“Keeping the air circulating helps, and the new shade cloth is amazing.”
She glanced up at the cooler. “How long has it been running today?”
“About an hour.”
Willow pointed to the lettuce. “How long can we keep them from bolting?”
“As long as I keep the cooler on from about two o’clock until five or so, we should be good.”
“This is just so…” Her brain refused to think anymore. All she wanted was food.
“I believe the word you want is cool.”
“Fine. Cool. Meanwhile, I’m starving. Want a salad?”
“No, but if you want them, there are peppers ready.” Ryder pointed to the near garden. “Becca didn’t know if you meant to put them on the list or not, so she didn’t pick but…”
“I’ll take a look. Thanks.” Her eyes roamed over the greenhouse. “All seems well in here.”
“It is.”
“Then go home. Sleep. Watch a movie, but sleep.”
Ryder went to rinse his hands. “You’re right. Maybe I’ll call Beth.”
“Beth?”
“My girlfriend. Didn’t you meet her? Yeah, back—”
“I met her,” Willow said, her mind whirling, “I just didn’t realize she was your girlfriend. I thought Chelsea—”
“No, that ended months ago. She’s too much of a drama queen.”
Stunned at his words, Willow nodded and stepped from the greenhouse, eager to get away and think. Why did he come, night after night, if he had another girlfriend? Did he think she wanted him there? Did she? Did she know about the girlfriend? Surely, Ryder would tell her—wouldn’t he?
Questions bombarded her as she grabbed a ripe bell pepper and a tomato. Pickled beets sounded good too. However, as she stepped into the pantry, Willow found only two half-pint jars left. Disappointment washed over her. “I didn’t pickle beets this year.”
All enthusiasm she had for her meal dissolved in a puddle of frustration. What else had she forgotten? Willow tore lettuce, and mentally calculated the plans for salad greens to last them until late spring the next year. She chopped tomatoes and counted jars on the shelves and tried to remember how many plants they had left in the garden and greenhouse. As she sliced chicken and cheese, she realized she hadn’t made cheese in weeks—or more.
She set down her knife and made a note for herself on her clipboard. Chad came in from a ride on Lacey as she finished and asked, “What are you doing?”
“We need cheese—I think.”
“Oh. We out? I can go get some.”
Willow shook her head, trying to think of what else she could have forgotten. “No. I just don’t know how much we have. We’re almost out of pickled beets. I forgot to pickle some this year.”
“Well, we can buy some, or grow more in the greenhouse and make it later, right?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t my point.” She carried her salad bowl over to the table and set it in front of her place. “Forgot something.”
“Fork?”
“Right.” Willow retrieved the utensil and sat down, poking at her salad uninterestedly. “What else did I forget?”
“Dressing?”
“No, I like to make that fresh—” As she took a bite, she sighed. “You meant on here. You’re right. And I don’t feel like making mayonnaise right now.”
Chad stood and strolled out the back door. As illogical as she knew it was, Willow fought back tears. She stared at the bowl of unappetizing salad and wondered why it had ever seemed like a good idea. She speared a piece of chicken and forced herself to chew it. A tear splashed on the back of her hand.
“Oh, now you’re just being silly.”
“What?”
Willow glanced up and saw Chad standing on the other side of the screen door, a bottle of his favorite “ranch” dressing in hand. “I told myself I was being silly—crying over no mayonnaise and pickled beets. This is ridiculous.”
He stepped inside and set the bottle in front of her. “Just try it. If you hate it, I’ll go get you anything you want from town—anything.”
Laughing, she took the bottle and unscrewed the top. “That’s not much consolation. You’d do that anyway.”
“After I picked myself up off the floor when you asked, maybe.” Chad grinned. “Now what’s up with you?”
“I don’t know! I forgot to pickle beets. I love those things on salad! I—” She grabbed the clipboard and slowly wrote out the next item on her running “to do” list. “I need to do pepper relish too. We have an overabundance of those things. It’ll be great in winter.”
