by J. P. Oliver
“What?” The surprise was clear in his voice first, though he looked offended in the next moment. "Are you serious? They fired you? Just because you had a family emergency?”
I scuffed the shoe of my toe against the ground and sighed again. “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t really tell them why I was gone, because they would have fired me anyway. I’ve seen them do it to coworkers before.”
That was the unfortunate truth about working in retail: you were incredibly replaceable, and managers didn’t often think twice before doing exactly that as soon as they had reason.
I tried to steady myself again, since just the mention of my job loss had me swaying on my feet. I pressed the heel of my palm against my eyes and counted to three in my head. “I’ll just … have to start looking for work again,” I eventually said, and hoped I sounded less desperate than I felt. “There’s a good restaurant near that coffee shop, and I think I saw a help wanted sign over there, so…”
“Wait a second,” Jeffrey said, thoughtful. “Hang tight.”
He left me standing by the porch as he dashed back into his house. When he reappeared, it was with a pen and pad of paper. Before I could ask what it was for, he scribbled down numbers and paused only to mouth some words to himself. By the time he tucked the pen behind his ear, he was beaming.
“I’ve got a proposal for you. You’ve really been a big help to us while you’ve been working here, so how about we keep you on for that? We can handle room and board for you and Neri, if you can figure out a way to cover the rest.”
My heart immediately leapt into my throat. This was almost too good to be true, but I knew that Jeffrey wasn’t just pulling my leg. Still, I reflexively had to ask. “What? Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” he said with a lopsided smile. “It’d be helping me out a lot, too. I’m always working on the farm, you know? And Ma can’t do as much as she used to, so it’s mostly just me.”
With the way he said that, I could tell the amount of work on his shoulders was getting to him lately. Who could blame him? I understood how it felt to be piling work onto your shoulders with no end in sight.
But there was an end in sight now, and it was all thanks to Jeffrey. Almost giddy with relief, I nodded. “All right. Okay … as long our religious practices aren’t a problem,” I added. I knew how some people could be about religion, after all.
Jeffrey just looked vaguely baffled and tilted his head to the side. “Of course it isn’t a problem. Why would it be? People deserve to practice whatever it is they want to practice, as long as it’s not hurting anyone else.”
It was an answer I should have expected from him, but my heart still warmed to hear it. I could actually relax for the first time in days. To think I’d found someone so considerate, who had gone out of his way to help me and my family even after everything I said…
It was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes, though I held myself back. I sniffled a little and smiled a watery smile. “Thanks. And sorry about…” I paused and made a vague gesture with my hand. “Everything. All of that stuff I said, I didn’t mean it. I was just…”
“Stressed?” Jeff added helpfully.
I laughed again and nodded. He reached into his pocket to pull out a tissue, which I gratefully took and used to dab at my eyes. “Yeah, stressed.”
But despite all of that stress, it finally felt like some of those burdens were gone. Not only could I stop worrying about the expensive cost of rent and food, but I could focus on funneling whatever money I got into my college fund. This would enable me to graduate without any of the issues I’d anticipated — and then, hopefully, I would be able to get a better-paying job.
Things were finally starting to look up. Even though I’d gone through a period where I wished I’d never met Jeffrey in the first place, I realized now exactly how great it was that he’d managed to find his way into my life.
“I promise I’ll come here to help out, then. As soon as Neri is well enough to move, we’ll head over.”
Jeffrey smiled and nodded. “I look forward to seeing you both in your new home, then.”
19
Jeffrey
A week later, the time had already come to help Tarek and Neri move into our farmhouse. Land was scooped up quickly around these parts, so he sold his old place in no time and planned to bring his livestock over.
Fortunately, Neri’s injuries were mild enough, and she was young enough, that the healing time was never that long to begin with. She bounced back with even more vigor after she learned that she and her brother were going to live with us.
On the day of the move, she sat in my kitchen and chatted away with Ma, who had provided her with some tasty snacks to munch on while we worked. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing!” Ma crowed from inside the building. I shook my head and laughed to myself as I lugged in yet another box.
“Don’t go spoiling her too much,” Tarek said from behind me, as he carried his own box in. He smiled brightly and his spirits seemed to be relatively high, which was great considering the trials he’d had to deal with recently. If I could help bring even a little bit of happiness back into his life, I was glad for it.
Neri stuck her tongue out at Tarek and kicked her feet in a hilarious and adorable childish gesture. “She can spoil me as much as she wants,” she said, tone falsely petulant so we could tell she was just teasing.
I hadn’t known Neri personally for all that long, but I could already tell she was a sweet kid with a good, sharp sense of humor. After I set the box down, I wandered over to where the two were sitting and took a look at the food spread.
“Looks like she’s already doing a mighty good job of that. Honey biscuits, Ma? I have to beg you for months to make those for me!” I over-exaggerated my distress and whined, as if this were the absolute worst thing to ever happen to me.
“Oh, you do not,” she retorted, and waved me out of the kitchen — but not before she stuffed a honey biscuit into my hand as she sent me away.
