First Step Forward

by Liora Blake

  My brother Caleb’s wife, Kellie, once said our family looks like what would happen if a Viking ship crash-landed ashore in the middle of a Carhartt photo shoot, which always seemed the most accurate way anyone has described our particular brand of bellowing, blue-eyed, blond, and burly. The dinner table seats ten and Kellie is the lone brunette present. Even the kids, the rest of whom are already eating while crammed in around a card table set up in the living room, are all little towheaded lovable terrors.

  “Fences good?”

  My dad cuts a quick look in my direction before handing a basket of biscuits off to Matty, who puts one on his plate and reaches for another. His wife, Jana, raises a brow and he yanks his hand back. Jana is four and a half months along now, which means her naturally whip-thin frame is definitely showing, but this time around, she looks healthy and strong. Matty, on the other hand, looks like he’s two breaths away from letting his brawny Viking heart swell right up and out of his chest.

  I put a second scoopful of potatoes on my plate—I’m off-season, considering retirement, and miserable, so my usual ultra-clean diet can just go fuck itself.

  “Yeah. I didn’t make it over to that far north boundary line to check water gaps, though.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I’ll get over there early.”

  Forks clink and knives drag across dinner plates as everyone starts to dig in. Caleb cracks the tab on his Keystone, taking a large swig before swallowing it down slowly.

  “Christ, are you on the run from something back in Denver? Knock over a convenience store, Pooper? Because you don’t act like you’re going home any time soon.”

  The four grown women at the table sigh and groan and shush him in unison. Kellie jabs her index finger into his side. He takes another drink and surveys the female faces around him, his own becoming perplexed. “What?”

  Another round of sighs. Mom redirects the conversation to the grandkids without even a hiccup, each of my sisters-in-law chiming in. Her mom-radar is even sharper than my dad’s, and more attuned to the annoying, soft organs inside my chest. Despite my not sharing any details, not even so much as a passing comment about things being unsettled with Whit, my mom knows something is up. And it seems she’s shared her suspicions with the rest of the henhouse. Probably during a summit meeting of sorts in the kitchen, each of the women tsk-ing and clucking their tongues at my pathetic state of being.

  We make it to dessert by discussing everything but me. But after inhaling a slab of poke cake, Mikey leans farther in his chair and arches his back to drop a few satisfied pats to his belly, then his eyes light up.

  “Oh, hey, I almost forgot about this. Coop, I finished the mock-up for Whitney’s website. Amelia, sweetheart, go grab my iPad out of the truck.” Amelia is up and all the way to the door before my mom interjects.

  “Michael, none of those things at the table.”

  “Ma, we’re not screwing around—this is for his girlfriend’s orchard. It’s business.”

  Her gaze slants over to me, hedging to see if I’m about to crack or something. “Still, I don’t like it.”

  I drop my napkin to the tablecloth and wave one hand in the air. All the ladies turn half-sad, half-pitying eyes my way. “It’s fine.”

  Mikey pats his belly again. “No, it’s not fine. It’s awesome. Wait till you see it—I’m an artistic genius.”

  The back door slams shut and Amelia skip-jogs into the room, dropping the tablet into Mikey’s waiting hands. He flips the cover open and scrolls through a few pages, then hands it my way with a grin. It doesn’t take more than one glance to see that he’s right. He’s an artistic fucking genius.

  At the top of the home page is a newly designed logo, with Delaney Creek in a font that mimics hand-painted brushstrokes. There’s a touch of femininity in the script style, but the dark cobalt color he’s chosen keeps it from looking too busy, especially with the whitewash effect he’s applied to give it an antiqued feel. Orchards is typeset in a bold, modern font in dark chocolate brown. Hovering behind the type is the silhouette of an apple tree, so minimalist it doesn’t dominate, yet somehow evokes all the tenets of biodynamics that Whitney believes in. My jaw goes slack when I realize how perfect this is and how much Whitney would love it.