“So you forgot a couple of things. You’re sleep deprived and transitioning from doing it all to having someone else do it.”
“But I can’t have her do it if I can’t remember,” Willow wailed. “I’m used to Mother telling me, not the other way around!”
He turned his chair around and sat backwards on it as he did every time he had something to think about or something serious to discuss. “Willow…”
“If I’m being unreasonable again, can you tell me tomorrow—or next week? I can’t take it right now.”
“You’re not being unreasonable—not really. You know what you need and want done, and you know that you are capable of doing it.”
Her head snapped up. “Exactly! That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“I just think,” Chad began with evident caution in his tone, “you’re forgetting that there are other things that need to be done that you aren’t capable of doing. It’s not just about doing everything you’ve always done.” He draped his arms over the back of the chair and rested his chin on them, gazing at her. “Lass, I think you forget that I tripled your work—at least. You added things like the clothing line. We added children—three of them in a year and a half.”
Willow giggled. “Well, two anyway. Our third seems to have the good sense to want to stay as far away from here for as long as she can.” Her joke seemed to wound Chad. He dropped his eyes and stared at the floor. “Chad…”
“This place—” his voice cracked. “It’s not supposed to be a place people would want to avoid—even joking,” he added as she started to protest. “That’s the beauty of it for so many people. For them, this farm is coming home, and they’ve never lived here or anywhere else like it.”
“I didn’t mean that—” She frowned. “Wait, we’ve had this discussion. We’ve made changes. It’s just going to take time. It’s okay, right?” Before Chad could reply, another tear rolled down her cheek.
“So if you’re okay with it, then why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. I’m tired, I’m so hungry, I haven’t seen my sons in days, we haven’t gotten to go for a walk in…” Her eyes rose to meet Chad’s. “How long? I can’t even remember how long!”
“Too—”
Willow rushed on without allowing him to answer. “We’ll just get adjusted with the baby and Ryder will be gone. Ryder…” Another tear followed. “He has a new girlfriend. Did you know that?”
“Beth? Yeah. She’s nice—”
“Why didn’t you tell me? All this time I thought he was there for Chelsea because they—”
“Lass,” Chad began, trying to explain. “I didn’t know you didn’t know.” He paused, his forehead wrinkling. “Whatever. I just assumed Ryder—it’s not like we talk about them.”
“I just—” She swallowed hard. “I don’t like it. I feel like something horrible has happened all over again.”
Becca arrived at the door with a few envelopes. “The mail came. There’s a packet from the social services office…”
Willow grinned at Chad, her disappointments forgotten. “The home study? It’s finally complete?”
Chad opened the manila envelope and scanned the cover letter. His eyebrows drew together as he read, but concern lodged in Willow’s heart as she saw him swallow hard. Her eyes sought Becca’s but saw nothing there. “Chad?”
Without a word, he passed her the
letter and began flipping through the papers. Willow read several sentences before her hand dropped. “You’re kidding me. The social worker passed us off to another one so we have to have the inspection and home interview all over again? And what’s with the electricity thing? Who cares! We have it. That’s the point, right?”
“Read it all, lass. It says that the paperwork on our background checks and financials are complete. They just want to interview again because of a notation about the electricity.”
“But what it says between the lines is that Maeve Zolora didn’t want to make a decision as to whether it was appropriate to allow us to adopt because we don’t always leave the electricity on in our house.”
“That’s not exactly accurate,” Chad argued. “It’s more like we rarely do.”
“So, it always comes back down to the innate virtues of electricity. Fine.” Willow stormed to the pantry to flip on the switch and frowned. Furious, she backtracked and paused long enough to say, “Maybe we should point out that I couldn’t even turn it on for them. It was on!”
She stumbled twice as she rushed up the stairs and slammed the door shut. Her eyes widened and she waited, holding her breath as if it would help, for her sons to awaken. Not a peep followed. Relieved, she collapsed on their bed and wept.
