This Time Around

by Denise Hunter

  A trail of bulbs flicked on down the center of the greenhouse as they stepped inside, illuminating the floor-to-ceiling glass and overflowing greenery. The air was thick with the scent of fresh dirt and flowers and turpentine. Rows of carrot tops stuck out of the nearest raised bed, kale and arugula behind and beside them.

  Skye brushed aside a geranium from a hanging flower basket.

  The greenhouse was crowded, and Skye squeezed between the trailing tomato vines and rows of peas to get to the center of the room. She didn’t look back as he followed.

  As the rows of vegetables cleared, she stopped at a wooden, paint-splattered stool. Put her hand on the seat that looked like it had been her sturdy companion for a decade.

  “It’s messy but . . . here it is. This is my life.” Her tone held nervousness.

  He smiled as he stepped out from the rows of vegetables. His gaze was steady on the canvas resting on the easel. “It’s breathtaking.”

  She pulled a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ve only just begun that one,” she said, trailing her fingers along the row of freshly washed paintbrushes on the table. “It’s just the underpainting, really.”

  “Nevertheless, those details—the juxtaposition of smooth and irregular forms in the fore- and backgrounds,” he said, moving toward it, examining it closer. He reached out with one finger and she took a step forward, her breath hitching. “It’s still drying,” she said, but his finger had already stopped an inch from the canvas.

  He turned and smiled, keeping it soft. Of course he knew better than to touch her work in progress. “I love this line of light here, along the tree line.”

  His gaze turned to her reference photograph. She’d taken that shot beneath the entrance of Evergreen Farm.

  “Will this be a new series?” His gaze went to three completed canvases leaning against the greenhouse wall. All were different angles of Evergreen Farm. The rows of Fraser firs. Icicles dripping off the white pines. The Watkinses’ cabin nestled against the ridge.

  Her eyes flickered to his, as though she was surprised by his expression of familiarity with her pieces. As though it was not possible that he had followed her career since she left for the University of Washington to pursue fine art all those years ago. That it wasn’t possible he knew the way she worked. Knew she always painted series.

  But of course he had. He did.

  “I—I don’t know,” she said at last, turning back to the painting. “If I can ever quit wasting my oils on half-finished skies, then yes. Maybe.” Her gaze flickered to the other canvases of all shapes and sizes against the wall, all abandoned with stretches of black, blue, and silver paint streaked across them.

  Theo stepped toward the painting on the easel. Carefully moved his eyes over the painting.

  He felt her presence beside him. She crossed her arms over her chest, silently gazing at it as well.

  “I never was able to cut it down,” Theo said at last.

  “I know,” she said after a moment.

  “You should’ve seen the lengths I had to go to to keep the family from doing so.” Theo chuckled, recalling the number of times he had to make his case to the twelve brothers, parents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. “I almost resorted to making PowerPoint demonstrations. I was almost at the level of strapping myself to the tree in protest.”

  “The newspapers would’ve loved it,” Skye replied. “That was your chance for front-cover exposure.”

  They both chuckled quietly in the vast room until their gazes slowly turned to each other.

  Theo raised a brow. “Well, I suppose our ramen is getting cold out there.”

  Skye grinned. “Cold ramen. The only thing possibly less appetizing than warm ramen.”

  Tentatively, he extended his elbow. “Shall we?”

  Tentatively, she took the crook of his arm. “We shall.”

  As they entered the field once again, the toads in the distance began to hum. For several minutes, they just listened, walking in step, Theo feeling her arm pressed against his side. The grass Skye’s father mowed each week bowed beneath their feet with each step. Each fir shivered lightly in the breeze as they passed.

  The world, in that moment, was perfect.

  “I haven’t been completely honest with you, Theo,” Skye said, breaking the silence. But instead of feeling her pull away, she seemed to cling tighter to his arm.

  A part of him didn’t want to ask. The bigger part of him couldn’t resist. “How so?”

  “I said I got over it a long time ago. Up until three months ago I really believed I had.”

  “Until you moved back?” Theo said, raising a brow.

  “Just before that. I was at my parents’ house and found something that . . . that just made me believe the worst in you all over again.”

  He swallowed, the burn lingering in his throat. What had she found? An old picture? A memento?

  “I need to talk with you about it,” Skye continued. “I need to get this off my chest before I could even possibly take one step further.”

  “Of course,” Theo said, pulling her tighter, not wanting to let her slip away. “Anything.”

  Their feet hit the gravel driveway and he stopped, letting go of her arm to face her properly and look her in the eyes. “What do you need to ask?”

  Skye’s eyes glimmered as she pressed her lips together and looked up at him. He saw the hope in her eyes and his tension eased. Whatever she was about to ask, he could see she wanted him to reply with the right answer. Whatever it was.

  “When I was with my parents—” Skye began.

  The sound of a car rolling onto the gravel cut her off. Skye stopped as they turned, blinking into the beam of two small headlights.

  He knew that car.

  Skye’s voice was low. “Who is that?”

  She withdrew her hands from his, already bracing for what she didn’t understand.

  The car hit the brakes twenty feet away.

