by Noelle Adams
There, on top of a slight rise, was Evening Lane Farm. Her parents had liked to tell people that they’d named it after their daughters, but Laney and Evie knew it was the other way around. They didn’t mind. The farm was beautiful, the long lane lined with oak trees leading to a gabled yellow brick house, the pastures to the east and west neatly squared off with white fence. A wide lawn stretched between the house and the two barns farther back, and the gravel drive continued past it, disappearing behind the larger barn, all the way to the bush. Her dad had loved taking them out on the wagon to choose a Christmas tree. Last year they’d picked one up at the grocery store in town. Last year, she’d only come home for two days.
The kitchen light was on already when she pulled her car to a stop beside the house. She grabbed her empty Starbucks travel mug and stepped into the frosty air.
“Delaney Calhoun, you must have driven all night!”
“Hey, Mom.” She jogged to the open door and swept her mother into a big bear hug. “Look at you, you’re practically disappearing on me.”
Claire Calhoun blushed and patted her trim hips. “Evie has me doing Pilates five mornings a week. You’re lucky today is a rest day.”
“You look great.” Laney hung her coat on her hook behind the kitchen door, labeled with crayon lettering her eight-year-old self had pressed into the wood, claiming that spot forever. “Coffee on?”
“Of course. Your sister and the boys will be down any minute. I thought I’d make eggs and bacon for breakfast, but Evie has a new protein pancake recipe she wants to try out instead.”
Laney made a face. At least the coffee would be good.
“How’s she doing, anyway?”
“Better than I am.”
“I’d hope so. Her husband was a douchebag, Mom, and he didn’t die. Big difference.”
“I know, but there’s still grief in divorce.”
“They tell you that in group therapy?”
“How’d you know?” Claire smiled brightly. “I think they were also supposed to tell you that at medical school, smarty-pants.”
Laney opened her mouth to point out that med school was actually quite a long time ago, and counseling wasn’t a significant part of the curriculum anyway, but she was interrupted by what sounded like a stampede of elephants coming down the stairs.
“SLOW DOWN. Seriously, Connor, you’re going to kill your brother. Max, don’t push him.”
As if they hadn’t heard their mother, two very excited little boys slid into the kitchen on sock feet and bounced into the new arrival.
“Aunt Laney, Aunt Laney, you’re here!”
“Did you bring us presents?”
“We’re going to get a tree today!”
“Do you want to see a magic trick?”
“You can sleep in our room if you want.”
“We’ve been really good, don’t listen to mom.”
Laney collapsed into a pile of excited chatter with two of her most favourite people and beamed up at her older sister. “Hey! So we’re getting a tree today?”
Connor poked her in the shoulder. “Don’t forget about the presents.”
Evie hauled him off the floor with a gentle reminder that eight-year-old boys should mind their manners and set good examples for their little brothers by offering to help make breakfast before they start asking about presents.
“Would you like some cardboard pancakes, Aunt Laney?”
“Why yes, Connor, I would, thank you. I love cardboard.” She winked at Evie. “No cheat days over the holidays, sis?”
“Maybe for Christmas morning. But you’re here for ten days. If we ate crap that long, we wouldn’t have any energy to tromp through the bush, or have snowball fights, would we guys?”
Max pulled on Laney’s hand. She bent down and he whispered in her ear, “I don’t mind the pancakes. Grandma lets us have as much maple syrup as we want.”
“Good to know,” she whispered back.
Max was right. With enough syrup, the pancakes made from egg whites, oats and cottage cheese didn’t taste bad at all.
After breakfast, Laney cleared the table and ran the dishwasher. As she wiped down the counter, Evie came into the kitchen dressed in yoga pants and a long sleeve t-shirt with a puffy down vest over top. Her long blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail. They shared the same blue eyes and fair colouring, but Laney didn’t see the faint lines on her older sister that she could feel on her own face. It might be time for Botox. “Where are you off to?”
