Chad found them there a couple of hours later. Willow with a quilt tucked around her, sleeping. Ralph wrapped in another quilt, waiting. He climbed the steps and leaned against the post. “Rough night? She didn’t have a bad dream, did she?”
“No.” Ralph stood and offered Chad the quilt. “I just came out to talk and then she fell asleep. I hated to wake her, and I didn’t want to leave her alone…”
“She does it often—even in winter. I appreciate it though.”
At the door, Ralph turned. “Give her time, Chad. She’s a logical woman. She just needs time.”
Chapter 212
Dirty water dripped into the bucket as Willow wrung it. She dipped it into the “clean, soapy water bucket” and wrung it into the dirty bucket again. Before she could start in the pantry, movement outside the window flashed in her peripheral vision. She dumped the mop back in the bucket, grabbed her coat, and stepped outside.
Ryder stood, fists jammed into his coat pocket, staring at the twisted metal that once housed his plants. He turned as she approached. “I needed to see it again before Jon got here.” He glanced at her, a sheepish expression on his face. “Morbid, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. I do it now and then myself. We did everything we could to try to figure out how to fix it, but it just can’t be fixed. So, you need to help me pick out a new one.”
“You still rebuilding the summer kitchen off the new barn?”
Willow nodded. “It’s just easier that way. I’d rather it be closer to the house, but…”
“That’s a really good point. In winter, you’re talking about a couple hundred yards from the back door. That’s a lot.”
He made a good point—one she hadn’t considered. “How crazy would it be to have two buildings. Or maybe…”
“What?” Ryder grinned at her. “I think you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“Well, Chad has been wanting to remodel the kitchen. If they built a second one off the back of ours, we could keep everything there. We’d lose the poplar, but we could have a room that we leave the electricity on to. It’d make charging things like phones and such easier too.”
“Laundry closer to the house. Stove—well, what about the milking?”
Willow thought. “With a cart, we’d never notice.” She stepped around the corner of the house and stared at the little room that made up the back end of the porch. “We could build it off there—walk through the pantry to the summer kitchen. Separate it a bit from the rest of the house.”
“Single story?”
“Definitely.” Willow walked the area, trying to see if she could avoid removing the tree. “But it would have to go,” she decided at last. “I’d hate to lose it.”
“Well, it’s something to consider anyway.”
The greenhouse—or what was left of it—recaptured Ryder’s attention. “Are we expanding?”
That had been the question troubling her in the six weeks following the fire. “I think…” Jon’s truck crept down the drive toward them. “I think I’ll call Becca and get her opinion. She’ll have to do half the work or more.”
“Except summers. No more summer classes for me.”
Jon met them at the corner of the greenhouse. “Are we ready?”
Ryder nodded. “Let’s get this junk out of here.”
Willow leaned against the back porch and watched as the two men dismantled her first large purchase. It’s like we both lost our first big purchases in one fire. Mother’s barn. My greenhouse. Jon tossed the blade of a trowel into the bed of his truck. It’s all gone. All. Gone. Almost as if You’re still pruning our excesses from our lives. Should I take this as Your decision on a bigger greenhouse?
Three days later, Ryder knocked as Willow fed Kari her bottle. “Come in!”
Kari’s head bobbed, startled by Willow’s loud voice. Seeing a newcomer, she grinned—both teeth proudly showing. Ryder leaned forward and brushed his finger across the baby’s head. “Hi.”
Waving the bottle at him, Willow offered to let him feed her. Ryder shook his head. “Are you sure?” she pressed. “She—”
“I’m sure.” He smiled back at Kari’s milky grin and shrugged out of his coat. “I brought the catalog. I’ve been doing research and I think we want the gothic pitch. It’s really good for letting snow slide off.”
“Excellent.” Willow laughed as Kari sat up and burped loudly. “Well, I hope that means it was yummy.”
“Did I see two teeth?”
“Yep. She has two twice as fast as the boys did.”
“Almost five months…” Ryder sighed. “Hard to believe.”
“Know how Chelsea’s doing?”
“Not really. I mean, I’ve heard she’s doing great at school and has a new boyfriend. I sent her the pictures you gave me.” Despite his previous refusal, when Kari lifted her arms to him, Ryder picked her up and laughed as she tugged at the small ponytail he sported. “She didn’t say anything. Just got a text that said ‘Thanks.’”
“If you think she’d rather not have them…” Willow’s heart constricted at the idea of not keeping some ties with Chelsea.
“I’d say to keep it up until she says to stop. She knows she can.” Ryder tried to sit down, pulling the catalog from his back pocket, but Kari protested. “What’d I do?”
“You dared to sit. She likes people to move around. She’ll survive.”
Despite her reassurances that Kari wouldn’t be scarred for life if she had to sit on his lap instead of roam about the room, Ryder jumped up again and walked behind the couch. “Page sixteen. Look at the Wentworth and the Faraday.”
She perused the catalog, comparing the two buildings. “The Faraday is half again as big as the Wentworth for only two hundred-fifty more. Why?”
“I did some research. Thought that was a typo for sure.” Ryder laughed as Kari belched again and then grimaced as milk dribbled down her chin and onto his shirt. “Ugh.”
