I felt like a dick for making that sound like an accusation. “The thing is, though, I probably wouldn’t have shared much, anyway. It’s not my favorite topic. Actually, my tolerance for sharing personal details would’ve only been slightly higher than yours.”
“Fair enough.” Her smile was wry. “Then ask me anything, and I’ll answer. Go ahead.”
I thought about it for a minute while we followed the baby down another row of pear trees. She could move pretty fast on those short little legs. “Did you grow up on this farm?”
“Not exactly.” Zara shook her head. “We spent plenty of time here. I wanted to live here. And I did twice—for less than a year each time. Both times happened after my father left us. He did that a lot. One day he’d be at home, my mother fussing over him at the dinner table. The next day—gone. No forwarding address.
“My uncles always offered to share the house, but my mother wanted her independence. She kept us in successively smaller dwellings—I can’t even say houses, because the last one was a trailer—rather than move in with her brothers. I was so angry about it. Sharing a room with Benito when I was sixteen made me insane. When I was a senior in high school I actually moved in with my friend Jill for a little while, just to get out of that trailer.”
“Jill from The Mountain Goat? The one who caught her husband with the nanny?”
Zara stared at me. “You have a killer memory. You really do.”
“I told you, gorgeous. I remember everything when it comes to you. That was the night we drank tequila before we went upstairs. Don’t tell me you forgot the tequila.”
Two pink spots appeared on her cheekbones. “I remember. I’m just surprised you got Jill’s name from that crazy night.”
I shrugged. “I loved The Mountain Goat, and hearing all the locals’ gossip. Never saw your uncle’s face once, though. Hope you don’t mind that I said so.”
She grinned. “That was the best part of the meal.”
“No wonder your mom didn’t want to live with him.”
“Exactly,” Zara agreed. “Otto never held back his opinion on my mother’s life choices, just like he doesn’t hold back on me. My mom just couldn’t stand it. Living with him would have meant more space for us but less peace for her. And I get it now. My brothers are great. They’re so much kinder than Otto. But even so, they’re all up in my business.”
“I can’t imagine how you’ve kept it together,” I said.
“It’s been a chaotic couple of years.” She laughed. “But there’s something I want to explain to you.”
“Yeah?”
“Two years ago I was in a dark place. I wasn’t very happy with myself or anyone else. I wasn’t always that nice to you.”
I laughed, because that’s not really how I remembered it. “You seemed pretty nice.”
Zara’s eyes sparkled. “I suppose I had my moments. But I was angrier at the world that summer. In spite of, uh, recent evidence to the contrary, I’m much happier now. I have a new business and a healthy kid. I’m feeling pretty optimistic. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“That’s great. I…” Let’s face it, I could not say the same thing for myself. “You found optimism, and I’m more of a wreck.”
“Really? Why?”
“Well…” As it turns out, I’m not invincible, and also stupider than I’d thought. I wasn’t used to sharing my thoughts with anyone. Let alone Zara. And where to start? My career seemed to have hit a rough patch. The future scared me, and everyone had tiptoed around me all season. “I had an injury during the playoffs that’s still bothering me. That’s the worst of it.”
She made a sympathetic sound.
“Two years ago I felt like I had the world hanging off the end of my dick. Now I just feel like an old guy in a young man’s life.”
“You look okay to me,” Zara said. And when I met her gaze, those spots of pink had returned to her cheekbones, and she looked away. “Still in Brooklyn?”
“Yeah. I own a condo that’s only two blocks from our training facility. Bunch of guys live in the same building. It’s great.”
“I lived in Brooklyn once.”
“Really? When?”
“For two years right after high school. That’s where I learned to tend bar—in a nightclub in lower Manhattan. I used to take the F train home to Red Hook at four in the morning, and fight sleep so nobody could pickpocket me.”
“Yikes.”
“It wasn’t a great life. When I came home to Vermont, I appreciated it a lot more. Otto let me tend bar, and within a year I was running the place.”
Ahead of us, Nicole tripped over something in the grass. She pitched forward, and my heart lurched as her small body made the short trip to the ground. It wasn’t the worst fall I’ve ever seen, but her shriek was almost instantaneous.
“Oh, baby.” Zara ran and scooped her up off the grass. “You’re fine,” she said calmly. “It was just a tumble.”
But the baby howled. Her little face turned red, and she wailed onto Zara’s shoulder.
“Come over here for a moment?” She didn’t beckon, since her arms were full of the child. But I followed her around the end of the row of trees, toward an outbuilding.
Square bales of hay were lined up against the outer wall, and Zara sat down on one of them, as if it were a bench. I sat down beside her, while the baby still cried.
“She’s just tired,” Zara said. “My brothers love to rile her up and then hand her back to me.” She fumbled with the strap of her dress, tugging it off her shoulder. In a practiced maneuver, she freed her breast and the baby latched right on, going silent mid-shriek. Then her little body relaxed completely in Zara’s arms.
“That’s some powerful mojo you’ve got there.”
“When it works, it works.” She tipped her head back against the barn wood. “I have your watch.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “What?”