I laughed and split the biscuit in two, handing half to Tarek after he set his own box down. The hallway was already pretty crowded, but fortunately, it wouldn’t take us that long to move these boxes upstairs as soon as we got them all out of the moving truck.
“Here,” I said. “They’re Ma’s fresh honey biscuits. You won’t find anything else in the world like them, swear to God.”
I watched as Tarek took a bite, and enjoyed his expression shifting from surprise to delight. “Oh, this really is great! Thanks, Mrs. Kent!”
“Please darling, call me Rosie.” She waved a hand in friendly dismissal of the overly-formal name.
“Rosie, then,” he amended with a smile. After scarfing down the rest of the biscuit, he headed back out. I followed in short order and climbed into the back of the truck to pick another box up.
We finished up most of the rest of the unpacking with relative ease. The chickens milled around our feet as we worked, occasionally tripping Tarek up and getting a laugh from Neri, who watched from the porch. We carried box after box inside, and once they were all in, we took them to the guest loft. The entire upper floor was unused and pretty roomy, and I’d spent the week prior cleaning everything out so that it would be move-in ready.
As we unpacked some of the boxes, I noticed that Neri sat in relative silence and tinkered with one of them. She was looking at a family photo. In it was herself, Rajal, and Tarek, all standing in front of a building I didn’t recognize.
Quietly, I scooted over to where she sat and started to help her unpack a few of her things.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling up at me. “Thanks for everything.”
I smiled back. “Anyone would have done the same in that situation, right?”
Neri shook her head. “I wasn’t talking about driving us to the hospital. I mean, thanks for that, too, but that wasn’t it.”
I cocked my head to the side curiously and waited for her to continue. “I mean … thanks for taking care of Tarek, too,” she sa
id.
I instantly felt a little sheepish about a compliment like that, but maybe she could sense that I was about to say something, because she continued quickly. “You’re a good guy! I like you,” she said, in that matter-of-fact way kids tended to bust out sometimes. “You take care of him when he’s having a bad time, and you don’t get mad at him, and you always do nice things for him. And for me, too.”
She paused, looked around the upper floor in all its mid-move chaos and nodded to herself, as if in approval of the space.
At this point, Tarek finished the box he was working on, too. Having caught the last of that, he walked over and patted her head with a laugh. “You’re okay with your big brother being with Jeff, then?” he questioned. Despite the fact that he was acting nonchalant and joking about it, there was some underlying tension in that question.
“I wouldn’t pick anyone else in the whole wide world for you. I like Jeff. It’s gross when you guys kiss! But it’s gross when anyone kisses you. Big brothers shouldn’t kiss.” She folded her hands neatly in her lap, as if she’d just made a very scholarly point.
I couldn’t help it: I burst into laughter on the spot. Tarek was laughing right along with me, and he reached out to noogie Neri and then pull her into a headlock so he could kiss her forehead, too. She yelped indignantly and waved her hands around.
“Brother germs!” she yelled, inspiring another round of laughter from us both. As soon as Tarek let her go, she bolted away from us and vanished down the stairs again.
Our laughter barely had time to wind down before Tarek’s phone started vibrating on the floor where he had left it. I glanced over curiously as he went to pick it up, and watched as his expression shifted from curiosity to a tired sort of gratitude.
“What’s up?” I questioned, rising from the floor and moving to join him.
“Looks like Rajal is doing all right,” he said, and turned the phone screen to me. I could see a text from who I presumed was the friends in Oklahoma. They mentioned that he’d had some difficulty settling in, but that as the days went on, he seemed to be adapting better. A cool-down at a distance might have been exactly what was needed.
Still, it was surely difficult for Tarek, who had sent him away in the first place. After all of the things he had been through, he deserved a break more than anything else. I reached over and drew him in to place a soft kiss against his lips.
“Sometimes being head of the house means making hard choices,” I said gently.
Though he still seemed somewhat plagued by guilt — and probably would be for some time to come — his expression smoothed back out into one of acceptance. “Right,” he said. “Right.”
I knew we would have to talk about this in more detail eventually, and we would. But not yet. Not until Tarek had some time to recover.
Just then, Ma’s voice cut through from downstairs. “Boys! I have dinner down here!”
I glanced at Tarek, and he looked back. Both of us smiled at the same time, as if in silent agreement that it was all right to set some things aside for now.
“Coming, Ma!”
20
Tarek
A year after we moved in to the farmhouse, I graduated college.
I’d found a new job as a secretary in the mornings. On weekends, I continued my classes. It was still difficult to balance school and work, but with my funds not as strapped as they had been in the past, I managed to get through. I graduated on time, which was one of the biggest blessings of all. After that, I went into software developing.
Jeffrey continued to work at the feed store, but cut his hours back. I think he realized that he was working himself into the ground. Even if he looked up to his father for doing everything he’d been able to do, he wasn’t his father in the end. He had his own limits, his own goals and dreams, and his own methods of attaining those things. He was able to finally understand and accept that, even if it was difficult.
