart is heavy and aching over it. I don’t really see an easy solution to our dilemma. In order for Sam to write music for the band, he needs to be in New York with them pretty often. Sadie doesn’t do well there, but it’s not like he can leave her with me. I’m not her mother, and although I love her, I’m not ready to be a single mother to the child of a man I just met. Maybe that’s coldhearted of me, but I really believe she needs to be with her dad right now. She lost her mom, and although she’s doing okay, she still needs to talk about it and work her way through it. And she needs to do that with Sam, not me. She’s only four years old. She needs stability in her life. Her dad going back and forth and leaving her behind doesn’t fit in with that program. Maybe when he’s done working with them, he can think about living somewhere else . . . maybe somewhere close by. But then again, maybe not. There’s not much call for professional musicians out here in the middle of nowhere.

  I sigh, collecting all of our picnic things. I wish the Universe would offer me a solution, but so far all it has done is show me how sad I’m going to be in about forty-eight hours.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREEr />
  I thought I would be ready for my mothers’ homecoming, but when a giant tour bus pulls up onto the property, I nearly pee my pants in panic. What the hell is going on?!

  I stand out on the front porch holding Sadie’s hand. She’s jumping up and down, using my arm as leverage to go higher and higher. I look down, hoping if I focus on her, I’ll be less likely to have an accident in my pants. “Are you excited?”

  “Yes, yes, yes! I’m gonna see a circus!”

  I blink at her a few times. “A circus?”

  She points at the big, colorful bus. “That’s a circus.”

  I shake my head, mumbling under my breath. “I think you’re right about that. We’re about to see some clowns come out, too, I’ll bet.”

  Sam is suddenly behind me, resting his hand on my shoulder. “What’s this all about?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” I feel better having him there with me.

  The door opens with a bang and a hiss of steam. People start piling out. The first one to exit is Amber, and she comes running straight for me. She’s wearing ridiculously high heels and almost trips in the dust before she makes it to the stairs and grabs the railing.

  She looks up at me, smiling like a loon. “Holy crap, I almost bit it out there.” She climbs the stairs, clomping all the way up in her heels. She stops near the top and bends down to look right at Sadie, the little imp who’s suddenly become very un-Sadie-like. She’s trying to hide behind my legs.

  “You must be Sadie.”

  She peeks out. “I am Sadie. Are you a clown?”

  Amber snorts. “A clown? I don’t think so.” She looks up at me. “Am I a clown?”

  I can’t help but laugh. “Yes, you are.” I turn my attention to my little buddy, who’s still glued to me. “Sweetie, this is my sister Amber. We stayed in her apartment in New York, remember? I showed you pictures of her?”

  “Hi, Amber,” Sadie says, coming out a bit more.

  “Hello, Sadie. It’s so nice to meet you. I think I might have a present for you on that bus. Maybe you could go find it.”

  Sadie looks conflicted, and I know exactly what she’s thinking: she wants that present, but she’s worried about attack clowns lying in wait.

  “Is that a circus bus?” she asks.

  Amber glances up at me, but I just shrug. She’s going to be a mom soon; let’s see how she handles it.

  “I guess you could call the tour bus a circus bus,” she says. “It gets pretty crazy in there sometimes. Maybe your daddy can show you the inside.” She stands straight and waits for Sam to make his move.

  He looks at me and shrugs, taking Sadie by the hand. They walk down the stairs together, weave their way around the groups of people who just got off the bus, and climb inside.

  Amber steps up to be on the same level as me and stands at my side, staring at the bus. “Don’t freak out,” she says in softer tones.

  “Why would I freak out about a tour bus in the middle of my front lawn?” I’m trying not to be mad at her. She could have called and warned me, so I know she decided at some point along the way that a sneak attack was a better idea.

  “Hey . . . if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain has to come to Mohammed.”

  I look at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She sighs and drapes her arm over my shoulders. “I know that you aren’t ready for Sam to go back to New York, and everybody’s really whipped from the tour, so I figured, why not come out here and relax for a little while before we go back? Maybe talk a little bit, work some things out . . .”

  I stiffen, my entire body going rock hard. “You think that’s going to be relaxing?”

  “Yes, I do.” She rubs my back vigorously. “You just need to let go a little bit.”

  I step away to release myself from her hold. “Let go of what?”

  “Let go of your bitterness. Jesus.” She frowns at me. “Are you wound tight, or what?”

  I ignore the fact that she just bought me more time with Sam and Sadie and focus on the part of the story that’s giving me an ulcer just thinking about it. “You say that as if this is just a decision I need to make, like, presto bango, I’m no longer uncomfortable about the idea of spending time with . . . certain people.”