Chapter 174
The new interview fell on a morning when Willow had been called to the hospital—again. Chad watched the nondescript sedan crawl up the long drive and berated himself for not grading it. The recent rainstorm had left it more rutted than usual—not the way to make a good first impression.
As the woman stepped from her vehicle, his heart sank. How had he never noticed that there was no walkway to the porch? The woman stumbled over the grass to the steps. By the time she reached the door, he held the screen open for her. “Ms. Claremont?”
“Yes.”
When she didn’t offer a first name or call him by name, Chad’s throat went dry. “I’m Chad. Willow isn’t here yet. Chelsea went to the hospital around eight o’clock.”
“I see. Will she be here?”
Chad assured her that Willow had promised to try to be back before the interview was over—even if she had to return to the hospital when they finished. “Would you like some water? Lemonade? Iced tea?”
“Sweet tea?”
Chad shook his head. “No, but I can add sugar—”
Ms. Claremont gave him the slightest nod of approval. “No, iced tea is perfect. Thank you.” He turned to go, but the woman spoke again. “May I come too? I’ve heard about your… unique situation.”
“Um, sure.” As he led her to the kitchen, Chad showed her the artwork and craftsmanship of the Finley women. From the painted “wallpaper” and the hand carved trim around doors and windows, to the hooked rugs—he gave the same tour that he had given so many other times. In the kitchen, he showed the wood cook stove and noted the tightening of the woman’s lips as she listened to the explanation of the fence around it. “We also have an icebox in here—” Chad pointed to it and opened the door. “I’ll never forget my surprise when I saw her filling buckets of water in the winter and setting them outside.”
“And why did she do that?”
“For summer ice. We keep it in the cellar in an ice room of sorts. You’d be amazed at how well it lasts. We’ll run out just before the first freeze if we haven’t used more than usual.”
“And why not just use a freezer—oh, no electricity.”
Chad poured the woman a glass of tea and passed it to her. “That isn’t exactly accurate. He popped his head in the pantry. “Looks like we have it on again today. It was pretty hot last night. I tend to forget to shut it off.” Chad reached for the breaker box and flipped it.
“So you do have electricity. The report was so ambiguous. It implied that the barn had it but not the house. Which,” the woman added, “obviously makes no sense.”
“Well, there is some truth to it,” Chad admitted. He gestured to the table. “Would you like to sit there or in the living room?”
“Here would be fine, thank you.”
Chad saw a fine line of perspiration form on the woman’s upper lip and stepped back into the pantry for a fan. He plugged it in and frowned when it didn’t come on. “Oh, I turned off the breaker. Sorry. We get used to the heat.”
Once settled, the woman opened a file folder and took out a pen. “Okay, why don’t you tell me about the electrical situation again? I am thoroughly confused now.”
“We have electricity to all parts of the farm. We choose not to use it in the house most of the time.”
The woman scrawled notes as she listened. “When do you have it on then?”
Disarmed by the almost curt manner in which Ms. Claremont asked her questions, Chad had to ask her to repeat the question. “Oh, sorry. We’ve been a bit sleep deprived. Chelsea’s body can’t decide if it does or doesn’t want to have this baby, so we’re up and down every night almost.” He thought for a moment, even further unnerved by her poised pen. “Electricity in the house—we usually use it if we want to watch a movie on the laptop or on hot nights to cool things down so people can sleep comfortably.” He nodded at the fan that blew past the woman’s shoulder. “And, of course, when we have a guest, we’ll put a fan on to cool them down or flip on the breaker for them to use an electric razor or blow dryer.”
“I see. And why is the electricity kept on in the barn?”
“The barn is where the freezer, washing machine, and things like that are. Next to the barn we have what the Finleys call a ‘summer kitchen.’ Willow does her canning and things out there. It’s being upgraded to a commercial kitchen so that anything she makes can be sold if we ever decide to go that route.”
