by Annie Jones
Polly shaded her eyes, her face turned his way. “Well?”
“I guess not,” Sam admitted grudgingly. “They still have a lot to accomplish with the committee and the grill wasn’t even ready when we left.”
“Do you think Max needs our help?” She folded her arms in what a kid might have seen as a teacherly way, challenging him to thoroughly examine the situation and come to the best conclusion.
Sam couldn’t help himself—future or not, he just saw her trying to guide him around to her line of thinking as charming.
There were worse things, he decided, than spending a few extra minutes of his day with Polly. And with Caroline, he was quick to remind himself. They were here to see what they could do to help Caroline have the most successful school year possible. Letting the child take the lead here might even finally show Polly what he was up against in getting the girl to make decisions and put them into action. That was what he needed to focus on. He cleared his throat and squinted across the field back toward the house, then looked at Polly again.
She had not budged. He probably should have seen that as a sign that she would not be easily swayed. But all he saw was how the breeze ruffled her perpetually ruffled-looking hair. How the sunlight warmed the healthy glow in her cheeks. How her lips, even pressed tightly together as if warning him to think carefully about how he proceeded, seemed so kissable.
“Max will clang the dinner bell when the burgers are done, so until then…” He bent slightly and held his hand out as if offering her the breadth and width of the Goodacre pumpkin patch.
“Until then…” She did a little sashay of a step past him and started after Caroline.
Sam tried to throw himself into the spirit of the outing. He really did. Time after time he bent to gather up what seemed like a perfectly acceptable pumpkin only to have Caroline reject it before Sam could settle it into the wagon. Each was deemed too bumpy or too lumpy or not pumpkiny enough.
“Now, this—” Sam said as he pointed to a tall, oblong and flawlessly orange specimen “—this is the model pumpkin. In fact, one might call it the supermodel of pumpkins.”
Caroline frowned. “It’s kinda skinny.”
“Don’t make up your mind until you see it on the runway.” Sam abandoned the still-empty wagon, grabbed up the pumpkin he’d picked out and hoisted it up on his shoulder. He walked away, then did a turn to the delight of his little girl, and the obvious amusement of her pretty teacher, and walked back toward them. “And remember, the camera adds ten pounds.”
“So that would make it look like twice its size?” Polly said with a smile.
“Hey, we’re talking supermodel, not super math genius here.” He grinned back at Polly, then lowered the pumpkin just above the wagon. “What do you say, kiddo, do we finally have a keeper?”
Caroline squinted hard. Her mouth scrunched up on one side.
Sam waited as patiently as he could possibly manage for five, ten, fifteen seconds, then exhaled. “Caroline, honey, it’s just a snapshot on the farm’s webpage. People will never notice a few imperfections.”
Caroline lowered her gaze, then curled her hands into fists and looked across the way. “I think I see a better one a couple rows over.”
And off she went, just a blur of red hair and golden dog, barking behind her.
Sam shut his eyes and clenched his jaw. “Do you see now why I feel I have to give her a nudge now and then to get her moving in the right—no, scratch that—in any direction?”
“Maybe she’s the kind who needs a little longer to find her own direction?” Polly tried to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but the wind whipped it right back across her face.
Sam studied her for a moment. A day ago he had wondered how Polly’s input on raising the girls might compare to Marie’s. Now he wondered if Polly really understood his girls and him at all.
“Hayley and Juliette aren’t like that. I can’t hold them back.” Even if chasing after them from one extracurricular activity to the next wore him thin, Sam refused to see that as a bad thing. “I’m afraid if I don’t lay down the law with Caroline she’ll just drift along, or keep waiting until everything is perfect to make her move. If I don’t push her to push herself to meet a few basic expectations now she’ll never do anything.”
Polly ignored the hair pressed by the sweep of the wind to her cheek, shaded her eyes and watched the girl walking slowly around a plump, round pumpkin.
“Did you ever think that maybe she is doing something, Sam?” Polly took a few steps toward the girl, paused, then turned to him, her voice strained as spoke fast and heated. “Just because it’s not what you’d do or what Juliette or Hayley would do does not mean it’s nothing.”
“Whoa!” He held up his hands in a sign of surrender. Only he wasn’t surrendering. Not where his girls were concerned. “This is my family we’re talking about here, Polly. Not some family you quilted together out of your memories.”
“That was kind of harsh.” Polly pulled her shoulders back. She blinked her big eyes at him, but she didn’t shed a tear or sniffle. Her face went pale but she did not deny his observation. “I only wanted to help you see things from Caroline’s point of view.”
“You don’t know Caroline’s point of view, Polly.” He kept his tone calm, almost comforting. He did not mean to hurt or humiliate her, just to hold his ground where his daughter was concerned. “You don’t know what it means to have lost your mom so young, to know you’ll grow up as a motherless girl. Or what it’s like to have two sisters who could easily outshine you at every turn if you don’t step up and grab a little of the spotlight yourself.”
