Willow interrupted. “What’s Facebook?”
“Seriously, Chad? You haven’t even shown her Facebook?”
“And how would I do that? We don’t have Internet out here.”
“But honest, social media—”
“Wait,” Willow interjected, “can we discuss my lack of cultural literacy at some other point? I want to know what happened with Chuck.”
Before Cheri could say any more, Chad nodded. “The other guy made a crack about your… assets.”
“Top or bottom?” Willow’s eyes narrowed.
“Bottom.”
“Good choice of word then,” she muttered.
“So a guy complimented me and Chuck lost it over that.”
“I remember a certain girl giving Chuck a serious dressing down for the same thing at your house a couple of years ago—or did you forget that too?” Willow shook her head and took the boys’ hands. “I’m getting out of here before I smack some sense into you.”
Cheri stared at the empty doorway as Willow disappeared into the kitchen and out the back door. “What is her problem?”
“Well, she’s just saying what we both know I won’t. Instead, I’m going to tell you this. You’re wrong.”
“About…”
“This thing with Chuck for starters. This time, he made the right call and you blew it.”
“Oh, come on, Chad.” Cheri glared at him. “Do you really think that—”
“Stop. Just listen to me. Chuck has pretty much walked through the fire for you—fire you laid down for him to walk over. You’re the one who got through to him when he made the remarks about your chest. Man, Cheri. He defended those remarks until you set him straight. And,” Chad added with a smile he couldn’t hide, “you’ll be happy to know that he gets it now—really gets it. When some guy said it to the girl he loves, suddenly it sounded to him like it sounded to us.”
“Loves. Chuck only loves himself.”
“So then tell him to go away. Tell him you don’t want to be his friend. Tell him he has no chance with you at all. Tell him you’ve been leading him on all these months—”
“Come on, Chad. That’s a little dramatic, even for you.” Cheri shook her head and glared at his shoes.
“He’s trying, Cheri. Don’t you see that? Chuck Majors, the guy who—until he met you anyway—thinks he is perfect, is trying to please someone other than himself. He loves you. He’s going to make a million and one flubs every day of his life, most likely. But—”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you.” Despite her efforts to hide it, the corner of her mouth twitched. “I was talking to one of the gals from the mission team. She’s got a degree in Special Ed. or something like that. She says he either sounds like he has Asperger’s or some social development disorder.”
“Makes sense. I don’t think Asperger’s, but he’s got some screw loose.” Chad hunkered on his heels and smiled into his little sister’s face. “He does love you and not how I always thought he would.”
“Huh?”
“I always thought he’d love you ‘as much as someone like him can love.’ He’s going to drive everyone crazy until the day that he dies, but if you care about him, you’ve got the chance to be probably the most cherished woman alive. You noticed him. You chose him rather than the other way around. You love him—not just tolerate him. That’s going to be pretty incredible.”
“Yeah…”
Chad shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“What?”
“Trying to convince my sister to give Chuck Majors a real chance. I’ve lost my mind.”
Willow and Chad stood at the front window, watching the scene with great interest. “See how stiff she is. He’s gonna run,” Chad said with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“Give him time. He’s hurt and everything, but he loves her. Chuck is nothing if not tenacious.”
Cheri’s arms, crossed tight over her chest, didn’t budge when Chuck’s hand reached out to touch her. Willow winced. “I did that to you a few times, didn’t I?”
“What?”
“See how she’s holding him aloof—almost punishing him for being him—I know I did that to you.”
Chad shook his head. “I don’t think it’s the same.”
“No, Chad, it is.” Willow stepped closer, lacing her fingers in his hand as she looked up at him. “I remember once in the craft room—about education I think. It was when Ellie and Tavish were here anyway. I did it then. I wanted you to get upset and leave because then it wasn’t my fault and things could stay the way they were.”
“Lass, I—”
“I also wanted you to make me see reason. I wanted you to fight for me.” Her breath became shallow as she realized what she said. Making herself that vulnerable—even to Chad—terrified her.
“I wasn’t going to give up that easily. By that point, keeping you from running was a point of survival for me.”
She couldn’t respond. Across the yard and under the tree by the pasture, Chuck’s hand brushed Cheri’s cheek. “Oh, Chad.”
“I didn’t know he knew how to be tender.”
“I did.”
“What!”
Willow felt his eyes on her, but she shook her head. “Not with me, Chad. I just saw it in him. He ached to have someone who accepted him—someone other than his mother. Even Nathan doesn’t—not really.”
“I didn’t know you knew Nathan. I’ve never met him.”
“I haven’t either, but if you listen to Chuck—”
Chad laid his cheek on her head, pulling her into a hug. “You would have been good for him—Cheri’s better, but you would have been. You guys both took the time to listen and see what was behind all the stupidity.”
“Gee, that’s a very flattering comment about your future brother-in-law.”
He stepped back, eyes wide. “I—” Those wide eyes grew wider and he turned Willow’s head toward the tree where Chuck and Cheri stood—kissing. “I’m doomed.”
