by Joanna Bell
"Blaze," he grinned, "I know. I was joking. Besides, I'm clearly the brains of this operation."
He dodged the playful slap I aimed at his bicep as we both laughed. "So tell me about terroir, then, genius," I said, after I'd stopped fruitlessly chasing him around the porch – Jack was a big guy but damn if he didn't move like a cat.
"Yeah," he started, hugging me close from behind again and burying his face in my neck. "Terroir. It's a French term, and if you look it up online you'll see the technical definition – it just means where something is grown. The kind of soil, how much sunlight there is, rainfall, temperature, all of that. As you can imagine, even within a small area you can have quite different circumstances.
"Uh-huh," I nodded, pushing my fingers into his hair as he spoke. I love it when he gets all interested and enthusiastic about something.
"So," he continued. "It is those things, but to the French it seems like more than just the physical, you know? It's almost spiritual for them – the life force of a given place, if you know what I mean? This idea that you can see and taste and feel the place where the grapes that made a specific wine – or anything really, it could be an eggplant, or a chicken – were grown. You know?"
"I think so," I replied, thinking. It definitely made a kind of intuitive sense.
"Anyway," Jack went on. "I was thinking about that concept when it comes to humans. If it's true for livestock – animals, or plants, living things – why not humans? And that got me to thinking about me – well, about us, and about this baby. You're here now, aren't you? You're here, looking at that sunset over those specific mountains, the way I have since I was a kid. Now your 'terroir' is the same as mine – we both stand in the same light here, on Sweetgrass Ranch, don't we? We both drink the water from the well and breath that crisp air in the morning when the Moileds get their breakfast. And we made our baby here, in this terroir. I just thought it was such an interesting concept..."
"It is," I responded, more affected by Jack's explanation of a French term than I thought I would be. We stood there on the porch for quite awhile that evening, watching the sun set and thinking about each other, our baby, and human terroir.
In Dublin, when I told Jack I loved him – and that I suspected I had loved him before I was brave enough to admit it – I meant it. I did love him. But spending those first months with him at Sweetgrass Ranch revealed new facets, new depths to our relationship. It was the difference between that drug-like giddiness at the very beginning and the more stable, bone-deep sense of contentment we felt with each other as time passed. It's not like the heat between us lessened – if anything it got deeper, and hotter. Knowing Jack – truly knowing him, from the face he was going to make when someone told him a certain story or the mood he was going to be in when one of the cattle twisted its ankle on the uneven ground in the foothills – was what gave me a sense of the boundless breadth of love between us.
All of the conflict I had felt in the past revealed itself for what it was – background noise. It didn't matter what I should do, or how I should feel or what I should care about because what I was doing, and feeling, and caring about, was more right than anything else in my life had ever been. My parents weren't happy, but they didn't cut contact entirely. Our short phone calls consisted of clipped, small-talky conversations about the weather and whatever part of the house renovation was currently underway. I tried to tell them how things had changed for me – and how there was going to be no going back, but they didn't seem to be able to get over it. I didn't push it, either, because I wanted my child to know its only living grandparents, but part of me did want to ask just what exactly they were so angry about. Yes, they paid for my college. But they could afford it – easily. It never stopped them taking their summer vacations up to Cape Cod, or prevented my dad from buying the latest Audi A6 every second year. And the message I'd grown up with my entire life was 'as long as you're happy.'
The problem was when my version of 'happy' deviated from theirs. I was 26 years old – old enough to know it would have been a mistake to choose a life path based on what would make my parents happy. It was baffling to me that they couldn't see it. But Jack counseled giving them time, and so that's what I did, all the while hoping they would come around one day, and see that I wasn't some dumb kid throwing her life away.
The drought ended that spring, and rain – real, steady, sustained rain – fell on what seemed like a daily basis. Articles about topsoil loss disappeared from the local paper as farmers rejoiced to see the first green shoots of the crop break ground. The mood in Little Falls matched the one at Sweetgrass Ranch – buoyant, optimistic.
Emotionally buoyant, anyway. If there was one thing I wasn't, as my belly grew alongside the temperature as spring turned into a hot, sunny summer, it was physically buoyant. My sickness faded, which was a relief, but I felt as heavy and lumbering as Daisy looked before giving birth to her calf in April.
By August, with the house renovations – at least in the main living areas – almost complete, I was a happy, waddling pregnant lady, carrying glass after glass of fresh, iced lemonade out to the newly-restored porch to drink while I put my feet up on the railing. Jack made the lemonade himself, driving into town at noon on most days to pick up fresh lemons. I never got used to it, either. It never failed to make me glow with joy to see him walking up the driveway in his cowboy hat and his dusty jeans with a bag of lemons in one hand and a broad smile on his handsome face.
He developed a little habit of tipping his hat at me as he approached the porch where I was inevitably sitting, fanning myself with whatever book it was I was reading at the time, and announcing that he had 'fresh lemons for the little lady.' It made me giggle. It made me feel loved.
It was on one of those endless summer afternoons, as I sat sipping my lemonade and scratching Lulu's soft ears as she sat beside me, that Jack rode up from the barn on one of the horses.