  Theo felt his jaw flex. “It’s a woman I know. Ashleigh. It’s not what you think—”

  Skye started moving backward, spotlit like an actress onstage. Her hands were balled at her sides. “Why is she here?”

  “I—” Theo squeezed his eyes shut. If Skye had found some trinket that reminded her of how he had broken her heart, and she was struggling to get over that, he couldn’t imagine what reliving this horrible moment in their history might do. He pressed his hand against his temple. “I’m not sure. If I’m honest, I’m not sure. I broke it off with her today—”

  “You have a girlfriend?”

  But already Skye was waving him off, her bracelets banging against each other with the movement. “You know what? I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be a part of this.”

  The driver’s door opened. Ashleigh set one high heel onto the gravel and stepped out. “Theo?”

  “Skye, wait,” Theo called, but it was no use. Skye, hiking up her pantlegs, was walking as fast as she could toward the woods.

  He could hear Ashleigh’s door slam shut, but Theo didn’t turn his head. He called out to Skye. “What did you expect me to do? I only ran into you yesterday. I did everything I could to get things right here.”

  “See, now there’s where you’re wrong, Theo. You didn’t do everything you could. Fourteen years ago, you didn’t do everything you could. If you had, we wouldn’t be doing this right now.” Skye turned. For the first time, he saw Skye’s eyes spark against the moonlight.

  Theo’s forehead creased. “But I did. I ran after you. I even got a broken nose running after you. And I called and apologized to your voicemail more times than I could count, until you flew all the way across the country and changed your number—” He halted. Threw out a hand. “What else could I have done?”

  “What you should’ve done is flown out to Seattle and begged me to come back. You should’ve banged on my parents’ door until they gave you my address. You should’ve given up UVA and flown out to Seattle and found some crappy apartment as cl
ose to me as possible and apologized every day of your life until I took you back. I gave you everything, Theo. I got into that Seattle school two years before I went and turned it down to stay near you. To be with you.” Skye lifted her chin. “You should’ve put it all on the line for me too. Just like I put it all on the line for you.”

  Theo swallowed as Ashleigh took a step toward him. “But you told me to leave you alone. You said in no uncertain terms—”

  Skye threw her head back in exasperation. “I was lying, Theo. I was angry and hurt and I was lying. And I blindly assumed you cared about us enough not to give up based on a few words.”

  “Your words,” Theo said quietly, taking a step toward her. “I thought it was what you wanted.”

  For several moments they faced each other in silence, Skye’s face drained of color. Finally, she waved an arm at Ashleigh, who was sliding back into her car. “Clearly you have some things to sort out. I’ll leave you two to it.”

  She stalked three more steps before turning one last time.

  “You know? All day I kept trying to understand how the person I knew could treat my father this way—”

  Theo put up a hand. “Wait, what?”

  The gravel sputtered as Ashleigh’s car flew into reverse.

  “I saw the letter, the one with your fancy letterhead detailing his salary.” She shook her head. “Honestly, Theo, you treat my father as unfairly as a migrant worker straight out of the Depression. He’s devoted his life to making an organic tree farm actually successful—which takes a lot of time and labor—and you can’t give him more than minimum wage.”

  Theo squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to process what she was saying. Rubbed his temple. “You think that I would do that?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  He pressed his lips together, put his hands on his hips. Everything was becoming clear. The anger and distrust that had been hidden behind her eyes all along. This wasn’t just about what had happened fourteen years ago. It was about now. Then and now.

  All those comments about his organic Peruvian coffee beans and how her father worked so hard.

  “You think I would pay your father so little—”

  “That they would still be living in their double-wide driving that same thirty-year-old truck with the broken AC? Yeah, Theo. Yeah, I do. What evidence do I have to tell me otherwise?”

  Theo pressed his hand to his chest. “Me, Skye. I would hope you’d know the truth because you know me.”

  They stared at each other wordlessly as Ashleigh’s headlights fell between them and the car backed swiftly down the lane. By the time the lights swerved onto the road and dissipated through the trees, the moment held the feel of a punctured balloon, slowly deflating into a small mass on the floor.

  He wasn’t sure if he or she turned away first, but moments later they were moving in separate directions, each trudging slowly beneath a pale moon and its electric sky of stars.

  Chapter 14

  Skye

  Skye’s heels sank into the mossy ground with each step. Her fingernails bit into her closed palms as she marched through the small patch of woods and came out at the greenhouse on the other side.

  She felt like she’d been tossed underwater. Like she’d been invited to a nice waterfront restaurant and was sitting on a fine patio drinking champagne one moment, clinking her glass with a man beneath a string of hanging lights, and the next was falling backward out of her chair into the water.

  It was startling. Infuriating. Confusing.

  But what rubbed her raw was a slimy feeling in the pit of her stomach she couldn’t quite shake. The feeling that he wasn’t entirely to blame for what had just happened.

  And worse than the feeling of being furious at him for his mistakes was the feeling of being furious at herself for the possibility of hers. She had to know. Right then. She had to talk to her mother.

  Skye marched through her side yard without stopping and walked across the bridge. Two knocks on her mom’s door, and her mother appeared.

