April let out a snort of disgust. He still drove the same old pickup he had had in high school. That figured. She glanced from Wade’s truck to Scott’s BMW parked near the house and felt a petty surge of satisfaction.
Across the backyard, a tall figure emerged from the truck and disappeared into the barn. A few moments later, the inside lights came on, the rectangular windows lighting up in the dark like the eyes of a jack-o-lantern.
April had helped her dad milk the cows enough times to know the routine. First, Wade would go into the machine room to start the motor on the milking machine. He would have to coax it along, but finally it would come to life with a rattle and a puff of smoke. Once the motor was running, he would go to the washroom and fill a five gallon bucket to the brim with industrial strength soap and hot water, then haul the bucket to the milking room.
The cows were already in the holding pen outside and as the machines started up, they began lowing, eager to get at the grain they were fed during milking. Wade would start the conveyer belt that brought the grain from the storage silo to the metal pans at the head of the stalls, and then he would yank on the rope that opened the door to the corrals. The cows would file in slowly, jostling each other as they tried to get the best access to the grain.
The smell of milk, cleaners, and cow manure, the rattle of the machines, the shuffling and sniffing of the cows, suddenly, April was homesick for it. She stood at the window for some time, watching as the cows cycled in and out of the barn. Finally, she sighed, turned on the radio in the kitchen, and flipped open the recipe box on the counter.
It took some digging, but finally she found the recipe for blueberry muffins, written on an index card in her mother’s handwriting. She greased muffin tins, mixed batter, and even braved the creepy part of the basement to get frozen blueberries from the enormous freezer. Before going back upstairs, she stopped and put her ear to the door of her old bedroom, but all was quiet. Scott was still asleep.
Once the muffins were in the oven, she washed the mixing bowl and began on the streusel topping while the smell of baking blueberries gradually permeated the kitchen.
The sun had broken over the horizon and April was humming along with Gary Jules when there was a heavy knock on the back door. She gave a startled gasp and the bowl she was holding slipped from her fingers to shatter on the floor, sending up a mushroom cloud of flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
“April?” Wade’s voice came through the door.
Almost without thinking, she dropped to her knees and scurried around the corner of the counter. She hadn’t drawn the blinds at the window above the sink, he could see inside if he wanted to.
She darted a panicked glance at the door handle. They hardly ever locked the doors. What would she do if Wade looked in the window, or worse, barged through the door, and found her hiding under the barstools like a prairie dog in a burrow?
A prairie dog in mismatched pajamas with messy hair and no makeup.
April ground her teeth. Stupid muffins. She should have gone back to bed. She wasn’t even very good at baking.
Wade knocked again. “April? Come on. I heard you singing,” he called.
Her heart pounded. Why was he doing this? Hadn’t they agreed to avoid one another at all times? Maybe not an official agreement, using words and everything, but they both seemed to know it would be better if they never spoke again.
“Here’s the milk,” he finally called. “Since you’re acting like such a baby, I’ll leave it on the step.”
She’d forgotten the milk. Her dad always brought a gallon of fresh milk to the house when he’d finished the morning chores. Of course Wade would do the same.
A minute later she heard him gun the truck and take off around the corner of the house. He was going fast; that meant he was mad.
Whatever. She could be mad, too. He shouldn’t have come to the door in the first place. And she was not acting like a baby. She was just … unprepared.
“Doesn’t mom always put some kind of a topping on these?” Trevor asked an hour later as he helped himself to another muffin.
“Yeah, that crumbly stuff,” Emily put in. “You should have made some, April.”
“Or, how about you drag your lazy butts out of bed and make your own breakfast?” April retorted. She meant it as a joke, but her tone was harsher than she’d intended.
Emily looked at her wide-eyed and Trevor dropped his head and offered a mumbled, “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” April took a deep breath. “It’s been a bad morning; I didn’t mean to snap at you.” She glanced at the floor where she’d dropped the bowl. After she had cleaned up the mess, she’d been in no mood to make more streusel.
So the muffins weren’t as impressive as they might have been. One more thing to blame on Wade.
“Are you okay?” Scott asked with raised eyebrows.
“I’m tired; didn’t get much sleep.”
A moan came over the monitor from Ben’s room and April pushed her chair back. “Can you guys clean up while I take care of Ben?”
“Want some help?” Scott called as she started down the hall.
“I’ve got it,” April threw over her shoulder.
April grunted as she helped Ben out of bed; she’d forgotten how heavy he was. He could bear a little weight on his legs, but even so, she was out of breath by the time she had helped him across the hall to the bathroom and then back. His stiff limbs made everything ten times harder and her arms were trembling as she helped situate him in the wheelchair.
“Whew, we did it,” she gasped as she buckled the shoulder harness that kept him from slumping over. She pushed a few stray curls back from her face and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Want a muffin? If Trevor hasn’t already eaten them all, that is.”
She pushed Ben’s chair into the kitchen and sat by his side, patiently feeding him small bites of his breakfast while Trevor and Emily cleaned up and Scott unpacked his research project.