“Your wristwatch. You left it behind. I put it in a drawer. I thought I’d never find you, and someday I’d end up giving it to Nicole when I was ready to explain to her the real story of where she came from. But now I can return it to you instead.”
For some reason I looked at my wrist, which was banded by a Timex on a canvas strap. “I wondered what happened to that. I thought I left it in the cabin. And when I called the rental company they said nobody had turned it in.”
“I’ll drop it off when I go to yoga again.”
“Eh,” I hedged. “I never really missed it. That thing wasn’t really me. Just something I bought my first year making big money. Thought that’s what you were supposed to do. You guys should hang onto it.”
Zara didn’t say anything, and I realized that I’d just validated her original plan—to use an overpriced chunk of metal to explain an absent father to Nicole when she was a teenager. It wouldn’t go down that way now. I wasn’t going to cut off ties with Zara again.
Although, when I tried to look a decade into the future, I saw…nothing. It was all a haze—my career, my relationship to Zara and her child. What the hell would I be doing in ten years?
The question scared the shit out of me.
“I got papers from your lawyer on Friday,” Zara said suddenly.
“Really? That was fast. What do they say?”
“Standard paternity request. I take a swab from inside Nicole’s cheek and mail it back to a lab. And that if I refuse to comply with the test, you can take me to court.”
“That’s just lawyers talking. You know I wouldn’t really do that.”
“I know.” She cleared her throat.
“I think I got the same test by FedEx. Haven’t opened it yet. I’ll do it tomorrow. And if you don’t like the tone the lawyer takes, I can ask him to back off.”
“It’s really okay. Somehow I don’t think you’re about to surprise me with a request for full custody.”
We both knew that would never happen. But even I wasn’t a big enough ass to agree too loudl
y. Instead, I reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze.
Her fingers closed around mine, and then I think she surprised both of us by holding on and interlacing our fingers.
We sat in silence for a minute while I admired this quiet spot in my favorite state. “So when are pears harvested? There’s so many of them.” There were hundreds on each tree, still small. “They get bigger, right?”
“Sure. And the tree will shed fruit over time. The harvest happens in August, but the fruit is still hard and green when it comes off the trees. Pears are tricky. They’re not like apples—you don’t wait until they ripen to pick them.”
“Really? Why?”
“If you let a pear ripen on the tree, the texture is mealy at the core. They ripen from the inside out. So we pick them hard, chill them down to thirty degrees for a day and then ship them out.”
“But how do you know when to pick them?”
“There’s some guesswork involved,” she admitted. “Some varieties are ready when the stem releases easily from the branch. Some never release easily, and you just have to go with your gut.”
“Who knew?” She was still holding my hand, and I liked it way too much.
“Hey, Dave?”
“Mmm?”
“I’m really sorry I slapped you.”
“I thought we were going to forget about that.”
“But I just want you to know that the last person I slapped was Benito. When we were seventeen.”
“He probably had it coming,” I said mildly. “Pretty sure I got into some scuffles with Bess.” I distinctly remembered locking her in her room when we were teenagers because she’d gotten into my stuff.
“Well.” She cleared her throat. “I would never hit my child,” she whispered. “Just putting that out there.”
Wait, what?
I turned to find her watching me with sheepish eyes. “No kidding, Z. You’re really not the type.”
Her face softened, and it made her appear more vulnerable than I remembered her ever looking. Clear brown eyes blinked back at me from that pretty face, with those defiant cheekbones. She was so pretty in a way that was so unforced. I’d bet she had no idea how far she turned my crank.
“Just wanted you to know that,” she whispered. “Your sister told me that your dad used to hit you both…”
“That’s different,” I said quickly. We were not going there. “And anyway, my mother was a face slapper,” I said. “But she would never…”
Shit. I couldn’t talk about that parent, either. This was exactly why I wasn’t a family man. My family tree was a fucking landmine.
“She what?”
“Never mind. I was going to say something dumb.”
“Why? Where is your mother, anyway?”
Yikes. “She passed when I was small. Really, I barely remember her.”
“You remember her hitting you on the face, though.”
Point to Zara. “It wasn’t a big deal.” It didn’t even make the top-ten list for things that went wrong during my childhood.
“How’d she die?”
“Zara,” I warned. Christ almighty. She didn’t really want to hear about this shit. She only thought she did.
“How?” she pressed, proving my point. “I thought we were asking each other anything?”
I sighed. “Drug overdose. I was five, Bess was one and a half. I’m the one that found her.”
“Wow.” Zara’s eyes popped wide. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“But you still remember it?” she pressed.
Leaning my head against the outbuilding behind me, I closed my eyes. “Yeah, I remember that nobody had shown up at school that day to pick me up from kindergarten. This was not much of a surprise, and so I walked home by myself. I didn’t think anything of it, even when I banged on our front door and she didn’t open it…”
I pictured my five-year-old self standing there, waiting. And then the hair rose up on my arms as I remembered something else—the sound of Bess inside the house, wailing. Just like in the dreams I’d been having.
Shit.
And then I couldn’t stop the memory from unfolding. I’d gone next door and retrieved the extra key from Mrs. Parker, the retired school librarian who was always out on her porch, watching the kids come home from school.