“I may not know Caroline’s exact point of view, Sam, but don’t presume you know enough about me to make those remarks.” She lashed her hand through the air. “I actually have some pretty good insight into how it feels to have your family in pieces from a young age. I know what it is to always be in the shadow. I have some insight into at least some part of what Caroline is going through.”
“Hey, you guys! I found one!” Caroline leaped in the air, her arms waving wildly. Above a barrage of excited barking, she put her hand to the side of her mouth and yelled, “I found a perfect pumpkin!”
“She’s my daughter, Polly.” Sam bent to take up the handle to the wagon and started toward the post Caroline had staked out. He was simply stating the facts as he saw them. “I think I know what’s best for her.”
Sam gathered up the pumpkin Caroline had singled out. Even he had to admit it looked far better than any of the previous choices and probably would make the best display of the farm’s bounty on the webpage. From that point on she seemed on a hot streak, selecting another, then another until they had a wagon full of produce so round and orange that Polly observed, “If you hired an artist to make a painting to convey ‘pumpkin’ to people who had never seen a single one, the result wouldn’t look any more pumpkin-rific than these. Just like professional book illustrators.”
“Did you hear that, Donut? Professional book ill-o-stators!” Caroline beamed.
The dog wagged his tail as if impressed by this bit of news.
In the near distance a clanging from the back of the house sounded and Max called out, “Come and get it!”
“Cool!” Caroline surged ahead.
Donut started after her, then whipped his head around to look at Polly. She smiled at the small animal.
Sam half expected the bighearted educator to grab Donut and hug him as hard as she could. He held his breath, not sure what he would do if she reacted that way.
Polly only nodded and said quietly, “Go on, boy. It’s okay.”
The animal ran off, staying right at Caroline’s heels.
Polly called out some instruction for Caroline not to let the dog bother anyone and to get him some water and so o
n. When the pair got out of hearing range, she sighed and looked at him. “Still friends?”
“I think we’re mature enough to get past a difference of opinion now and then.” Sam had to use both hands to tug the wagon over the rutted dip where the gate stood open.
“As long as I concede that you’re right?” she added with a grin.
He didn’t answer that. Instead he moved on to a topic he had wanted to broach all day. “So you going to be okay if it turns out you have to hand over the dog?”
“Me? You’re worried about me?” She shook her head, then turned and, seeing him bogged down with his load, helped him wrangle the wheels up and over onto flat land. When they started to roll again, she said, “I was genuinely surprised you let Caroline spend so much time with him today.”
Sam shifted his shoulders. A day’s physical labor had them tight and aching, he decided, refusing to consider any other reason he’d be feeling tension during a simple, civil discussion with Polly. “Now that it’s a very real possibility that he belongs to someone else, the dog is less of a…”
“Threat?” she supplied helpfully.
He didn’t grin but he didn’t frown, either. Instead he fixed his attention on not losing any off the pile of roly-poly pumpkins. “I was going to say ‘distraction.’”
Polly stood her ground, arms folded, and pushed the limit of their fledgling friendship yet again. “Ah, you mean seeing Donut, or Grover as Ted Perry calls him, going back to his happy new home will provide a living, breathing, face-licking lesson in moving on without any of the mess of letting go or saying goodbye forever. Score a point for Sam’s way.”
He turned abruptly to face her, not sure what he would say because she was, essentially, right. He did think of the whole finding-the-dog’s-owner situation, however it worked out, as a valuable lesson in just the kind of thing he’d tried so hard to instill in his girls. If the dog went with Ted, then Polly would move on and they’d see that. If the dog stayed with Polly, then…
“Miss Bennett! Miss Bennett!” Juliette, Hayley and Caroline came practically tumbling over each other down the hill straight for them. “Will you sit by me at dinner?” Hayley asked.
“No, me!” Juliette pleaded.
“Sit by me!” Caroline called.
“You got to spend the last hour with her,” Hayley protested.
Sam squared his shoulders, set his jaw and began to pull the loaded wagon up the hill without another word.
“Is Daddy mad?” Caroline asked softly.
“No, I’m not mad,” Sam shot back even as he forged ahead. “I just want to get this wagon unloaded.”
“C’mon, girls, let’s see what we can do to help your dad get that done.” Polly came jogging up the hill to scoop one of the pumpkins up off the top of the heap. To Sam’s surprise even one less made it easier going.
Next, Hayley and Juliette each came up and Polly used the toe of her shoe to point out the smallest of the bunch and the girls each took one.
“What can I do?” Caroline asked, peering at the remaining large pumpkins.
“Push,” Polly told her.
So Caroline pushed and the wagon rolled along with much less effort from Sam.
“Things sure do get a lot easier when you work together instead of trying to stubbornly stick to your own way.” Polly twirled around to walk backward for a moment as she added, “That sounds familiar. Where have I heard that?”
“Corinthians.” Sam kept moving as he recited the familiar verse. “‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.’”
