by Karen Rock
“Daniel?” Thin arms slipped around his waist and squeezed. When he looked down, Sue’s glasses were fogged, her nose red, her cheeks damp. “What are you going to do?”
He clasped her to his side and watched the oak tree they’d loved to climb sway. Its long leaves rustled, the noise sounding like showering coins.
“I’m out of options, Sue.” His face felt wooden, his blood sluggish in his veins. “Dad owned the farm and sold it. When I hear from Midland, I’ll start shutting things down.”
Sue polished her glasses on her shirt and pushed them back over her nose before looking up at him. “I meant about Jodi.”
He opened his mouth but his tight throat muted him, pieces of his broken heart ripping through his chest.
“You’ve got to do something.” Sue twined her hand in his. “You love her. And Tyler.” Her fingers curled around his. “Don’t deny it.”
His eyes squeezed shut, pressing back the rushing damp that rose at her suggestion. “If I do, it doesn’t change anything.”
Sue’s jaw angled forward. “If you still love her, that changes everything. You have to go to her.”
He imagined the crowded, noisy, concrete of Chicago and distaste pinched his gut. “She betrayed me, Sue. I can’t forgive her for that.”
Sue raked a hand threw her short hair. “No. But you could try to understand. She’s a mom who’s doing what she thinks is best for her son.”
“I’m best for him and so are you.” The words burst out of him.
“What matters is what she thinks.”
“And you’re not offended that she didn’t believe you could help him?”
“I did help him. And Wonders Primary will help him, too. Tyler is what’s most important. Not my ego. Not anything else.” She gestured around the farm and he winced.
In that brother-sister way of theirs, he knew what she suggested, though he wouldn’t accept it. Farming was the only life he’d known and he wouldn’t give it up. Maybe he could buy Mr. Tisdale’s farm when the man returned from his Alaskan cruise.
“Jodi would never be happy in Cedar Bay and I’d never live in Chicago. Once she got what she wanted, she was done with me and her hometown.”
“If you think that, you’re wrong.” Sue poked his chest, her eyes filled with cold fury. How could she be mad at him when Jodi had stolen their farm?
“She fooled me, Sue.”
“Get over your ego, Daniel. She fooled herself.” Sue’s voice lowered and she suddenly sounded tired instead of angry. “And I bet she’s regretting it,” Sue continued. “I saw how she looked at you, how you were together. She made this sacrifice for Tyler, but she’s hurting as much as you are. Trust me.”
He hugged her, kissed the top of her head, then headed toward the house. “I wish I could, Sue,” he called over his shoulder. “But in this instance, you’re wrong.”
“I’m not.” The yellow specks in her eyes glowed when he turned at the porch steps. “Go after her, Daniel. This farm is no substitute for love. And besides, you don’t even own it anymore. So what do you have? Nothing.”
Her words sucker punched him. Another blow he hadn’t expected. He’d thought Sue would be on his side, but instead she glared at him, her arms crossed over her narrow torso.
“Then I’d better enjoy it while I can,” he said, and stomped up the stairs, the third tread creaking like always. Would they tear it down? Turn it into one of those gingerbread-looking “offices” that Jeff ran? He thought about the parts of the home that had been added over the years, the additions as families grew, though their finances fell. Yet through it all, they’d survived...until now.
He burst into the kitchen and saw spots as his eyes adjusted to the dim interior. For the first time in his life, he had no idea where he was going, and it scared the hell out of him.
“Daniel,” his father called from the table.
When he passed by with only a nod, a hand grabbed his wrist, the grip hard and shaking. “Let’s talk, son,” Pop said. “Have a seat.”
“I need a shower. We’ll talk later.” What could they say that wouldn’t end in a shouting match? His words would only upset his ailing father who, despite it all, he didn’t want to hurt.
“No. Now, Daniel.”
He responded automatically to his father’s commanding tone, pulling out a chair and sitting. How would he hold his temper in check?
He poured himself a cup of orange juice from a pitcher and gulped, the cold citrus tang doing little to smother the burn turning his insides to ash.