  She took in Skye’s expression and then opened the door wide. “Oh, honey. What happened?”

  “Well, to cut to the chase,” Skye said, peeling off her sodden heels at the threshold and stepping barefoot inside. “We were about to start a lovely meal when Theo’s newly departed girlfriend showed up.”

  “Oh no.” Her mother shut the door, her hand pressing against her chest and the faded stripes of her apron. The air smelled of sautéed garlic and onions.

  Skye’s fists tightened. “Yes.”

  She took Skye by the shoulder and guided her to the kitchen. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Skye followed her into the yellow-wallpapered kitchen and sat in one of the three chairs surrounding the breakfast table. She put her elbows on the table. Raked her hands through her hair. Her mother set a glass of milk in front of her and moved back to the stove.

  Skye picked up the glass numbly. “I don’t even think I know what I’m supposed to think here.”

  “I’m sure it’s all very confusing for the both of you,” her mother said softly, sliding a bowl of soup in front of her. “But then, you both have had entirely separate lives until yesterday.”

  Skye frowned.

  “Did he say how long he’d been detached from this other woman?” her mother asked, setting a stainless steel spoon beside the bowl and slipping into the chair beside her.

  “Hours.” Skye exhaled, turning the glass in her hand. “Apparently somewhere in our day together he stole away long enough to break up with her.”

  “And then she came to see him, probably to try to make amends, and it threw a wrench in his well-planned date,” she mused aloud.

  Skye saw where this was going and frowned. “You’re taking his side.”

  “Of course not,” her mother said, taking her hand. “I’m on your side. I’m on both your sides. Although, I wonder . . .” Her mother stood and returned to the stove.

  Skye watched her mother stir the pot, saying nothing more.

  “What? You wonder what?”

  “If you’re not being a bit too hard on him.”

  That was it. She had to know.

  “Why do you like him so much?” Skye set her glass down. “How can you stick up for Theo when he pays Dad what he does? How does that not infuriate you? Dad, you—you’re both worth ten times this.” She waved at the wallpaper. “And Theo could give that. Theo should give Dad a decent wage.”

  Her mother’s ladle slowed to a stop.

  “Where did you get this information?” she said quietly. “Did Theo talk with you?”

  Skye pressed her lips. Shook her head. “No. I saw the letter in a drawer.”

  She saw her mother’s expression and felt an inward quake. This was why she’d never brought it up. This shame that crossed her mother’s face was the reason Skye had kept it to herself.

  “I’m sorry,” Skye continued, then waved at the counter. “It was lying in a drawer I looked through while I was making cookies. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Her mother nodded. “Well, I can most certainly understand why you’re confused.” She turned back to the soup. “There’s a reason the Watkins family has agreed to pay your father that salary. A few reasons, actually, for why they agreed to my request to lower it.”

  “Lower it?” Skye said. “You requested to lower it?”

  “Theo’s letter was just confirming our verbal arrangement.” Her mother nodded. “About this time last year, shortly after”—she hesitated, turned—“the Bristol casino opened. I realized I had no other choice. I drove down to Theo’s office and spoke to him in person.”

  “You went down to Theo and asked him to lower Dad’s salary? Why?”

  Skye halted, felt her breath quake. “How bad is it, Mom?”

  She hesitated. “Bad enough I needed Theo’s help.”

  “But how does lowering his salary help anything? Shouldn’t it be the other way arou
nd?” Skye looked around, realizing all too suddenly the television made no noise. “So is that where he is right now? The casino?” She gripped the corner of the table, her voice rising. “Is that the ‘errand’ he was talking about?”

  Her mother didn’t move. “That’s where he said he wouldn’t be. But time will tell.”

  Skye felt the punch in her gut as she stared into the face of her mother. Her peaceful, placid mother in her apron, soup ladle in hand. “And you’re just going to stand there? And let him throw all your money down the garbage chute?”

  At this, for the first time, her mother smiled. “Thankfully, honey, this house isn’t fancy enough for a garbage chute. And yes, in my own way, I’m doing everything I can to help him.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Well, for starters, cutting his salary by 60 percent. And by becoming an employee of Evergreen Farm and making twice his salary myself. Theo made quite a sacrifice, convincing the rest of the Watkins family of my plan.” She hesitated, then lowered her voice. “For a long time I’ve known that the Watkinses hold on to the tree farm for sentimental purposes. They spend any profit on their employees.”

  “So . . . Dad.”

  She nodded. “Your father, and the few part-time employees who come in for the harvesting season. So when Theo told me they’d agreed to essentially double our income, well . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t think they agreed. I think he’s paying me independently. He denied it when I pressed, but . . .”

  Skye sat back, stunned.

  Her mother cleared her throat. “And then, of course, I think hosting the Gamblers Anonymous group in our home once a week is starting to make an impression on your father too.”

  “Those are all gambling addicts?” Skye said, her world turned entirely upside down now. She’d seen the group coming to their double-wide every week, the average-looking men and women carrying potluck dishes. Laughing. Doing and looking as normal friends do.

  “They’re all people who struggle with gambling addiction,” her mother replied. “Yes.”

  “And now you’re working on the farm too?”