Polly stood there with the group in the background and listened to him, her mouth slightly open as if she’d just watched him lift the wagon over his head and carry it one-handed up the hill.
“Impressed?” He grinned at her. “I memorized it to read when my parents renewed their vows a few years ago.”
Her whole face had gone bright red. She looked away. “Boy, I sure am hungry.”
“Really?” He only gave her a sideways look as he passed her on his way to join the group. “I’d have thought you’d be full already, after the bite you took out of me.”
Caroline stopped in her tracks, her eyes big. “Miss Bennett! You bit my dad?”
Sam started to laugh, but Max beat him to it. The rest of the group joined in and Sam couldn’t help thinking that it was going to be a long time before he was able to move on from a remark like that.
Chapter Thirteen
Sam looked surprised by Caroline’s loud proclamation for maybe a millisecond. He made an expression that seemed to say, What just happened?
Polly held her breath.
Sam cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at his child.
Everyone looked at him, then at Polly, then at him again.
Sam shrugged. Then he laughed.
The whole group joined in. Within a minute he had begun to pass pumpkins off to eager helpers as if nothing had happened.
It was the perfect way to handle it and Polly knew it the instant he did it. If it had been left up to her, she would probably have rushed headlong into some lengthy explanation of her having given him a piece of her mind and why she had done that and what she had meant by it all. Minutes would pass and maybe the group would have forgotten the “teacher bites dad” image in their heads, but only because her actions replaced that image with a “teacher puts foot in mouth, newcomer bites off more than she can chew” one.
With the wagon unloaded and the whole group on their feet, Gina asked Sam to say the blessing for their meal. Every head bowed.
“Dear Lord, I was just reminded of Ecclesiastes and Your design, that to everything there is a season. As we enter into this season of harvesting and celebration, of planting and planning for the future, the time for our children to learn and to grow, we ask Your blessing on those who have a hand in these things. For the farmers, the parents, the teachers, those who help in all aspects to support each other and love You. And as it says in Ecclesiastes, ‘People should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.’ Amen.”
“Amen,” the whole group said in unison.
“Amen,” Polly whispered one beat behind.
Sam’s way worked. Polly took a seat at the end of the picnic table and considered that as they enjoyed their meal.
The afternoon faded slowly into evening with the group sharing stories of Pumpkin Jumps past. It did not escape Polly’s attention that each person there made a point of telling her a tale about Sam. The year Sam was thirteen and Max was nine and Sam wanted to keep Max busy, so he came up with a maze made of hay bales and when Max got lost and scared how Sam plowed straight through the walls of hay to Max’s rescue. Then there was the story from a couple of years ago when the local weatherman had predicted an early snow for the day of the Jump, much to the girls’ delight. When it didn’t come, Sam spent half the night scouring the patch to collect the right-size pumpkins to stack up like three small “snowmen” to greet the girls in the morning. Time and again she heard the phrase “Nothing stops Sam.”
Nothing stopped him, Polly thought, except his own rules, or his own reasons for sticking to those rules.
Sam reacted to the praise and teasing with humility and good humor until someone said, “You know, my favorite Sam story was the year he dressed up as ‘Pumpkin Pete the Cowboy.’ Marie laughed so much at the getup—”
Others laughed and nodded in agreement. “I think that’s enough storytelling.” Sam stood and clapped his hands together before anyo
ne tried to elaborate. “The girls have school tomorrow and they have to get their baths, so if you’ll all excuse us…”
Despite their groans and complaints Sam prodded the girls to go tell everyone goodbye and go into the house.
Polly watched in awe. She glanced from person to person, wondering why no one else seemed to notice. How could they have just been sharing those stories one minute and now getting up and going home the next? Didn’t anyone see what had just happened?
They probably all assumed that was just Sam. He’d made up his mind and that was that. But didn’t anyone else see that the time he decided to up and move on was the moment when he and the girls might have shared a moment remembering Marie Goodacre?
He called to Juliette not to try to tumble up the hill to the house and directed Hayley not to forget to clear away her dessert plate. Then he held his hand out to Caroline to bring her along.
A knot twisted in the pit of her stomach. She wished she had known this when she had confronted him earlier. It all seemed so clear now. Sam wasn’t pushing his girls to move forward to the future so they wouldn’t experience more loss. He was running away from having to deal with the pain of his own past.
If Polly understood anything it was running away. She glued her gaze to the man’s back, took a deep breath and hopped up. “The girls aren’t the only ones who have school tomorrow. I better go collect Donut and be on my way.”
More protests from the girls even as they followed their father around to the front of the house. “Please, Miss Bennett, please, stay and read the Donut story to us.”
Polly shook her head. She didn’t think she could read Marie Goodacre’s story tonight, written for those adorable girls about a dog who only wanted to be loved. Not after her words with Sam and the realization that he had not fully dealt with his wife’s death. Not knowing she might have to give up both her dog and now her ideas about helping Caroline because she couldn’t wait to blurt out her opinion. “I really shouldn’t, girls. I can walk with you up to the house, though.”