“You’re sure you don’t mind if I use the table?” he asked as he pulled a stack of manila folders from his computer bag. “Once I’m set up, I’d rather not have to move it.”
“It’s fine,” April insisted. “We’ll eat at the counter. Besides, where else would you go?” The only other suitable place was the cutting table in April’s old room, now her mother’s sewing room, and she didn’t want Scott hiding away in the basement.
Chapter Four
APRIL HAD SAVED A MUFFIN for Ben’s nurse to help break the ice, though it was hardly necessary. Donna was a sturdy woman of about fifty with strong arms and an outgoing personality that made her seem right at home no matter the situation. After a few minutes of lighthearted conversation, she took Ben to his bedroom to do his physical therapy.
“Come on,” April said to Scott. “I’ll show you around.”
Off the kitchen was a mudroom, its walls hung with cold weather gear – Carhartt coats, padded overalls, knit beanies, and flannel jackets. Gloves and mittens were piled in a bin and the floor was a sea of black rubber boots. It took some time, but finally they were outfitted to April’s satisfaction, though Scott complained about the clamminess of the boots.
They tromped through the snow and she showed him the cows, horses, sheep, and chickens. “The goat barn is in a pasture down the main road,” she said as they left the chicken coop. “They’re super bossy to the other animals, so they have to be kept separate. We can visit them later.”
Scott lifted his foot and examined the straw, mud, and chicken manure caked on the bottom of his boot with distaste. “Messy, aren’t they?” he scraped the boot along the side of the cement step leading into the coop.
“Well … yeah. They’re chickens. Chickens are messy.”
He grimaced and she waited until his boots were clean, or at least clean enough, before leading him toward the hay barn. It was huge and very old, with weathered wooden walls and a steeply pitched roof. Inside was dusty and quiet and sunlight filtered through the cracks be
tween the boards, painting the interior in shadowy stripes. A haystack almost reached the ceiling, but tapered off at both ends, forming an ever-shrinking step pyramid as the bales were removed one by one to use for feed.
April was several bales high before she realized Scott hadn’t followed her. “Come on,” she urged.
He didn’t move. “Get down from there, what if it falls?”
“It’s not going to fall,” she scoffed. “You think my dad doesn’t know how to stack hay?”
“It doesn’t look safe to me.”
“You should have seen it when we had the swing.” April pointed to a heavy wooden support beam near the roof. A loop of tattered rope hung near one end.
“That’s a swing?”
“Yeah, it was awesome. We could only use it when the hay was like this. Still stacked high enough to reach the rope but enough bales cleared out to give you room. We’d get up here and stretch to grab the rope – that was always a little scary – then we’d stick our feet through the loop, hold onto the knot, and jump. The rope wore out a few years ago and dad never replaced it.” Her face brightened. “We could try and find a new one.”
Scott shuddered.
“Come on, don’t be a baby,” she teased, then her smile faded. Wade had called her that same name through the door.
“I used to sleep out here sometimes,” she said as she clambered down the stack. “One summer, I even tried to spend a whole week. I pretended to be a bum from the Great Depression, you know how they would sleep in barns. I had a bunch of food – cereal, cans of tuna, bread, a couple of apples – I was all set. I tramped around the fields for a while and finally came in here and made my camp.”
“Did you stay the whole week?” Scott asked. His phone buzzed and he dug it out of his pocket.
“No,” April laughed. “It started raining that first night and enough rain came through the gaps in the roof to make me miserable. I straggled into the house around midnight, wet and crying. My poor mother.” Her eyes were distant, remembering. “Then, when we got older, we’d – ” she stopped abruptly, realizing the story she was about to tell included Wade. Most of her stories included him.
Scott didn’t notice. His attention was on the phone as he scrolled through emails.
April gazed around the barn; this place needed some new memories. She went to the wall where boards were nailed at intervals to form a rough ladder that reached the roof, fifty feet high. At the top was a small window.
April climbed to the top of the ladder and swung herself over to the windowsill. She got situated on the narrow board and dangled her legs over the edge. “Hey you,” she called to Scott, “there’s a great view up here. C’mon, there’s room.” She patted the board at her side.
“April, I’m not going to climb all the way up there.”
“I’ll kiss you,” she trilled in a singsong voice.
Scott shoved his phone into his pocket and sighed. “Please just come down?”
She swallowed her disappointment. It was unfair of her to expect him to enjoy the farm like she did. He had no history here.
Her eyes sought the thick beam to the side of the window. Why kid herself? She knew why she had come up here – to see if it was still there.
It was. Scratched into the wood with the tip of a pocketknife.
A + W
They used to come here and perch on this narrow ledge. At first it had been scary, but with Wade’s arms around her, it soon felt safe. How many hours had they spent, talking, laughing, and dreaming together? After their first shy kiss, he’d carved their initials into the beam.
April ran her fingertips over the letters in the rough wood. There was an ache in her chest, the heavy pressure of regret and a longing for those innocent days again, when the future looked certain and she assumed they’d be together forever. A + W, the way it had always been.