  Mikey leans over and clicks through another few pages, pointing out where we’ll need to add text and those areas where he thinks we should add pictures from the orchard. He navigates to a page designed for Whit’s bio, gleefully pointing out where he’s inserted a picture of me in the spot where hers should be.

  I was five years old and sitting on Santa’s lap, bawling my eyes out. I’m red-faced and blubbering, with strings of spittle stretching across my wide-open wailing mouth. At the bottom of the photo, he’s added a caption.

  Insert photo of woman crazy enough to choose THIS GUY.

  He starts to snort, laughing so loudly that Caleb and Matty launch out of their chairs and join in when they see what he’s done. I force a grin, flipping them off with a strained chuckle that’s the best I can manage because inside, I feel a lot like the kid in that picture.

  Irony has truly made me her bitch. If they only knew. Whitney hasn’t chosen me.

   29

  (Whitney)

  At this point, I might have better luck finishing this tree pruning with a kindergartner’s pair of cut-and-paste scissors. My long-handled pruning shears are officially dull.

  Not unexpected since I’ve asked a lot of these shears over the last two weeks. I worked my way through most of the tree rows, honing each branch into a veritable work of art. But it was more than busywork: proper pruning means allowing each limb to get the right amount of sunlight, while also thinning them enough to keep the trees from overproducing fruit, which can lead to anemic product and disease. And thanks to Cooper, I now have more seasons ahead of me, so keeping my trees healthy and productive is vital.

  But these shears need some love. I’ve attempted to sharpen them myself, but either my technique or my tools aren’t up to snuff. It’s time to let a professional have at it. Time for Garrett.

  A quick drive into town and I find the co-op parking lot nearly empty. Garrett and I haven’t spoken since his Dr. Phil speech. Here’s hoping his rural sensibilities will keep him from asking any particularly pointed questions, since I don’t even have all the answers for myself yet.

  He’s on the phone when I step in, but he gives a wave and smile. I set my pruning shears on the counter and flip through a stray farm catalog that’s tossed in a pile nearby. Garrett wraps up the call, then shoves the phone under the counter.

  “Johnny, long time no see.” He gives me an easy, but curious, look. “Things going OK?”

  Closing the farm catalog, I set it back where it was. “Meh. OK, yes. But that’s about the best of it.”

  Garrett picks up the shears and runs his thumb over the edge of one blade.

  “Have you been pruning T-posts with these? Jesus.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Do you think you can do anything with them?”

  He squints to get a closer look. “I’ll try, but these can be tricky. Give me a minute and I’ll run them over the blade in back.”

  Garrett wanders toward the back, then disappears behind a stack of boxes towering in the storage room. I hear a machine whir to life and the sound of metal grazing over a sharpening stone. I grab another farm catalog and skim a few pages before setting it back down when nothing interests me.

  A television set is mounted to the wall above the front counter, tuned to a sports station that’s reporting on golf, with the volume turned down low enough that there’s only the faint sound of polite clapping from people interested enough in golf that they would actually attend a tournament. Being that I’ve gone without a television for years, I can’t imagine why I would want or need one at my place of business, but having seen Garrett’s boss a time or two, perhaps it makes sense. He looks like he might spend most of his non-working hours perched in a comfortable recl
iner, talking about all the ways such-and-such athletes could perform their jobs better.

  Coverage of the tournament cuts for a commercial break. After various spots for male demographic–targeted products, a raven-haired anchorwoman appears on the screen to report the day’s sports highlights. After only a few clips of an MMA fight, I’m nearly bored enough to look away.

  Then Cooper’s face appears in the little box to the right of the anchor’s head. It’s his team head shot, the one where he looks especially unfriendly. The low volume means I can’t make out what the anchorwoman is saying, so I start to shuffle through the masses of junk on the front counter, looking for a remote control. Finally, it peeks out from underneath a modern-day-useless phone book. I grab the remote and begin to jab at the button to turn up the sound, just as a clip of Cooper starts to play.