"What is it?" I asked, because he usually didn't ride the horses up to the house.
"You think that baby's ever coming out?" He asked, eying my enormous belly. I was one day past my due date, a state of affairs the doctor had assured me was nothing to worry about just yet, and as hot and bothered as an Englishman in the desert, to borrow an amusing phrase from Jack.
"I hope so," I replied. "Because I don't know how much longer I can stand this."
"Don't worry, it'll be sooner than you think. Are you tired? I – uh, I want to show you something."
"What? In the house?"
"No. You need to come with me."
Jack was acting a little strangely. Something about his tone of voice, his body language – I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Lulu seemed to sense something was up, too, because she got up and went to Jack, tilting her head up to him questioningly.
"Where are we going? I have to be here for the plumber, he'll be arriving in –"
"Blaze!"
"What?"
"The plumber has been taken care of. Now come on, we need to get going."
Whatever Jack wanted to show me, he was insistent enough that at that point I just gave in. Sure, it took a good ten minutes to maneuver the horse into position next to the porch, and then to maneuver me safely onto the horse's back (Jack said it was too long of a walk for me to do it my 9 months pregnant condition), but eventually we were underway, with Jack holding the horse's reins on one side of me and Lulu gamboling on the other.
We walked out through the gate at the northwest corner of the Sweetgrass Ranch property, and kept going up higher into the foothills. I tried to get him to tell me where we were going a few times but he refused to do anything other than smile in response and assure me that we would be there soon.
'Soon' is a relative term. Almost two hours later, after we had ventured into the trees and higher than I had ever been before, Jack told me to close my eyes. I closed them, concentrating on the movements of the horse as she picked her way over the rocky terrain, until I felt her come to a stop.
; "OK. Open them."
I blinked as my vision re-adjusted to the light levels, and looked around. We were no longer in the trees. A field of wildflowers surrounded us, so riotous with color I almost doubted my own eyes, and marked, in the middle, by a meandering brook.
"Oh my God," I whispered, because it was all I could do. Up until that moment, I had thought landscapes like the one spread out all around me existed only in movies or childhood storybooks. But there I was, with Jack reaching up to help me off my horse and the afternoon sunshine warm on my shoulders.
"I thought you'd like it," he said, looking impressed with himself. He set down his leather backpack and the rifle he always carried with him when going off the property. From the backpack he pulled out a thick wool blanket and lay it down next to the little stream. Then he took my hand and helped me get settled – which wasn't a particularly easy task in my state.
I didn't say too much at first, because I was simply too in awe of my surroundings. Even the air felt different up there – cooler than it did at lower elevations but sweeter, too. I reached out and ran my finger over the petals of one of the red, spiky flowers that carpeted the ground.
"Indian Paintbrush," Jack told me, still arranging things. "And those purple ones are fireweed."
"Fireweed? Are these the actual names? They sound too romantic to be true."
Jack nodded. "Yeah, they're the actual names. It's called fireweed because after a forest fire, it's the first plant to grow again."
I lay back on the blanket and looked up at the blue sky, listening to the splashing of Lulu in the brook and Jack's voice as he affectionately admonished her not to eat the wildflowers. A few minutes later, Jack lay down beside me.
"Well?" He asked. "What do you think?"
"I think it's the most beautiful place I have ever seen," I said, closing my eyes so I could luxuriate in the feeling of the sun on my bare arms and the grasses tickling my toes.
"It's a subalpine meadow, in full bloom at this time of year. I wanted you to see it when you were in full bloom, too."
I smiled and put my forearm over my eyes to shield them from the bright sunshine as I looked over at Jack. "Well thank you. I mean it, this is – I don't know, I think it's going to take me a few minutes to accept that this is real. Does anyone live up here?"
Jack shook his head. "No – not permanently, anyway. No services, no civilization. Maybe I should build you a cabin, though?"
"Yeah," I agreed. "I can wear long cotton dresses and do my laundry in the stream, attended by baby animals and songbirds."
Jack chuckled. "You're joking, Blaze, but it actually seems perfectly plausible. You make a lot of things seem perfectly plausible, you know."
"Oh yeah?" I asked. "You think I'd make a good fairytale princess?"
I was joking, but when Jack rolled onto his side and looked me in the eye, I could see he was in a more serious mood. "Yeah, I do. One of the old fairytales, though, where you never quite know how it's all going to turn out – not one of the modern whitewashed versions."
"What do you mean?" I replied, not upset – because how could I be upset lying in the middle of a meadow of flowers on a sunny day with the man I loved? – but curious. "About the never quite knowing how it's going to turn out?"
Jack didn't respond at first. He looked at me for a few seconds, as if he was trying to read my mind, and then he reached for something beside the backpack. I watched, wondering why he was acting so oddly, and then didn't quite register what was happening as he got up on one knee.
"Jack? What are you –" I paused, clapping my hands over my mouth and instantly dissolving into a sob when the reality dawned on me.
"Don't, Blaze," Jack smiled. "Don't cry."
I took a deep, shuddery breath and swiped the tears away from my cheeks as Jack helped me to sit up. "OK. Oh my God, Jack. OK, I'll try. I'll try."