When I finally got into the house, I’d seen her. My mother. Laid out on the floor, a baggie of powder near her outstretched fingers. She’d been very, very still.
And I’d known. I’d known, but I hadn’t known. My mother had been passed out in my presence before.
But this time I was afraid of her. I was afraid to touch her.
I knelt down on the rug while my sister screamed even louder. She’d probably heard the door open, and was making her presence known. I knew I had to get back there and show my face so she’d stop. But I was staring at my mother’s body. Her eyelids were blueish. Her lips were ashen. Her hand lay on the rug in an ordinary way. But way too still.
Slowly, I stretched out my own hand, hovering an inch over hers, and finally lowering it to her fingers.
They were cold. And then so was I. So cold and so scared. Bess wailed on.
I rose from the rug. With a pounding heart, I stepped over my mother’s outstretched legs and went into the bedroom I shared with Bess. My sister was standing in her crib, chubby little hands clenched around the wooden bars, her face bright red and tear-streaked. Her voice was hoarse from screaming. She didn’t stop when I entered the room.
Getting her out of the crib wasn’t going to be easy because I was too short. So I climbed into the crib and hugged her until she calmed down. She stank of urine…
Whoa.
With a gasp, I let go of Zara’s hand and leapt to my feet.
“What’s the matter?” Zara asked, sounding far away. Nicole popped off her mother’s nipple and squinted up at me.
“Nothing,” I wheezed, pacing in a circle. I’d just realized that Bess had worn cloth diapers. I remembered them now—they were held together with safety pins, and there was a plastic thing she wore over them. I remembered cupping her fat little foot as she stepped through the leg hole…
I’d changed diapers before. Quite a few of them. I’d done my first one that day in the damp crib, while my mother’s dead body lay on the floor of the living room.
“Dave.” Zara’s voice was low and steady, and it broke through the fog of my panic.
“Yeah?” I forced myself to stand still for a second.
Deep yoga breath in…
“Are you okay?”
“Sure,” I grunted. It might even be true eventually.
“Have you ever had perry?”
Breathe. “Who’s Perry?
Zara’s smile was the kind you get when someone was tolerating your strangeness. “Not who. What. Perry is pear cider.”
“You can do that?” I watched her pretty face and tried to calm down.
“Sure. I’ll show you.”
Zara had already tucked herself back into her dress. Now she lifted a sleepy Nicole onto her shoulder and stood. The baby wrapped one chubby arm around her neck and tucked her face onto Zara’s neck. “Let’s walk the long way so this one gets lazy.”
She pointed down a row of trees and I followed.
My heart rate descended back into the normal range as we walked slowly through the orchard. Nicole was completely zonked out on Zara’s shoulder. Supporting her sleeping body looked cumbersome, and I realized I was basically letting a woman carry a heavy object while I walked beside her unaware. “Hey. You want me to take her?”
She stopped, turning to me with amusement on her face. “Sure?”
“Unless she’ll wake up during the handoff.”
“It’ll work. Sleep is the deepest right after you go under.”
Well, okay then. I held out my hands, and Zara grasped her daughter and turned her. I bent my knees and hastily brought her against me, tucking her head against my shoulde
r with one hand.
And then I was holding my sleeping baby girl for the first time.
“There you go,” Zara said, looking more amused than absolutely necessary.
We walked on, coming to a fenced-in area where chickens pecked at the grass. Some were reddish and some had blond feathers. A single rooster walked towards us on his claw-like feet, cocking his head at me and blinking reptilian eyes. He opened his mouth and let out a loud crow of warning.
The baby on my shoulder did not stir.
“I think he’s telling us to back off,” I said, as the rooster crowed again.
“No way,” Zara scoffed, giving the rooster a casual wave. “I think he’s just showing off. ‘These are all my wives. Aren’t they pretty?’ Just like a man, really.”
Something tight inside my chest loosened up, and I laughed as the hens began to cluck. It was like a fucking storybook around here.
Chapter Twenty-One
Zara
We walked back to the farmhouse while I snuck glances at Dave carrying Nicole. Any mom of a toddler is so used to toting the baby around that she practically wears the kid like a scarf. But Dave used both arms, cradling her head with one and her butt with the other. He held himself stiffly, as if she were easily breakable.
He looked awkward but so damn cute that I could not stop peeking at them.
Just as we reached the front porch, Griffin Shipley’s truck rolled up the driveway and stopped beside Dave’s rental car.
“Expecting more company?” Dave asked in a hushed tone, taking care not to disturb Nicole.
“Um…Audrey is dropping off a little project I’m helping her with.” But she wasn’t supposed to show until later. I’d told her four o’clock, and it probably wasn’t even three. And the change of plans was almost certainly intentional.
Indeed, Audrey hopped out of the passenger seat looking gleeful. She took in Dave, the baby asleep on his shoulder, and her expression went straight to the same giddy look she wore whenever she watched puppy videos on YouTube. “Hi there,” she said, a giant smile on her face. “You must be Dave.”
“And you’re Audrey, right? I’d shake your hand, but…” He was still holding Nicole as if she were a Ming vase.