Why have I always fallen so quickly? My mother would mockingly say I was a lover. I wanted a wife. I wanted what I witnessed between my parents. I wanted someone to warm my bed, hold my hand, and laugh with me. However, I’ve come to learn wife is more than just a label, and marriage is more than a decree. It’s something that needs a commitment to survive. Something that isn’t greedy but needs communication and understanding with compromise in the mix. It’s something that includes recklessness and creativity but boundaries of trust. A true marriage involves a soul mate as a wife, and I thought Scarlett might be it for me.
We differ in so many ways, but most of those differences endear her to me. She’s lively and vibrant, filling the quiet that’s consumed me for years. She’s generous with her time, spending it with my family and me, and I’ve missed cuddling with her on the couch. Finally, she’s sexy in all kinds of ways she doesn’t recognize in herself, like the way she smells, how she’s willing to let me do what I want with her body, or how she purrs when I enter her. Scarlett and I are compatible in one area that surpasses all the others, and I can’t deny sex is a huge part of communication for me.
Touching her allows me to tell her how I feel when words escape me. When she touches me, I feel the same is true of her. She’s communicating how much she appreciates me, how much she likes living with me, and how much she wants to be near me.
Am I misreading all the signs once again? My history proves I’m not good at interpretation.
“Heard you had a fight.” Dad’s words break into my rambling thoughts. I hadn’t heard his truck pull up.
“Yeah,” I say, no sense denying things as I slam the post hole digger into the dry dirt again. Fence repair is typically a two-person job, but no one wants to work with me this afternoon.
“Want to talk about it?” The question startles me as my dad isn’t one for communication. That was Mom’s jurisdiction, and on a day like today, I miss my mother. She’d know what to say or what to do, or just remind me that things happen for a reason. Maybe discovering the truth about Scarlett and her involvement in that news story is a sign that things aren’t meant to be between us.
When I don’t answer Dad, jabbing the hole digger at the ground once more, he speaks. “Your mother was a feisty woman, too. Ran me in circles at first. Like to think it was that red hair.” He chuckles softly, and I recall my mother’s faded rust coloring. “But I think it was her heart. She was well-intended.”
My arms thud on the hole digger as it hits a solid patch, and I still, turning to face my father. “How was reporting that shit about us relevant to anything?”
Dad shrugs. “It wasn’t. Not the personal bits or the parts about our farm. It was hurtful but not spiteful. Damning but not intentional. Scarlett didn’t set out to harm us. She set out to do her job. The overzealous activists are the ones who really hurt us. That’s the thing when what we do in life involves passion. There’s a risk. Doing what feels like the right thing to one might be the wrong thing for another. I’m not saying I agree with Scarlett’s employment or even her motives, but it’s not my place to judge her, nor can I condemn her for what she thought was right at the moment.”
As my moral compass isn’t perfect, I understand what Dad is saying, although I don’t like it. “That’s where consequences come in. Think before you act. I recall a certain someone saying that often.” I tip a brow at my father, who easily dispensed that advice when I was younger.
“If you want to discuss consequences, perhaps you should have thought before you acted with Scarlett.” It’s the first and last comment my dad will make on my decision to have a one-night stand.
“And at the time I offered that advice, I was hoping it might rub off in other decisions you’ve made with women, but did it?” He pauses for effect, knowing full well it didn’t stop me from leaping before I looked. “You’ve always been so eager to have someone at your side, but it can’t be just someone. It’s a certain someone. And now, she’s here.”
I glance back at the handles of the hole digger.
“You’re in a bit of a pickle with Scarlett. There’s a reason there’s a saying about learning to love. It’s a lesson. It takes time and energy. I’m not saying Scarlett needs to be your wife. She doesn’t even need to stay on this farm if you don’t want her to, but she’s going to be part of the rest of your life. And I’d be sad to see that baby of yours gone. I’d actually miss Scarlett, too.”
We haven’t explained the possibility Sprout might not be mine. It still doesn’t matter. If Scarlett wants to know for her own peace of mind, I understand, but it’s not going to change mine. I want that baby. In my soul, I feel that Sprout belongs to me, and so does Scarlett.
“I respect that you’re rightfully upset, but just remember, making her leave can have long-term effects. She might never come back.”
And that’s my biggest fear. If I don’t trust Scarlett, how will she trust me to take care of her and the baby? If I don’t have faith in her intentions now, what’s keeping her with me? Why would she stay by my side if I can’t stand by hers?
“This is just a fucking mess,” I mutter, slamming the hole digger one more time into the packed dirt, twisting it to loosen the soil.
“If it isn’t messy, it’s not love.”
My head shoots up at my father’s words. Jennifer slipped away easily. Sabrina fell right through my fingers. I should have run from Gisela, but Scarlett . . . she’s not going to be so easy to let go. And the truth is, I don’t want her to leave. I just don’t know how to get past what’s been done.
Dad slaps me on the back and turns for his truck, leaving me to continue this two-person job alone.
“Thanks for your help,” I mutter, referring to the post digging, but accepting I also mean his advice. If I push Scarlett away, there’s no reason for her to come back to me.
“Seems you can dig your own hole without any help,” he sarcastically says, waving over his shoulder.
Have I dug a hole? Why does it feel like things are suddenly my fault?
16
Big Burgers
Scarlett
Rita and I enter The Mountain Goat, a bar just outside Tuxbury. Zara told me how she once managed the place since it’s owned by her uncle Otto. He still owns it, but it’s under new management. Rumor has it, it still serves a decent cheeseburger, and I need one the size of my head to stave my hunger and lose myself in my misery. Although it’s a tavern, Rita accompanies me to the local favorite to commiserate through food love.
“I’ve really fricked up this time,” I say to Rita as we sit across from one another in a booth.
“You really had no idea?” Rita isn’t judging me. She’s just curious how I could have forgotten such a report and not connected Bull’s name with the Bovine Bridegroom I invented.
“We never said his name in the reel.” Most likely because we didn’t have his permission to run the story. I’d have to go back through files I no longer have access to in order to find out how we got the information about Bull in the first place.