“There’s a cloth—” She nodded as Ryder leaned over the couch and retrieved a burp cloth from the coffee table. “—right there.”
As he dabbed at his shirt and tried to clean off Kari, Ryder described what he’d found. “It’s really not that much more expensive because it’s just the framing. So, it’s quite common. We could double the size for just about six hundred.”
“And that’s the…” Willow scanned the catalog. “Kensington. Double the size.”
“I double checked measurements before I came in. The Kensington would fill up the space of the old greenhouse and the whole area where the old barn was, but we’d have to break up the concrete before we could do that.”
“Jon might want that job…”
“Don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t,” Ryder began, “but I know Jon has an interview tomorrow.”
“Good! That’s great news. I hope he gets the job.”
“Even though you need him?” Despite his attempts to sound nonchalant, Willow heard the discouragement in Ryder’s voice.
“Yes. Their family needs good steady income. If the barn hadn’t burned, he would have only had that week after Becca got married.” She watched him for a moment before adding, “You know we’ll hire someone else to break up the concrete if he can’t do it, right?”
“I hoped. I won’t be off again until spring break. By then we’ll need to be ready to plant—not build.”
“Why are you off school on a Monday anyway?”
“MLK day. No classes.”
“MLK? Milk?”
“No,” he laughed. “Martin Luther King—national holiday. Banks are closed. Post Office—”
“Gotcha.” Watching Ryder playing with Kari sparked new hope in her. Maybe he’d be more open to more time with them again if he became comfortable. That thought gave birth to a new one and she stood. “Is there any chance I could get you to stay with her until Becca can get here? I really need to get a few loads of laundry to the Laundromat. I can wait for her, but the sooner I go, the sooner I get back and
maybe I’ll beat the boys.”
“I believe that’s considered child abuse.”
“What?” Willow inched toward the stairs.
“Beating your boys.”
“I meant up from their naps, silly. Can I call her? She should only be a couple of minutes—might be here before I leave even.”
Ryder didn’t even look up at her as he asked, “Was she planning to come?”
“No. I just realized how much laundry there was when I got Kari up from her nap, so I was going to call, but then I remembered you were coming, so…”
“I’ll watch her. What do I do if she gets messy? I mean,” he added quickly, “I know what to do, but where do I find stuff?”
Guilt hit her just hard enough to make her feel manipulative but not hard enough to cause her to admit it. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. And the boys?”
For the next fifteen minutes, Willow carried half a dozen loads of laundry to the minivan as she gave Ryder detailed instructions of what to do in nearly every possible scenario. As she opened the front door, she said, “And if you need anything, you can call either one of us. We’ll be right here.”
“Okay.”
She reached the bottom of the steps before the door opened behind her. Willow turned. “Need something already?”
“No.” Ryder glanced at Kari. “But I know what you’re doing. Just thought you should know that.”
“I—”
“And thanks,” he added quickly as he shut the door again.
Chad strode into the Laundromat and nodded at a couple of women before reaching Willow’s side. “I thought we were doing this tomorrow.”
“We were. But Ryder was having fun with Kari, so I thought maybe a trip to town would give him time alone with her—to bond.”
“Did you guys decide what to do about the greenhouse?” Chad lowered himself into the hard, plastic chairs and groaned. “Man these are uncomfortable.”
“We could walk—”
“No way. I’ve been walking out there in the cold all day. Warm, hard plastic under my butt—”
“Seriously, Chad. I hate that word. It sounds crass.”
“Fine, backside, but you won’t get me to say bum, so don’t even try.” Chad winked and continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “—is better than cold, hard sidewalks under my feet any day.”
She slipped her hand in his and leaned against his shoulder. Several minutes passed before she said, “I’ve been thinking…”
“Yeah?”
“This is our chance to start over. We’ve been trying to adapt and change Mother’s life to fit ours and vice versa. We can decide what we do and don’t want to do—what is important to us—and fit our building and choices to that. Kind of like,” she added, sitting up excitedly. “It’s kind of like how Aggie started her new life with the kids in a new house—all remodeled to suit them exactly. Ours is just more of the farm than the house. Although, I guess our house might get a bit too if we do the kitchen and summer kitchen.”
“You’ll let me remodel the kitchen?”
“If I can have amazing cabinets like Aggie’s—in Windsor green and ivory with light distressing.”
Chad gaped at her. “You’re joking.”
“No… I think it would be pretty. You don’t like green cabinets?”
“I was talking about you agreeing to a remodel.” His eyes searched her face for something—what, she couldn’t imagine. Not finding it, he added, “Are you sure?”
“Well, I was until you acted so uncertain. Now I don’t know. I just—” She hesitated, uncertain if she wanted to admit things she’d just discovered about herself.
“What is it, lass?”
“I think part of why I resist change is because it makes Mother seem even more distant.”
He held her closer, murmuring comforting words, though what he said she never knew. Her ears buzzed with repressed emotion, and her heart longed for the comfort of the farm where she could express herself freely and without an audience. She did hear his last words, and her heart swelled. “So let’s talk about what life we want to live. We’ll find a way to honor Mother’s dream while choosing our own path to it.”