Chapter 162
Willow sat in the middle of the garden, sobbing. The boys played nearby in their little exer-saucers, flinging their cereal snacks all over the ground. Had she any doubts of the wisdom of changing their farm plans, they disappeared one late May afternoon.
As she wept, the enormity of the work pressed closer in on her until she thought she’d crush under the weight of it. Despite a healthy crop of weeds growing alongside her first plants, Willow stood and brushed the dirt from her hands. “That’s it, lads. We’re going. Don’t ask me where. I don’t know, but we’re going.”
It took an hour—or most of one—to get ready to leave. She started a roast in the crockpot, and wrote a note for Chad to add potatoes and carrots when he got home from work. The boys needed new diapers and new clothes after drooling and smearing partially masticated Cheerios all over themselves and their jon-jons. She shoved a clean shirt into the diaper bag, changed her own clothes, and managed to stumble down the stairs and out the door. Halfway down the drive, she realized she hadn’t locked anything. Her foot hit the brake and then released. It would have to stay unlocked.
Not until she pulled onto the Rockland loop did Willow decide where to go. She took the off-ramp that led to her grandparents’ house and pulled up to their door a little over an hour after she left the farm. “Note to self,” she muttered as she climbed from the van. “Make sure you always drive this way between two and four o’clock.”
Her grandfather hurried down the steps and to the drive before she could pull the boys from their seats. “Is everything all right?”
His panicked tones caught Willow off guard. “Why? What? Yes, everything is fine and horrible both, why?”
“You just showed up without a word in the middle of the day. You don’t do that.”
Tears sprang to her eyes again. “I know and I’m sorry. I just—I needed a hug from my granddad. I needed out of there. I hate that I needed to get away from the place—” The rest of the words sh
e uttered were unintelligible even to her.
“Carol!”
The call brought Willow’s grandmother to the door and grinning. “Oh, Willow! David didn’t tell—why is she crying?”
“I don’t know yet. Can you take Liam?” David passed the boy to his wife and reached for Lucas. “Let’s go inside.”
“They need naps. They chattered all the way here instead of sleeping.”
Several minutes later, with the boys wailing upstairs and demanding out of their playpens, David hurried downstairs and wrapped his arms around Willow. “Wha—”
“You said you came because you need a hug.”
“It’s too much. I can’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Live my life. I can’t.”
“So you want out?” David asked. “You want away from home and Chad and the boys?”
“No, I want away from gardens the size of pastures and chickens enough to feed all of Fairbury—”
“I hardly think—”
“Let me be miserable!” Willow wailed. A giggle escaped. “Ok, so maybe half of Fairbury.”
“I worried about this, remember?”
“We’ve been talking about it—trying to find someone to come to help fulltime, but—”
David led her to the couch and pulled her down beside him. “What’s wrong? Why can’t you find someone?”
“A lot of people who answered the ad we put out hung up when they found out where we are. They knew about Mother and—”
“As sad as it is,” David murmured, “that doesn’t surprise me.”
“It didn’t surprise me either—not after I saw how people were after the discovery. But the people who came to gawk…”
“What?”
Swallowing hard, Willow fidgeted, her fingers picking at everything in reach. “The first time, I just thought it was an odd personality—like a Chuck sort of person. But it became obvious after several others that some people just wanted to see the bathroom where it happened. They’d ask, Granddad! They’d ask to use our bathroom and get upset when we sent them upstairs.”
“Oh, girlie…”
“Chad started meeting them at the porch and saying that if they asked to use the bathroom, the interview was over. A dozen walked away right there.” Willow giggled. “One guy was clever. He waited until he’d been interviewing for half an hour—he seemed so perfect—and then began shuffling awkwardly now and then. Chad almost offered, but I kicked him. Sure enough, the guy said he had to go early. He never returned our call for a second interview.”
“So what are you going to do?”
The question couldn’t have been a worse one. She looked up into David’s concerned eyes, her own filling with tears again, and choked, “I don’t know.”
Chad’s phone rang as he walked the last ten minutes of his beat. David Finley’s name flashed across the screen. “Granddad?”
“Willow’s here.”
“She wha—” He frowned. “What happened?”
“It all became very overwhelming for some reason. She says she just fell apart, got in the van, and found herself getting off at our exit. When I asked why she came she said, ‘I needed a hug.’”
The words cut. She could have come to town for a hug from him. “I—”
“You should know that I think she’s so overwhelmed she can’t think properly. Her first words after her crying jag were, ‘I need Chad.’”
“So what do you think I should do—besides show up after work, of course?”
“Keep her away from the farm for a few days. She needs a break.”
“Ok, so bring more diapers—”
“Forget the diapers. She’s in town where we can throw them away. It’ll be good for her to have less work here too.” David didn’t speak for a moment and then added, “Bring her journal too. I think she de-stresses by writing.”
“Writing…” He glanced at his watch and then strolled back toward the station. Each step sent his mind in new directions and brought resolve. “Ok, I have a plan. I’ll see you guys in a couple of hours.”