“I have to run into town for a bit, I’ve got a group Pilates session at the studio and we’re low on groceries. I’ll show you the app I use on my phone, you can add stuff to the list before I get to the store.”
“Multi-tasking mom, eh?”
Evie paused and grinned. “And loving every second of it. Little did I know that divorce would be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I want to hear all about that later. What should I do while you’re gone?”
“Convince the boys to get dressed? We’ll go to the bush to get a tree when I get back.”
Laney reached her hand out to rest on Evie’s arm. “Is Mom going to be okay with that?”
“Of course! Her idea, actually. She’s gone over to Ted’s farm to pick up the wagon.”
Two
Laney was hiding under a blanket on the couch. It had taken her an hour to corral Connor and Max into their room, and after promising them chocolate from her secret stash, they had agreed to get dressed for the day. She hadn’t meant to lie down, but after her long drive a little catnap sounded perfect. She could hear faint peals of laughter, then thumping, a door opening and next, more clearly this time, Max counting. Another game of hide-and-seek. Pounding steps told her Connor planned on hiding in the attic, and she closed her eyes.
Her moment of peace was soon interrupted, not by target-seeking little boys, but a knock at the back door. Pulling the afghan around her shoulders, she padded into the kitchen. Bright light poured in the windows from the mid-morning sun. A large male body that she would recognize anywhere filled the glass window in the door. Seeing him here, on her mother’s doorstep, was both familiar and completely unexpected. Her steps faltered and she stopped a few feet shy of the door.
At the funeral, he had worn a suit, and looked handsome, clean-cut and grown-up, a very different man than the college student she had loved. On her mother’s doorstep in a fitted ski jacket and a wool toque, he looked like…himself. Shoulders a bit broader, maybe, but his body still looked lean and hard, even disguised by winter layers. Sunlight caught half of his stubble-flecked jaw. She could feel the rasp of his cheek against hers.
She dragged in a ragged breath and pressed her palms to her side. Normal hypothalamic response to an unexpected stressor from the past. Her pulse felt thready, and she wondered if she might pass out. Fight or flight? No, Laney would faint. She closed her eyes and willed herself to not see him as a threat. Their last encounter had been entirely reasonable. She’d been distracted by grief and they’d been surrounded by people, but this was the boy that broke her heart. Man. This was the man who broke her heart. Now here he was, on her doorstep, looking far too fine. And they were alone. She could faintly hear the boys upstairs, and hoped that they wouldn’t notice the visitor.
Kyle didn’t seem surprised that she hadn’t opened the door. He ducked his head for a moment, as if acknowledging that this must be awkward, then lifted it again, his mouth set in a straight line.
“Hey,” he mouthed, then turned and pointed at the driveway.
She edged closer, peering out the side window. A green tractor was parked beside her Audi, a large farm wagon hitched behind it. She stared at the tractor for a while, wondering if the next few minutes of her life could maybe not happen. When Kyle didn’t magically disappear, she took a deep breath and opened the door.
“Hi.”
“Your mom asked me to drive the wagon over.”
She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “
My mom.”
“Yeah. Laney … I didn’t know you were here, she didn’t say.”
She stared at him, words failing her. His returning gaze was warmer than she deserved for her rudeness, and she offered a weak smile.
“I was at Ted’s place when she walked over, and she said that she wasn’t dressed for riding a tractor.”
“She was wearing jeans!”
Kyle shrugged. “I didn’t think that much about it, I just drove the tractor across the road.” He flicked his eyes over her and she pulled the blanket tighter. He took his time meeting her gaze again, and when he did, his smile was warm and interested. Was that wishful thinking on his part, or hers?
He raised his hand as if he might touch her arm, then changed his mind and waved instead as he stepped back. “I’ll go now. It was nice to see you again.”
She bit her lower lip as he turned and walked down the steps toward the gravel drive. He stepped past her car, and she realized he was departing on foot.