“And what about plumbing?”
Chad laughed. “Well, we have the outhou—” His joke fizzled. “Sorry, bad joke. It’s all modern. We’re on a septic system, which…” a new thought occurred to him. “Maybe I should make a note to check records. I don’t know when the last time they had it pumped was. It was probably something Kari handled.” He reached for Willow’s notes and scribbled a question at the bottom of a random list of ideas and questions.
“What is that?” Ms. Claremont’s pen poised again.
“Just Willow’s running list of things to do, to remember, to research. The Finley women are very… methodical. But they had clearly defined lines of work and planning that work was Kari’s. Willow hasn’t mastered the balance of it all yet.”
“What happens when the work becomes too much?”
“Well, so far,” Chad began, relaxing a little. “So far we’ve just hired someone to do it. If that becomes no longer feasible, then we cut back what we do here.”
The woman glanced around her. “Can you tell me where your sons are? It says here you have twin boys who are… seventeen months old?”
“We have an employee who lives on the property. She has them at her place while we talk. I thought I’d be distracted from our conversation if I had to keep an eye on both boys by myself.”
“May I meet them?”
Chad pulled out his phone. “Sure. I’ll call and ask her to bring them and see where Willow is. Excuse me.”
“May I walk around outside?”
A glance at her shoes made Chad wince, but he nodded. “It’s a farm, Ms. Claremont. Please be careful.”
“I will.”
The moment she stepped outside, Chad punched Becca’s number. “Hey, the social worker wants to see the boys.” Becca asked if that was normal, but Chad didn’t know. “Seems reasonable to want to see how we interact with the children we already have, so I suppose. They were just ‘there’ last time, so it wasn’t an issue. Can you run them up now?”
That squared away, he called Willow. The phone went to voicemail and a couple of minutes passed before she called him back. “On my way home—had to find somewhere to pull over to answer.”
“How far out are you?”
Willow’s voice changed. “What’s w
rong?”
“Wrong?”
“I can hear it. Something is wrong. Has she indicated—”
“Lass, she’s just…” It took him a moment to define the problem. “I don’t know, cold—disapproving even. Every word she says, every expression, every question—it all makes me feel as if she’s ready to order the boys removed from us or something.”
“What! Can she do that?”
“No, no. I don’t think she would; it’s just so different from Maeve. Maeve was so friendly and interested in everything. It felt like a chat with an old friend. This feels like I’m at an interview for a job that we both know I’m grossly under qualified for.”
“Chad…”
“Just come. I need you.”
They sat stiffly on the sofa, a boy on each of their laps, and tried to be as relaxed and natural as possible. From the moment she had dragged herself up the front steps, Willow had felt exactly what Chad had described. The woman considered them unfit—possibly even to parent their own children.
Liam squirmed to get down, and Willow let him go, standing as he toddled toward the toy basket. Ms. Claremont commented on it. “Is there a reason you cannot sit, Mrs. Tesdall?”
“Not until I see what he plans to do and until I latch the gate.” She wrestled the thing in place and watched as Lucas followed his brother to the toy basket. Exactly three seconds before the brouhaha began, Willow predicted it.
Lucas decided he wanted the little wooden train Liam held. Liam protested the attempted confiscation of his toy and jerked it away. Lucas leapt—as did Willow. She grabbed her son and seated herself on the couch, holding the wriggling, screaming toddler as he protested his thwarted train-jacking scheme. Chad shifted his concentration to Liam while Willow dealt with the tantrum.
Ms. Claremont watched in silence.
Once Willow felt Lucas shift from anger to frustration, she told him to hush. Unwilling to yield, the boy buried his face in her chest and wailed, albeit with much less vigor. In less than a minute, Lucas sat quietly on her lap and then tried to slip to the floor. “No, son. You stay with me for a bit.” He protested. She didn’t budge. Ms. Claremont seemed curious.
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 5 Page 28