Once disconnected, Chad punched Luke’s number. “So, what do you have planned for the next few days?”
Chad arrived by dinnertime with a crockpot full of beef and suitcases to last a week—just in case. Willow met him at the truck, and for the second time in a month, gave him a voluntary kiss to knock his socks off. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For just leaving without even saying anything. I just wanted to go for a drive. I didn’t really mean to go anywhere but then I was here.”
A chuckle followed. “That’s hilarious.”
“What?”
“Willow Finley, miss ‘I’m not driving it if I don’t have to’ herself decided to go ‘out for a drive.’”
She snickered at herself. “I guess it is pretty funny.” Her eyes traveled to the suitcases. “What are those for?”
“You’re staying until the bathroom is done. We’ll start when I get back tonight and work until it’s done. Your job is to stay here, rest, and work on your talk for the women’s conference.”
“But—” She bit her lip. “But I was going to stay with Mom for that. She’s been counting on a few days with the boys.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “Then we’ll just have to pack them up and drive over to Mom’s after dinner. I promised Grandmom that I’d bring that roast.”
“She’s got potatoes and carrots in the oven—and she made some kind of lime cheesecake.”
Just as she reached for the doorknob, Chad stopped her. “Lass?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m probably going to stick my foot in my mouth for this, but I have to say it.”
“What?”
“Thanks for remembering about Mom. I wasn’t going to say anything—not this time—but she would have been disappointed.”
Willow stared at him, stunned at his words. “Well, I would too. I’ve been looking forward to it.”
Her notebook slowly filled with the words Willow wanted to share with the women at the conference. Never having written something like it, she found herself destroying page after page until Marianne suggested she just strike out the words she didn’t want and rewrite later. “I’ll even type it up if you like.”
“That’d probably be good for Mrs. Lanzo. I should learn how, but I don’t have time.” She glanced up at Marianne. “Where are the boys?”
“Cheri and Chuck decided to take them to swing at the park.”
A smile hovered in Willow’s heart and spread slowly to her lips. “That’s good.”
“She’s going to marry him.”
Willow noted the lack of emotion in Marianne’s voice. “Are you sorry?”
“No… not sorry. Surprised and yet, I’m not. I overheard her tell Chris that she’ll probably have to propose to him or it’ll never happen.”
She wrote a few more words before glancing up where Marianne dusted the mantel. “People always underestimate him. I think that’s part of why he is the way he is.”
“Can you imagine him as a father?”
Willow nodded, grinning. “He sure loves the boys. I’ve never seen anything like it. Most men seem to push away a fussy child, but it’s almost as if Chuck sees it as some kind of challenge. He’s going to be a great father.”
“Who crushes his kids without knowing it until it’s too late.”
Those words swirled in her heart as she painstakingly wrote the next few lines. “I don’t think so.”
“Come on, Willow. He does it now. Stomps all over people’s feelings—even when he doesn’t want to or tries not to.”
“But the child will grow up knowing that. Children are resilient. Don’t you tell me that all the time? ‘They have to be to survive our mistakes.’ Those were your words. If he shows half the love and acceptance as I think he will, it’ll help them see the truth. And he is learning to apologize—sincerely.”
“Why are you so set on it?” Mariann
e swiped her duster over the door trim and turned to await Willow’s answer.
“Because I can see how much Cheri loves him. Her only hesitation is how he’ll be accepted.”
Marianne didn’t respond to that. She finished dusting the living and dining rooms before putting away her cleaning paraphernalia and moving into the kitchen. “She does love him, doesn’t she? I wonder why?”
“Chuck is a little like Chad. I think Cheri knows how to—”
“What! Chad is nothing like Chuck! Chad would never treat people the way Chuck does! He’s—”
“Mom!” Willow laughed. “Claws in. I’m not saying he would. Well, that’s not quite true. I think Chad raised in the Majors home might have been more like Chuck than he is, but the root of it all is the same. They’re both sensitive men. Chad built walls of protection from others around himself. He had good training to show him how to die to self and serve others and it worked.”
“And Chuck learned to protect himself.”
“Pretty much.” She waited until Marianne had poured herself a glass of iced tea and sat down at the table before she added, “Can you imagine how much fun Cheri’s wedding will be?”
“He’d better ask soon.”
Before Willow could answer, her phone rang. “It’s Chad. I’m going to go for a walk while we talk. Be back in a bit.”
“Can I read what you have so far?”
“Sure!”
Willow hurried from the house, listening as Chad told of the slow progress on the bathroom. “You were smart to leave. It’s a nightmare here. Luke has brought Vannie and Aunt Libby—tomorrow Tavish and Ellie too—to help with weeding, the animals, and things like that. So, we’re not getting far behind on everything else. He’s even taken Lacey for a few rides for me.”
“That’s good. I miss you.”
“I’ve got to come out to Westbury and see you. My boys will be half grown by the time I get in there.”
“Well, that’s probably excessive, but you might enjoy watching Cheri and Chuck.”
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 5 Page 18