  “It is a decision. And it’s an easy one; all you have to do is bother to get to know them just the tiniest bit.” She shrugs and looks out at the bus. “But hey . . . maybe you’re too afraid to do that. Maybe it’s easier for you to be angry and offended over things that didn’t happen than to face that fear.”

  I feel like slapping her. “I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of them, and I’m not afraid of you. I know all I need to know about those men, and you’re not going to bully me into doing anything I don’t want to.”

  “I’m not a bully.” She grits her teeth.

  I fold my arms. “That’s funny, because you’re doing a great imitation of one right now.”

  She stares at me with her nostrils flaring for a few seconds, but then her face falls and tears well up in her eyes. “I’m really not a bully. I just love you so much, and I want everyone to be happy.”

  I want to say nothing and let her stew in her guilt, but watching her crumble in front of me makes that impossible. “You need to let it alone,” I say, putting my arms around her.

  She’s pregnant. I can’t believe I temporarily forgot that. Maybe I should try harder to keep my opinions to myself while she’s in such a delicate state. It’s just that she makes me so mad trying to force a relationship with those men on me.

  She sighs and pulls out of my embrace, looking at the door of the tour bus with me as she wipes her eyes. More people are coming out. “Well, I’m afraid it might be a little too late for that.”

  Guys wearing jeans and leather jackets emerge. I recognize them—even though they’re old, gray-haired, and wrinkled, with slightly updated haircuts—as the men who grace the album covers in my mothers’ living room. They’re quickly surrounded by our moms, three women who used to give a hoot about me, but who cannot be bothered to even say hello before they’re over there throwing themselves at their feet. It seems like after that overseas trip and the bus ride, they could spare a minute for the daughter they haven’t seen in almost two weeks.

  “Screw this,” I growl, spinning on my heel and stomping into the house. I go straight to my bedroom and lock the door. Amber invited those turds to our home without even talking to me first, but I’m the one who still lives here. Don’t I deserve at least the respect of a phone call? What was she thinking? She knows very well that I don’t want them here. This is Amber forcing her solutions on me, as if my problems are her problems. Well, I’ve got news for her: they’re not.

  And that goes for my mothers, too. They’re in on this little plan of hers. It’s all a conspiracy to pressure me into doing what they want me to do, feeling what they want me to feel. But I’m not going to do it. Not this time. I’m my own person and I’m not afraid of them. And I’m not afraid of hurting their feelings by standing my ground either.

  Amber decided to set up her life with the band so she could try to foster some kind of new relationship with them, but I am not interested in that. I don’t need them in my life. I don’t need their money and I don’t need their complications. I know everybody else loves them, but I don’t, and nothing they say or do is going to change that. And if Sam joins their team and tries to get me to suck up to those guys, then he can just go back to New York and take Sadie with him.

  Just thinking those words makes my heart ache, but I do my best to steel myself against the pain. I am not going to compromise this time. I have my principles, and I’m going to stand on them. If you love somebody, you do the right thing by them. These men either did not love my mothers and are therefore lying about that, or their love for my mothers was less than their love for themselves; and in that case, they aren’t my kind of people.

  When our mothers walked away all those years ago, those men shoul
d’ve followed them or at least tracked them down and asked why they left without saying goodbye. They didn’t, though, and that tells me all I need to know, which is that they didn’t care about our mothers then and they don’t care about them now. They just like how our mothers worship the ground they walk on. My moms are better women than this, and it frustrates me to no end to see them acting like brainless twits.

  Their old-men egos probably need that adoration to keep their hearts pumping. Amber says they regret the choices they made, and maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t undo them. Those mistakes still happened. I grew up without a father, and when I see Sam with Sadie, I realize all that I missed. It’s a tragedy is what it is—a preventable one.

  I am not ready to forgive now, and maybe I never will be; but I certainly won’t be forgiving anybody who forces himself on me. Those men can’t be that clueless; they know they’ve come into my territory without my approval. So, fine. I don’t need to see them. They can live their lives and I’ll live mine. This farm is two hundred acres big, and I can easily disappear on it.

  I cry until I don’t have any tears left and my eyelids are too heavy to hold open anymore. The world goes black, and that’s just perfect as far as I’m concerned.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  I wake up two hours later to the sound of someone knocking. Sam’s voice comes through the door. “Hey, babe? Everybody’s getting ready to have dinner outside together. Will you please come out and join us? I know it’s not going to be easy, but maybe it’s worth doing anyway.”