Chapter 213
January 26-
Grief hits me in strange waves these days. I can go all day—sometimes several days in a row—without a thought of Shiloh. Then out of the blue, I’ll see something or think of something and the pain is as raw as if I just got the news all over again. Chad doesn’t like Shiloh as a name. He persists in calling it “the baby” and insists that Shiloh is a “dog’s name.” He can think of baby as whatever he likes. In my mind, she’s Shiloh.
People say the most inane and hurtful things—all with the obvious intention of being comforting. Well, it’s not. It’s not comforting to be told that maybe it was “too soon” or that this is “God’s way of saying you have enough already.” It hurts to hear, “You can always have or adopt another if you feel the need.” As if the baby was a puppy that didn’t live and could be replaced with another—or worse, a barn cat that just serves some purpose. I know that’s not what they mean. I know they’re just trying to help, but why anyone would think such a thing would help is beyond me. I want to stand on the corner of Center and Market streets with a sign that says WHEN YOUR FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER’S BABY DIES BEFORE IT CAN BE BORN, JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY.
Chad says I’m being oversensitive about it, but how will anyone ever stop doing such hurtful things—saying such hurtful things—if no one ever says “Wait a minute?”
Mom asked what would help. At first, I said that people should treat it the same as a three or six month old baby that died. Mom said she’s heard people say the same stupid things about how the parents can have another one or worse, that the baby was “too good for this world.” Who cares??? The parents sure don’t. The parents only care that the baby they loved is gone. Yes, the baby is with Jesus. That’s a consolation prize when you’re grieving, not the grand prize! I know it should be. It’s just not.
So Mom says I should write a book on grief—written for both the bereaved and for those who want to comfort. She says most books are either/or. She thinks that if someone took a hard look at grief, both to remind those who hurt of truth—that it is better for the baby to be with Jesus than on earth—and those wanting to console—that it doesn’t matter how true that is, repeating it in the midst of grief is a knife to the heart—would help everyone.
I just don’t think I’m the one to write it. She says I am. She says that I’ve experienced two of the three hardest losses imaginable. A parent and a child. The next is a spouse. God please don’t let me lose Chad too.
So I grieve. At first I fought it, trying to keep myself strong and accepting of God’s will. Then I decided that how I handled things after Mother’s death is just more me. Willow Finley Tesdall grieves when the pain hits, and lets it go until the next time. She speaks truth to herself but doesn’t resist the pain. Chad even brought me another barrel and another box of dishes—on clearance from Walmart. Five dollars. I’ve got half the box left.
The boys will be two soon. Two years old. I’m amazed at what little men they are. They’ve begun to make themselves little slaves for Kari. All she has to do is point her finger at whatever interests her and they try to get it—even when they know they shouldn’t. I suspect this may change when she’s old enough to antagonize them. I hope it doesn’t, though. I hope she learns to have the same desire to serve and please them as they do for her right now. Chad says I live in a dream world.
He’s coming up the drive, my laddie Chaddie. I put that in just for him. The boys and Kari have finally managed to meld their afternoon schedules, so while they nap today, Chad and I are going to finalize decisions for the next five years. Five year plan. I’ve never done anything like that before. Mother did, but I guess I’m the mother now.
A fresh journal lay in front of Willow’s place at the kitchen table. Her colored pencils, pa
pers, and her favorite pen lay beside it. Chad nodded at it as he carried steaming cups of hot cocoa to the table. “You’re all set, eh?”
“Yep. I haven’t been this excited in I don’t know how long.”
“Of course you are,” he teased. “You’re planning. Finley women get perverse pleasure out of planning.”
“Not sure how perverse it is, but yes, I do enjoy it.”
“Where do we start?”
Willow’s eyes rose to meet his and a slow smile crept over her face. “Bees.”
“Bees?”
“Yep. We need to add bees. Hives in the orchard and in the alfalfa fields.” She opened the journal and snapped it shut again before taking out a notepad. “I’ll make categories first. Then I’ll put it in.”
In her beautiful script, each letter as perfectly and slowly formed as the last, Willow wrote “To Keep or Change” on the left side of the pad. She laid the journal on it and used the spine as a straight edge to draw a line down the middle. She hesitated before writing above the second column, “To Reconsider.”
“Good way of putting it.”
She smiled at him and it sent him back to the first time he saw it. Lost in thought, he didn’t hear her calling to him until she nudged him. “Chad!”
“What?”
“Where were you? I kept calling your name and you were just—gone.”
“Almost five years away.” He grinned at her confusion. “You smiled and I remembered the first time I saw it.”
“Really? When was the first time you saw me smile?”
Chad leaned back in his chair, his hands wrapped around the warm mug. “Well, I think you gave me kind of a weak smile that first night when you fed me, but the first real one was the day you tried to dig Mother’s grave by yourself.”
“And I smiled?”
“Not then,” he said, “but I got you back to the house and you went up to your room…”
“I remember. I took a shower and you left. I cried.”
“What?” That wasn’t how he remembered the afternoon. “I remember the shower and you crying, but I don’t remember leaving.”
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 6 Page 28