"Do you know what today is?" He asked, taking my hand in his, interlacing his fingers with mine.
I shook my head, because if I spoke I was going to start crying again.
"It's our anniversary. Probably pretty close to the very hour, actually. One year ago today, you showed up on my front porch."
"Oh, Jack!' I exclaimed, shocked that I'd forgotten. "I knew it was coming up! I just – I thought it was a few more –"
Jack held up his hand. "Blaze, you're 9 months pregnant and you've almost entirely taken over the job of managing the renovations on a day to day basis. You've got enough on your mind."
"I remember that day," I told him. "I remember everything about it – how hot it was walking up that driveway, how hot you were, how worried I was that you were seeing me all sweaty and disheveled."
"You were beautiful, Blaze."
"No I wasn't! I –"
Jack squeezed my hand and looked me in the eye. "Yes, you were. You always were. You were beautiful when I fished you out of Parson's Creek, too, covered in leaves and mud. There was chemistry from the start with us, wasn't there?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "There was. Even that first day. I was angry with myself for caring so much about what you thought of me. And so dumb, too! I didn't even recognize it for what it was!"
"Not dumb," Jack corrected me. "Just not focused on that part of your life. It's OK, I wasn't focused on it either. I always had this vague idea that sometime in the future it would all fall into place for me. Maybe when I was 35, or 45 – the important part was that it was off in the distant future."
"And now look at you," I said, patting my belly.
Jack caught my eye. "Now look at me. I've stopped wondering why all this luck came to me when it did. It doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter if it was fate or some random series of coincidences – you're here, I'm here, and our baby will be here soon. It actually took some serious willpower not to do this a lot sooner. But I didn't want you to think I wasn't serious, or that –"
"I would never think that, Jack. Nothing you've ever done or said has given me the impression that you weren't serious."
"I see what they mean, though," he said, turning the small object in the palm of his left hand over and over again. "About moving too quickly. I was so taken with you from the very beginning – and I'm still taken with you, it's just deeper now. I know all of you now, so I can love all of you."
I knew exactly what Jack was talking about, because it was how I felt, too. But there was no time to respond because he was opening the little jewelry box in his hand, presenting me with a diamond ring that flashed and sparked in the sunshine.
"You're it, Blaze Wilson. You're it for me. There's no other way to say it, you're the center of everything for me, now. I want you to be my wife. And I want to be your husband. Will you marry me?"
He knew what I was going to say, just as I knew, but none of that took away from the momentousness of the moment.
"Yes," I said, not bothered about the quaver in my voice at all. "Yes I will marry you, Jack."
He slid the ring onto the third finger of my left hand as we both looked down at it, dazzled.
"It's beautiful!" I gasped, tilting my hand from side to side.
"So are you." Jack pulled me down on top of him on the blanket and held me tightly, kissing the top of my head. I held my hand out to Lulu and she sniffed at the ring, curious about the new object.
And then I fell asleep. The trip up to the meadow, the proposal, the fact that I was so pregnant I felt like a baby hippo – all of those things just combined to send me into a lovely slumber on Jack's chest.
I woke up flustered a short while later, as if someone had spoken to me or maybe shaken me gently.
"What?" I asked groggily. "What it is?"
"Your belly is moving."
I looked up at Jack, confused. "I know. It's always moving these days – this baby doesn't have any room left. Why did you wake me –"
"No," Jack said. "Your belly is moving. Not the baby, you're belly itself. And you were making a funny noise."
But before I could question my bra
nd new fiancé on the nature of these funny noises, a sudden sensation – not painful, but not nice, either – seized my lower belly.
"Oh!" I said, surprised.
"There, look. It's happening again – it looks like your whole bump is tensing up or something."
Two things hit me at that moment – one, that what had just happened – and, according to Jack, what had been happening while I was sleeping – was almost certainly a contraction and two, that we were out in the middle of nowhere, a two hour hike from civilization. Jack must have seen the worry on my face because he immediately put his hand on my shoulder.
"Blaze. Hey, Blaze. I have a satellite phone in my backpack, and DeeDee on standby. She can come pick us up no problem. In fact I think I'll give her a call right now."
As soon as I heard we weren't quite as far away from help as I'd thought, I calmed down a little. Jack, however, seemed to do the exact opposite. When I told him to wait, that even if it was labor it was very early and we almost certainly had more than enough time to make it back to Sweetgrass Ranch, he shook his head.
"No, I'm calling DeeDee. There's no point in taking a risk, Blaze."
I lay back down on the blanket and played with Lulu's ears as Jack made the call. My dog was uncharacteristically quiet after the long hike up to the meadow.
"Right now would be better," I heard Jack say to DeeDee. "I don't think we can wait for –"
I put my hand on his arm. "Jack – is she still at work? How long is it? I think we can wait, you know. I haven't felt another contraction at all."
But Jack wasn't having it. He insisted that DeeDee come right away and then, when the call was over, set to packing everything away.
"The ring," he said. "Give me the ring!"
"Jack," I laughed. "Jack calm down, you're all worked up. Why do I need to give you the ring?"