“Kyle?”
He turned in surprise and angled his head to the side in a silent response.
“Where are you going?”
“I just live down at the corner, in the old school house. I’m fixing it up. You should come by.” And with that he turned and ambled down the drive, soon obscured by heavy oak branches. Laney stood in the doorframe watching for a few minutes, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, oblivious to the winter cold.
She didn’t return to the couch until after dinner. Claire and Evie arrived home at the same time, and the afternoon swept by in a flurry of outdoor fun, indoor decorating and holiday baking. Laney didn’t have a chance to talk to her mother about the meddling earlier, and as she sank into the soft cushions, wrapped once again in the afghan, she no longer felt the urgency. A day with Connor and Max was more exhausting than a 24-hour shift at the hospital.
Evie walked into the family room from the kitchen carrying two steaming mugs. “Chamomile tea? You look zonked.”
Laney nodded and waved her hand at the coffee table. “Put it there, I’m too tired to even hold the cup right now. Your kids are full-on.”
Evie giggled. “I know, right? They keep me on my toes.”
“Mom putting them to bed?”
“Yep. She’s a godsend.”
“For you, maybe.”
“What? Oh no, what did she do?”
Laney groaned, pushed herself into a sitting position, and reached for her tea. “She got Kyle to drive the tractor across the road today.”
She expected shock or dismay, but Evie just pursed her lips.
“Come on, that was inappropriate.”
Evie shook her head. “No, I get it. You’ve got stuff there you need to work through, and it’s not happening if you pretend he doesn’t exist.”
Laney gaped at her sister. Traitor. “There’s nothing to work through. He’s an ex-boyfriend. It’s awkward because it didn’t end amicably. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Avoidance isn’t resolution.”
“It’s been twelve years, our relationship is most definitely resolved.”
“So you’ve moved on, healed your heart, fallen in love again?”
“Love is overrated.” Laney willed herself to stay calm. “I’ve moved on and found satisfying relationships, yes.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“Tell me about your boyfriends.”
Laney wrinkled her nose.
“See? You don’t even like the word.”
They were interrupted just then by footsteps coming down the stairs, but Laney didn’t feel any relief. Evie on her own was one thing, but her sister and mother together would put on the full-court press. She thought of Kyle’s invitation. Should she stop in and visit? She didn’t agree that there was anything left to talk about, but she could acknowledge that it probably wasn’t healthy to be tense about a college boyfriend more than a decade later.
“Anyone want some cookies?” Claire hovered in the doorway.
Laney kept her eyes trained on her lap, watching her fingers worry the loose knit of the afghan. She didn’t want to catch her mother’s eyes just yet, didn’t want to invite her into a conversation Laney herself would prefer to get out of before it went any further. She didn’t want to be rude, though, and snack prep would buy a few more minutes. “Mmmm. Yes, please. Thanks, Mom.”
Evie waved their mother off and scooted to the edge of her seat, leaning toward Laney.
“You can’t tell me that you want to be alone forever.”
That pulled her up short. The last time she had used that word, she had been lying in Kyle’s bed. The decade in between faded away and she stood in the tiny one-bedroom apartment in Windsor, watching her younger self unwind naked limbs from Kyle’s lean frame.
“This is perfect. I’d like to stay in this moment forever.”
“You could stay forever. You could marry me.”
“You know I need to go to Harvard. It’s just for a year.”
“You could stay and do your master’s degree here.”
“And what if that’s not enough? What if I don’t get into medical school again? This is Harvard, Kyle. A once in a lifetime opportunity. I have to go.”
“What about us?”
“You could come with me.”
“I just got hired at the school board, you know I can’t leave.”
“Then I’ll be home on holidays, and you can come visit me at March Break. You’ll be able to concentrate on teaching, and then we’ll be reunited for good next summer.”
“And then you’ll marry me.”
“And then I’ll marry you.”