“What’s left to say, Pop?” He topped off his dad’s glass and refilled his own. “You don’t like farming, wish you’d sold out. Now you’re giving me the chance you never had. I get it.”
“I don’t think you do.” His father’s head shook more than usual and concern filled him.
“Then tell me where I have it wrong.”
“After I got out of the service, farming was exactly the quiet life I needed. I’d seen too much of the world and I wanted a place to escape. To hide until I worked through some stuff.”
Daniel nodded. His father’s veteran status had always filled him with deep pride. If he hadn’t been needed on the farm so soon, he would have enlisted himself. Suddenly, he saw an example where farming had shaped his destiny rather than him controlling it.
“But you hated farming. Or at least, that’s what you said.” Daniel buttered a piece of banana bread and passed it to his father. As for him, his knotted stomach was tied too tight for food.
His father nodded, his wrinkles mapping out his sorrow. “Eventually my hiding spot felt like a trap. But by the time I wanted something else, I already had a family depending on me.”
“Why didn’t you sell then?” Daniel leaned forward, his reticent father had never opened up like this before.
“Who’d buy a failing farm like mine? And the more I tried to make the best of it, loaning equipment to neighbors, helping others where I could, the more stressful it got. Especially for your hardworking mother, who handled the finances.” His father’s eyes turned wistful—a faint smile vanished almost as soon as it appeared.
“You still love her,” Daniel marveled. He shook out a napkin and passed it to his father.
Pop nodded. “Always will. My biggest regret was that I didn’t listen to her when she begged me to cut our losses and move away. The hours I put into running the place, plus my postal run, made her feel lonely as she struggled to keep us afloat. We drifted apart.”
Daniel nodded, remembering how hard his father had worked when they’d teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. His own contribution had been a paper route along with his farm chores. Those years had been tough. He knew his stoic father had been hurt when their mother left. But he’d never known that Pop blamed himself. Was Daniel repeating history with Jodi? He’d been at fault the first time she’d left. But that wasn’t the case now. Jodi had grabbed the first opportunity to leave Cedar Bay and him, her heartless act destroying his life.
“She left us because of the money,” Daniel said, thinking of Jodi more than his mother.
Pop’s green eyes pierced Daniel’s. “She left because I didn’t make this her home. Because I didn’t put her first.”
The words knocked the air out of Daniel. “Of course this was her home. She decorated it, bought appliances, painted and planted flowers before she left. Quit.”
“Home is where the heart is, son.” His father brushed at the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “Four walls and a roof don’t make a home. I learned that too late. I should have sold out like she wanted or I wouldn’t have lost the love of my life. And I didn’t want you to suffer the same future.”
“But I’m not,” Daniel protested, though he felt something shift inside of him. It was as if his father held a kaleidoscope up to his eye,
each revelation accompanied with a twist that changed the way he viewed his past, present and future.
With effort, his father got both elbows on the table and dropped his chin in his cupped hands. “You are. Since Jodi came home, I saw a change in you, son. I stopped hearing the morning alarm because you were already out the door, doing your chores so you could see her when she dropped off her boy. I knew you’d cared for her once, and I could see you’d fallen for her again. Harder, even.”
Daniel flinched, wondering how much his father had witnessed sitting on the back porch, especially this past week, when he and Jodi had given in to their feelings. Their attempt to keep the relationship a secret had failed.
“You love her. If your heart’s with her, then your home is, too. That’s what matters in life.”
Daniel pushed back his chair and stood. “She left me, Pop.”
His father sighed and patted Daniel’s hand before he trudged upstairs to shower.
Fifteen minutes later, he was clean but not refreshed. He headed for the front porch and the soothing rockers it held. But before he sat, he spied an envelope slipped beneath the porch door and picked it up.
His hand shook as he read Jodi’s handwriting on the front. If it was an “I’m sorry” letter, he wanted none of it. His fingers tightened around the paper, but something made him stop before tearing it apart.