  He’s outside his team headquarters, glowering and grasping the strap of his gym bag like he’s considering the best way to use it as a weapon. The profile of a reporter peeks into the screenshot as he makes his way over to Cooper at a dead trot.

  No. Shit, shit, shit. It’s Bodie Carmichael. Cooper hates this guy—even more that he hates the rest of the media. There’s an immediate instinct to swoop in on a rescue mission. I just don’t know who I should save first: Cooper or the greasy reporter who’s one nosy question away from a fat lip.

  Bodie makes it to within a few feet of Cooper. Cooper looks up and his already stony face grows darker.

  “Good to see you up and around, Lowry.”

  Cooper nods. Then Bodie poses a simple question, one any seasoned athlete should be able to answer while still giving up nothing.

  “What’s next?”

  I hold my breath and wait for the screen to go black when Cooper inevitably decks anyone within swinging distance. But he doesn’t do what I expect. He doesn’t snarl or snap. He doesn’t grab the camera or go for Bodie’s neck.

  It’s worse.

  Cooper Lowry falters. He looks straight into the camera—right at me, I’d swear—and hesitates. Then his expression becomes broken.

  “I have no fucking idea.”

  The viewers hear a bleep, of course. But I hear what goes unsaid. The restless fear of a man without a plan.

  Garrett comes back into the room and notes the look on my face, then swings his gaze to see what’s captured my attention. His shoulders sag and he lets out a little gusting sigh.

  “You know that clip’s a few weeks old, right? They’ve been on this story for a while now. The whole retirement thing—will he or won’t he?”

  Somewhere along the way, in the days after it became clear I was out of options, I’d kind of forgotten about what Cooper was dealing with. The possible end of his career, the decisions he was faced with about his future. Even when we were in his truck after the auction sale and he brought it up, I was so wrapped up in my own bullshit that I didn’t take it all in. Cooper was losing the only life he’d ever known. What he needed, more than anything, was to find a new home for all that determination and drive.

  Then he went and gave me my world back, a second chance at everything. All he wanted in return was the same, the opportunity for a second act—with me, just so long as I was sure.

  The reality was that Cooper and I needed each other as much as we wanted each other. And while I might have once thought that sounded a little too co-dependent to be sane or reasonable, I know that isn’t our truth.

  Our truth is bigger than self-help buzz words. Our truth is two people who met at the right time, knee-deep in their own cruddy catastrophes, who deserved the possibility of better days to come. All we had to do was take it one step at a time.

  The first step? Bring Cooper home.

   30

  (Cooper)

  When I near Whitney’s driveway, the afternoon sun is starting to dim behind the ridge of mountains that skirt her property. I pull in slowly, doing my best not to announce my arrival by way of a Cummins motor salute, because with all that’s happened since I last saw her, I need a moment to get myself together before walking in there.

  She sent a text yesterday—nothing definitive, just letting me know that she had made her decision. No hints, nothing but a request to see me. I left Texas this morning and rerouted my usual way home by jumping on Highway 50 outside Pueblo, then linking up with Highway 92 to Hotchkiss. A few hours later, and here I am. Cautiously hopeful, but anxious enough to wish this were already over and that I knew whether I was about to start a new chapter or lose everything I truly wanted.

  Frost covers the rows of apple trees and with the late afternoon light waning, the limbs practically glow in the haze of the setting sun. That sight reminds me of every reason I had for doing what I did. No question, Whitney deserved another chance to make this work.

  I step out of the truck and give my knee a stretch, then make my way up to the porch and pause for a moment, taking a deep breath before knocking on the screen door.

  “It’s open! I’m in the kitchen!”

  Jesus. Christ.

  I close my eyes and count to ten. Storming in there and reading her the riot act is not the best greeting, but the woman refuses to follow the basic bylaws of home safety. Like locking the fucking door. Or not inviting people in without getting eyes on them first. Simple, straightforward shit.