She hadn’t told Evie that they were going to get married. Kyle had never officially proposed or given her a ring, and two weeks after that conversation, he abruptly broke up with her, telling Laney that a year apart was too much to ask. She had been devastated, and when it came time to apply to medical schools the following year, she only chose universities out of the province.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Evie waved a hand in front of Laney’s face.
She blinked hard and shook her head. “Sorry, I’m more tired than I thought.”
Her sister raised an eyebrow, but sat back in her chair and didn’t say anything else until their mother brought in a plate of chewy ginger molasses cookies. “Mom, I was thinking that I should take the boys into the city tomorrow to do a bit of last-minute shopping, do you want to come along?”
Claire looked at Laney and hesitated.
“Go with them, Mom. I’ll catch up on some sleep. I have a bit of work to do too, I’ll get that out of the way and then we’ll have an entire week without any distractions.”
Claire nodded and took a cookie. She might want to meddle, but for whatever reason she was giving that a pass tonight and Laney decided not to tempt fate. She gave her mom a tight squeeze, stole a cookie and plodded off to bed.
Three
Kyle stepped into line behind Mrs. Wilkins and piled his groceries on the conveyor belt. He hadn’t slept well. Next stop was the coffee shop.
“Hello, Kyle. School’s out now?”
“Mrs. Wilkins. Yes, the kids are off until after New Year’s.” He edged forward in line and nodded at the cashier. “Hey, Karen.”
“Hey to you too. Did you hear that Laney’s in town for the holidays?”
He rocked back on his heels. He didn’t want to talk about Laney. He wouldn’t mind talking to her, but he didn’t want to contribute to idle chatter.
“Is that why you’re buying fruits and vegetables?” Mrs. Wilkins ever so helpfully offered.
Kyle looked down at his purchases. Strawberries, croissants, lettuce, balsamic vinegar, a baguette, olives, whipping cream and a bag of two-bite brownies. He furrowed his brow. “I eat vegetables.”
Karen pointed out that he usually bought apples and cucumbers, and she didn’t remember him ever buying fancy vinegar. Kyle decided he might go straight home and make himself coffee there ins
tead of risking further appraisal by the amateur detectives of Wardham.
“Just ring it up.”
“Touchy, touchy,” Karen said. “So I can’t ask you about dropping off the tractor?”
“Jesus Chr—”
“Kyle Nixon!” Mrs. Wilson had moved toward the door with her groceries tucked into a basket on wheels, but she whirled around with surprising speed and wagged her index finger.
“Watch your language, young man, or I’ll report you to the principal.”
Kyle couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes ma’am, my apologies.”
Karen gave him a wry smile, but returned to scanning and bagging. Saved by the wrath of a senior citizen.
As he drove away from the store in his pickup truck, he considered his grocery choices. He honestly had just wandered the store, thinking with his stomach, but maybe a small part of him hoped that at some point over the next few days, he might get to cook Laney a meal. He wanted a chance to apologize to her. He’d been thinking about her a fair bit over the last two years, and had come to the painful realization that he had broken her heart. For years, he’d believed it was the other way around, that she’d left him and never looked back.
After moving to the old school house the previous summer, Kyle had started running into Claire with regular frequency. At Ted’s annual Labour Day picnic, he made the mistake of referring to her as the mother of the woman who broke his heart, and that opened the mama bear floodgates. Kyle had stood in Ted’s yard while tiny Claire Calhoun, with her perfect silver blond bob and disarmingly pleasant smile, poked her index finger into his solar plexus and told him that better be the only time he’d ever said that awful lie. When he turned red and scuffed his foot on the ground, she reached up, took firm hold of his chin and stared him in the eye with a fierceness he would never forget. “Kyle Nixon, you better make sure that everyone in this town thinks the best of my daughter. You hear me? I like you, but I won’t hesitate to tell the parents at your school that you used to sneak into my house in the middle of the night to take advantage of Laney.”