Instead, he opened the flap, pulled out the contents and blinked in surprise.
It wasn’t a guilty apology. It was Maplewood’s deed.
* * *
THE MAN IN the plane seat ahead of Tyler turned and scowled at Jodi as her son kicked and thrashed.
“Lady. Can you please control your kid?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, her head feeling heavy and thick, her eyes bleary from lack of sleep. She tried pulling a resisting Tyler onto her lap but stopped when the seat belt sign flashed on with a beep. Great. Perfect timing.
Tyler wailed as she buckled him in, his stomach arching against the restraint, his fingers plucking at the silver clasp. Ollie soaked up most of his tears, her sleep shirt wet from the outburst that’d begun after they’d boarded the long-delayed plane. Jodi’s wretchedness was a gnawing thing and she wanted to cry with him. It was taking her in bits. But for Tyler’s sake she rolled her sorrow up into a small, tight ball and swallowed it down deep inside her. Leaving Daniel again was harder than the first time. But crying was futile. It changed nothing.
She blew her nose and then held down Tyler’s legs when the disgruntled passenger glared again.
“Tyler, sweetheart.” She wiped his nose. “Stay still.”
Her poor son; without words, it was his only way of expressing his feelings. From the moment they’d packed this morning, he’d looked as confused and upset as she felt. Aunt Grace had seemed just as hurt and bemused. And when Jodi had returned from her errand to Daniel’s farm, Tyler had been agitated, sensing what he couldn’t know.
When they’d finally boarded the delayed plane, he’d sobbed the way he had when Peter had walked out. Tyler’s reaction erased any doubts about her need to separate him from Daniel, to enroll him at Wonders Primary, to get his life back on its usual track. Order and routine. Tyler did best with it, and that was what mattered.
When she got back to Chicago, she’d find a way to raise the money somehow. Another job, grant funds, maybe a last-minute Cedar Bay sale. Mr. Tisdale had phoned her and apologized for the missed meeting. Perhaps he might sell after all. Anything but taking away what Daniel loved most. She couldn’t live with that. She’d returned Daniel’s deed after a long night of wrestling with her conscience. Ultimately, she’d known she couldn’t leave him with nothing, nor could she stay. She’d already made up her mind to end their relationship, to separate him and Tyler after their Midland farm visit.
Tyler’s screams ratcheted up another decibel and this time the couple across the aisle clucked their tongues and looked her way before putting their heads together to whisper. She would have asked Tyler to be quiet, but didn’t have the heart when she wanted to scream, too. Plus, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything that might make him retreat further into his silence.
These were the outbursts Wonders Primary would help Tyler to overcome. They’d spelled it out in his treatment plan. Her mind drifted back to his last tantrum, realizing just how long it’d been. Since coming to her hometown, Tyler’s behavior had improved and her focus on sales, and Daniel, had kept her from seeing it, she realized. What else had she missed?
Cedar Bay, to start with. She slumped in her seat, recalling the fun of Field Day, Daniel’s living family tree, line dancing at Mary’s Lounge, helping Aunt Grace serve potluck at the Independence Day celebration, strawberry picking. They were warm memories she’d hold tight in the lonely nights ahead.
And she hadn’t noticed her growing feelings for Daniel until they’d been too strong to resist. He’d helped her through her distress over Tyler, making her see that she wasn’t a bad mother. She’d just made mistakes, like everyone else.
When the woman who sat diagonally ahead of her whipped around, Jodi mustered enough strength to glare. No one was perfect. Not her and not Tyler. He hadn’t asked to be born with autism. So why did she pressure her son to be like other kids? Did she think he wasn’t great just the way he was? Lovable? Daniel certainly seemed to think so. As his parent, she should feel the same way.
Wonders Primary had diagnosed his faults and made plans to fix him. And, since his autism diagnosis, she had, too. His failure felt like hers and she’d blamed herself. Yet Daniel had shown her that she and Tyler didn’t need to be perfect for someone to care about them. The world would and should love her son for who he was. That was the lesson he needed to learn, she realized. And perhaps, she needed to believe it, too. If she had, would she have left Daniel? Her hometown?