But some wounds were beyond repair.
She took a shaky breath of the frigid air.
“Hey,” Scott called. “I’m starting to get cold, you know.”
Reluctantly, she climbed down and they walked back to the house in silence.
April was up, dressed, and in full hair and makeup by the time Wade’s truck bounced down the road the next morning. As he did the chores, she paced nervously through the quiet house, stopping occasionally to peer out the window and count the dwindling number of cows in the pen outside the milk barn. Wade was surprisingly fast.
By the time there were only four cows left in the pen, her palms were sweaty and her heart was in her throat. He’d need another fifteen minutes to finish milking and at least another fifteen to clean up. Half an hour to wait, probably longer. She glanced at the clock and felt grateful Scott was a late sleeper.
This time when Wade came to the door, she’d be ready. She would be mature, polite but aloof, and would prove she had moved on. Last night, lying awake in bed, she realized she needed closure – a chance to say goodbye to the Wade chapters of her life.
After what seemed like forever, he emerged from the barn, drove toward the house, and stopped on the gravel. April peeked around the corner of the curtain as he climbed out of the truck.
He had changed. Some of the boyishness was gone from his face, leaving him looking leaner and more rugged. His hair was longer than it used to be and had bleached blonde in the summer, but was growing in darker at the roots. Even under the thick coveralls and heavy coat, she could see he was bigger, broader across the shoulders and in the chest. Her memories hiccupped, trying to square up this new Wade with the one she carried in her head.
He left the truck running and reached into the cab for the milk and April backed away from the window. Let him knock first, don’t throw open the door like an idiot.
She stood still, listening as his footsteps crunched through the thin layer of ice and snow on the sidewalk.
Here we go.
There was a brief pause and then the footsteps began again, growing fainter. She yanked back the curtain. He had left the milk on the step and was going back to the truck.
She glared at him indignantly as he drove away. How could she have closure if he wouldn’t come to the door? But when he stopped in front of the horse barn, she brightened. Must be mucking out the stalls day.
April did a quick check on Ben, threw on a coat and a pair of shoes, and stepped out into the chilly morning air. Wade had already moved the horses to the corral attached to the barn, where they stood pressed together for warmth. They nickered at her and she winced, hoping the noise wouldn’t alert Wade. It would be easier to take control of this meeting if she surprised him.
April paused outside the barn door. Calm … dignified … aloof. Okay, she was ready.
She pulled the door open, stepped inside, and slipped on a patch of ice just over the threshold. She flailed frantically for a moment before finally managing to grab the door frame and steady herself. Her face burned. Not exactly the most graceful way to make an entrance.
But Wade hadn’t noticed; he was shoveling out a stall, his back to the door. When the gust of cold air hit him, he glanced over his shoulder and his face darkened to a scowl.
April’s heart hammered as she walked toward him, striving for nonchalance, but not quite pulling it off. “Hi,” she said, stopping at the edge of the stall.
“Hey,” he grunted and dropped the shovelful of dirty sawdust into the wheelbarrow.
The dust billowed up and she took a step back to keep from being engulfed.
“Um … how are you?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“I thought maybe we could talk?”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” Another shovel of sawdust hit the wheelbarrow with a whump.
This wasn’t how it should go. He was supposed to stop what he was doing and give her that look, the one that meant she was the only thing in his world right now and she had his full attention. But it didn’t come.
“Don’t you think we have things to clear up?”
&nb
sp; “Not really.”
April paused, unsure of where to go now. “Why are you so angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
“Come on,” she scoffed. “I know you; you’re obviously mad.”
The shovel scraped across the concrete as he scooped up another load of sawdust. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
Her frustration mounted. “Stop doing that and talk to me,” she said irritably.
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“I already told you, I have nothing to say to you.”
“Really?” she let out an exasperated sigh. “Now who’s the one acting like a baby?”
He straightened up and met her eyes. There was nothing warm or open in his expression; she could have been a complete stranger from the disinterested look on his face. “April, I’m busy,” he said in a tone of dismissal. “I don’t have time for this.”
That did it. If he wanted to act like nothing more than the hired help, she would treat him that way. “Fine, I’ll leave you to it,” she snapped. “Don’t forget the ice by the door.”
Wade glanced at the ice and jerked his head toward the corner. “Ice melt’s over there. Knock yourself out.”
“You’re the one who is supposed to be doing the chores,” she said hotly.
“I’m the one who is supposed to be taking care of the animals,” he shot back. “And that’s what I’m doing.”
“What is with you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He resumed shoveling, but now with a scowl line between his eyebrows. He was not as calm as he pretended.
She fought to steady her voice. “Look, we both said and did things we regret, but it was years ago. Don’t you think it’s time for some closure?”
“I don’t need closure, babe. I gave up on you a long time ago.”
“Well, it’s a good thing because, I don’t know if you heard, but I’m engaged … to someone else. And don’t call me babe.”
Christmas in Snow Valley Page 16