Our friends in Oklahoma kept us updated about Rajal. He had some behavioral problems, but it seemed to have done him some good to get away from the situation.
Neri settled nicely into farm life. She really liked taking care of the chickens, and loved the goats and cows even more. One pig in particular — a little stunted guy, who was probably the runt of the litter — became her favorite. She gave him a name and banned us from selling or eating him, to which we all quickly agreed.
One year rolled into two. I worked on software developing, which was a booming field, even though my work took a long commute and a lot of processing hours.
We found a Golden Retriever puppy, shivering and abandoned by the roadside, on our way to town one night. Though he was small and wary, he grew attached to us in no time. We warmed him with blankets and fed him. Over time, he grew and grew, until he was big, strong, and healthy.
Rosie decided to go to physical therapy for help with her back pains. Through a combination of exercises, stretches, and lifestyle changes, she alleviated some of the symptoms that had plagued her for so long. She still wasn’t able to help out with the heavy-duty tasks on the farm, but she could come outside and join us more frequently.
She gathered up the chickens, checked on the goats, and brought small loads of hay to the troughs, all while chatting about this or that or asking us about our days. To be honest, it took a little while to get used to Rosie, since we'd grown up with no mother figure. But she was accepting of me from the start, and our relationship only grew stronger the longer I stayed in her home.
The same could be said for my relationship with Jeff, too. It was nuts to think this had all started because I wanted a cheap goat for our family’s holiday dinner. Whenever I thought back on how close we’d come to never meeting, I felt both exhilarated and awed.
But I was able to wake up and greet him every day now, and even if work was still tough for both of us, it was easier to deal with because we had each other.
Then the three-year mark passed. In that third year, I hit it huge in my field. After a dinner conversation one night, I was struck by a stroke of genius and immediately started to work on a social media platform design.
Within a week of the beta version being launched, it had more users than I ever could have predicted. A month after that, it managed to dethrone all of the other top social media options out there.
It was a huge win that I’d never expected, and my life flew into a whirlwind of chaos for a little while. It was meeting after meeting, CEO after CEO, business proposal after business proposal.
As I was consumed with work, Jeff and Rosie continued to manage the farm, now with the increased help of Neri, who still loved working on it. The farm itself had managed to recover a year or so earlier, and continued to prosper and grow. People came from all over to get our produce, and our livestock flew out of the barns faster than we could keep up with sometimes.
Rosie was a strong pillar of support for all of us. She spoiled Neri rotten, but none of us really complained. Her back was still doing just fine, and she helped out every now and then when extra hands were needed, especially as I went through a period where I wasn’t around to do much.
Though I felt guilty about leaving everything at home for everyone else to handle, they were all very understanding. And, also importantly, I could give back to them through the massive amount of money that this business endeavor had brought me.
As things were evening out again, it was Jeffrey who was my biggest anchor. Day after day, night after night, he was there, as sturdy and reliable as ever. We grew ever closer as time went on, and I knew that one day — not now, but maybe soon — I would want to pop the question and ask for his hand in marriage.
For now, we were still focused on dealing with things one step at a time, day by day. We tended to the farm and I tended to my business.
Jeffrey was able to quit working at the feed store, though he still stopped by every now and then to help out the owner. Neri would soon turn fifteen. Despite the fact that everyone told me teenagers got really
wild — and I had first-hand experience with it, thanks to Rajal — she was just as sweet as ever.
Speaking of Rajal, he was already twenty. He stayed with our friends in Oklahoma until he graduated, and then moved out of state to attend a different college. As the years went on, he became more open to communicating with me. He would message and text Neri more frequently, too. The bond between us might have been permanently altered, and things still weren’t perfectly resolved, but he’d been able to gain some maturity and perspective as he aged, which was all I could have hoped for.
Eventually, work began to let up enough for me to focus my attention on my home life. I helped make dinners sometimes, or spoiled myself with long bubble baths with Jeff.
Tonight was one of those nights. We’d just finished a delicious meal, and Neri had headed out to a friend’s house. Rosie was already asleep, since she turned in pretty early. Jeff and I had the house more or less to ourselves, so we retreated to my floor to take a dip in the tub.
“It’s pretty crazy, isn’t it?” I lifted one of my hands out of the water to stare at it.
Jeffrey reached over from behind me and took my hand into his own to lace our fingers together. “What is?”
“All of this,” I said, and made a gesture around the whole room with our entwined hands. “Everything that’s happened over the years. I never would have believed you if you’d told me all of this was going to happen when we first met, you know?”
Jeff chuckled behind me, the noise vibrating through his chest and into my back. It brought a smile to my face, too. “Well,” he started off, slow and thoughtful. “Fate is pretty funny like that, isn’t it? Sometimes, it just delivers exactly what you need right to you.”
I thought about the chain of events and coincidences, and wondered for a second if Jeff was right. Something like that could probably be called fate, right?