“Ma’am, I’m sorry.” An earnest-looking stewardess leaned down, her brightly painted mouth twisted in apology. “But is there any way that you could control your son? He’s upsetting the other passengers.”
Jodi flushed red. “They’re upset?” The words tore from her throat, nearly a shriek.
Oh, this was rich. She and Tyler were miserable and the passengers couldn’t stick in some earbuds? Their selfishness stunned her. She’d paid for tickets, too. Did they think she was unaffected by Tyler’s screams? Cared so little or was so inept that she wouldn’t help him if she could? Each cry shredded her tattered heart.
“Yes, ma’am. There are rules about noise and your son is not following our code of conduct.” The woman shifted on her heels, looking very young.
“He’s four,” Jodi snapped, her hands tightening on the cold, metal hand rests. “He couldn’t spell code of conduct, let alone understand what it means.”
“Just tell him to quit making so much noise,” hollered one of the passengers, and a few cheered. “Keep him quiet like everyone else.”
Jodi unbuckled herself and stood, rules be darned, and pulled out a thick pack of small cards. She shoved them at the flight attendant. “Please give one of these to everyone on this plane.”
The uniformed woman paled as she read the word autism on the front.
“My son is autistic,” Jodi shouted, her voice so loud that even Tyler’s cries dwindled into a watery gulp. The passengers turned and many who’d looked at her in anger now seemed surprised and a bit embarrassed.
“If you want to know more about autism, please read the cards that—” she peered at the stewardess’s nameplate “—Jamie is passing out.” The woman hurried off and began handing out the cards, moving down the now-silent aisle.
Jodi shoved back her disheveled hair. “I expect every one of you to read it. Educate yourselves so that you don’t judge a child for behavior he or she may not be able to control.” She eyed the man who’d complained until he looked down, his Adam’s apple bobbing
.
“My son isn’t perfect,” she said, her gaze falling on her wide-eyed boy. “And I love him, no matter what. If you can’t accept him, then that is your problem. Not mine. Not his.”
She unbuckled Tyler’s seat belt and pulled him onto her lap. “I love you, Tyler.” She tickled his nose with hers, then gave him butterfly kisses, her eyelashes sweeping his cheeks.
He held out Ollie and she kissed the elephant’s torn snout. “I love you, too, Ollie.”
“Love.”
Her breath caught as she stared at her son in disbelief.
“Love?” she asked, her voice hoarse. It couldn’t be. But from the grin smeared across his wet face, the glow in his eyes as he looked from her to Ollie, she knew she’d heard his first word in over a year. And it’d taken her acceptance, not her pushing, to make it happen. Daniel’s way. Why hadn’t she listened to him? Trusted him?
“Do you love me, too, Tyler?”
He pushed Ollie into her face, making the elephant kiss her cheeks, slick with tears, and nodded. “Love,” he repeated.
The happiness in her heart spilled over into laughter as she clutched him.
The intercom crackled. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re now at twenty thousand feet over Chicago and making our descent. It’s eighty-one degrees and partly cloudy. Please stow your loose belongings and prepare for landing. For the lucky Chicagoans on the plane, welcome home.”
Applause broke out but Jodi didn’t join in. After this tumultuous plane ride, she realized that Chicago wasn’t her home. It never had been. Home was where you were loved, accepted, wanted for who you were. And there was only one person who’d ever made her and Tyler feel that way. Daniel. She should never have left.
She’d do what she’d proposed the day she’d arrived in Cedar Bay—get on the next plane and go home. She doubted Daniel would forgive her for leaving him again, but she owed him an explanation and an apology. As for her and Tyler, she’d stay at Aunt Grace’s house, enroll him in Sue’s practice and apply for a local Midland job like Jeff’s, only she wouldn’t separate the calves from their mothers. It wasn’t the happy life Daniel had offered her, but after her lack of faith, she didn’t deserve it.