  When I shove open the door, I don’t bother to stop and take my boots off—my mom would kill me, but I have bigger issues. I halt in place just beyond the threshold to the kitchen.

  “How many times do I have to tell you not to do that? You don’t know who’s at the goddam door. I’m begging you to demonstrate some sense of self-preservation. Please.”

  Whitney peers out from behind a large cardboard box that’s set atop her kitchen table, from which she’s unpacking dinnerware. In front of the box is an old television set, and I mean old. We’re talking 1980s at best. It has rabbit ears and dials, for Christ’s sake. I point at it.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  Her hair is up in a messy knot on the top of her head and she’s wearing my favorite sweater. The black one with the deep V-neck, and maybe it’s the angle or the lighting—shit, I don’t know—but I’m almost positive her tits look bigger. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks and my hands have barely survived the deprivation of touching her. Or maybe I’m just a lovesick fool who will always see her, want her, and do my best to catalog every plentiful inch of her body.

  She tilts her head and narrows her eyes. “It’s your welcome-home present.”

  “My what?”

  Whitney lets out a huff. “OK, you’re ruining this. I wanted you to come in here and do your grumpy silent thing for a second. That way I could tell you I made a decision, that I love you and want to be your partner in everything. Then I would show you this symbolic gesture of my love.”

  She sweeps her hands open in a ta-da gesture at the so-called television. “That I’d wanted to make sure you’d never have to stream football on Thanksgiving again. So I drove to a biker’s house in Crawford to acquire this free TV he had on craigslist.”

  The only thing I really hear is that my beautiful Whitney drove to some greasy guy’s house, a dude who had an ad on craigslist—also known as the best way to lure unsuspecting women into your evil chamber of secrets—to acquire this … thing.

  “You went to a fucking biker’s house? Alone?”

  She sweeps her hands wide again, all but saying duh, while also being adult enough to not actually say it. I raise my brows.

  She lets her arms drop, props her hands on her hips, and tilts her head.

  “First off, my dad was a biker, so you should tread lightly here. But we can discuss that later. Let me repeat the important part again, just in case you didn’t hear me the first time around. I love you, Cooper. I choose you. I want this.”

  The room is so quiet I can hear every creak in the house and I’m suddenly able to process what she just said. She wants this. She wants me.

 
; Whitney lays one of her hands against the amber-colored pendant she’s wearing, pressing the stone to her skin. A flush rises across her chest and then it becomes hard for me to remember who I was before she shuffled her way into that drugstore, and into every part of my heart.

  I clear my throat but it doesn’t help. My voice still breaks. “You’re sure?”

  She nods once. “Yes.”

  I take a step closer, desperate for the feel of her. She closes the distance and puts one of her hands to my chest. Then there’s nothing but the ease of my body finding hers.

  “All of it? Marriage, babies, apple trees, and dogs?”

  She curls up her lip. “Um, no. You didn’t mention marriage before. We aren’t getting married.”

  My lips curl up just the same. “The fuck we aren’t. That’s how it’s done.”

  A scowl from her. “Marriage is just an archaic, patriarchal smokescreen. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  My hands find her hips and I give them a rough jerk into mine. Her eyes flare.

  “It’s also a way for two people to show how much they love each other. How committed they are. In my case, it’s also the best way to keep from breaking my mother’s heart.”

  Whitney draws her hands down my chest and works them between us, teasing across the fly of my jeans. The move means my heart starts to thump wildly and my dick starts to wake up from his depressed slumber of the last few weeks. She brings her voice down a notch and slows the delivery of her words, because she can feel it all.

  “I’m on board with everything else. The orchard, the dogs, the kids. Even though your high-handed genetics probably mean I’ll eventually end up trying to corral a passel of boys who are into rolling coal in their big, obnoxious trucks or mudding in some farmer’s field while listening to terrible bro-country songs. Plus, they’ll be all brawny and stubborn—”