But for right now, the moment was enough.
“It’s a good night,” she said.
“It is.”
She looked up at him. “I can’t believe you kept all this such a secret.”
“Carlos almost blew it this morning. I thought you’d suspect something was up.”
She shook her head. “How’d you keep the girls quiet?”
He laughed. “I didn’t tell them. I knew they wouldn’t be able to keep their mouths shut. I waited till you left this afternoon. Anna Beth and Tom came early to help set up, and everyone else came a little before five. I’m glad you stayed away long enough. We cut it close as it was.”
He pulled away and took her hand, spinning her slowly before reaching for her again. His arms settled around her hips, his hands on her lower back. Their friends still mingled under the twinkle lights and stars, the sky now clear after the day of clouds and rain. “Where’d you go today? Did you get your nails done?”
She smiled, swatted him on the rear. “I told you I wasn’t going to do that. I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I’ll tell you a secret.” Ty leaned down and put his mouth close to her ear. “I’m kind of glad you’re not,” he whispered. “So you didn’t pamper yourself, you didn’t go shopping—what’d you do all afternoon?”
Her stomach clenched with nerves. “I went to that gardening meeting I told you about. At the library. And I stopped in the children’s department and got some books for the girls. I think they’ll like them.”
“That’s great.”
She took a deep breath. A little voice in her head told her to stop, but she ignored it. “I also stopped by the school.”
With her arms around his shoulders, she felt his muscles shift and tighten. “Why?”
“I was just curious. What it would take to enroll the girls there. I mean, if we decided to do it.”
He pulled away from her and dropped his arms. “If we decide to do what?” he asked, his voice hard.
“To—I don’t know. If Jenna doesn’t come back and we—”
“Betsy, they’re not puppies. We can’t just take them in.”
“But isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“This is temporary. They already have a mom.”
She inhaled, sharp and involuntary. “I know that.”
“Then why? You can’t go around making choices for our life without talking to me about it.”
She held her hand up. “I’m not making any choices. I was just getting information.”
“But even going to the school . . .” He raked his hand through his hair and released a long, tired breath. “Who’d you talk to? Some secretary who’s going to blab to everyone in town that we’re taking in your sister’s kids?”
“No, the principal. He won’t say anything.” She reached for his hand, but he didn’t move. “I just needed some answers and figured he’d be a good person to talk to.”
“You’re taking this too far.” He shook his head, took one step back, then another.
“Wait a minute. Ty, please.”
He shook his head again. “No. I need a minute.” He started to walk away, then paused and turned back to her, his hands out at his sides. “I’m never going to be enough for you, am I?” Then he turned and crossed through the grass toward the barn.
Across the yard, Roger stood and circled his hand around his mouth. “Ty?” he called. “You going to check the weather?”
“No,” Ty yelled, before softening his voice. “I just need to grab something. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Betsy reached up and lifted her hair off her neck. She pulled an elastic band from around her wrist and tied her hair back. Ty’s words buzzed in her ears. “Never enough.”
The kids had started to slow down, their jubilant voices a notch quieter, their games less frenzied. Parents began rounding them up, shushing their protests and carrying the ones too tired to walk all the way to the driveway. Betsy said her good-byes and thank-yous on autopilot, apologizing for Ty not being there to offer his thanks. Out in the barn, the lamp in his office lit up a small rectangle of light on the grass. Soon, everyone was gone except Roger, Linda, and Anna Beth and her crew.
Linda and Anna Beth picked up stray forks and plates and tossed them in a trash can next to the picnic table. When Roger dumped his third scraped-clean plate of banana pudding in the trash, he called to Linda, who wiped her hands on a napkin and waved good-bye.
“Tell Ty to give me a buzz tomorrow,” he said. “No doubt things will worsen overnight. We’ll need to make sure all the farmers in the area are ready, even if they don’t think they need to be.”
Betsy nodded. “I’ll do that, Roger. Thanks.”
Anna Beth motioned for Betsy to join her by the table. “Everything okay?” she asked as Betsy sank onto the picnic bench and sighed.
“I think I screwed up.”
“What happened?”
“I talked to the principal today.”
“Mr. Burgess? About what?”
“About the girls. About possibly enrolling Addie in school.”
Anna Beth’s eyes grew wide. “What? Why? Did something happen with Jenna? What’d she say?”
“No, nothing happened. It’s what hasn’t happened.”
Anna Beth narrowed one eye. “What did Ty say? He didn’t look too happy on his way to the barn.”
“He’s mad I didn’t talk to him first. We did talk about it once, but . . . we didn’t get very far. And he’s right—I should have told him before I went today.”
Anna Beth chewed on her bottom lip, a sure sign she needed to say something Betsy wouldn’t like.
“I know it sounds nuts, but I’m just planning ahead,” Betsy said before Anna Beth could speak. “Ty’s doing the same thing—all his preparations for a hurricane that may or may not even come this way.”
“Honey, planning for a hurricane and planning to keep your sister’s kids are two different things. They’re whole different universes.”
“But why can’t it work? Why does it have to be ridiculous? It’s August! School starts in a couple weeks and Jenna’s not here. What else am I supposed to do?” Her voice rose like stair steps, carrying across the lawn to where Addie and Walsh sat on the back steps, polishing off the last of the brownies.
“These girls, Betsy, they’re . . . they’re not your kids.”
Betsy stared at the ground as the sting of her friend’s quiet words sank in deep. “I have to get them to bed.” She stood abruptly. “Thanks for helping Ty with the party.” She turned and walked toward the girls on the steps.
“Betsy, wait. Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.” Betsy dug the heel of her hand into her eyes. Embarrassed was what she was. She’d shown her hand to the two people closest to her and she’d been turned down. Probably for good reason, but that didn’t make her feel any better.
That night Ty stayed outside putting the tables and chairs away in the storage closet while Betsy settled the girls in bed. Expecting him to be back inside any minute, she sat on the bed and waited. From the window, she could see light in the barn.
She curled her fingers over the edge. Stay up or go to sleep? She knew it was never good to go to bed angry—or let your husband do so—but tonight it seemed better than the alternative. There was still so much left to say, but what good would it do? Jenna was a mystery, Betsy was planning ahead, and Ty didn’t like it. Nothing they could say to each other would change any of that.
Finally, she reached over and turned off her lamp, pulled the sheet up over her legs. The bed felt emptier tonight than other nights when Ty had to work late. Tonight it felt cavernous, a deep and uncharted territory, and she didn’t have the tools—or the energy—to examine it. She tried to relax, but Anna Beth’s words continued to tumble through her mind. “They’re not your kids.”
thirty-three
Betsy
Hurricane advisory 31. Hurricane Ingrid lashes the Cayman Islands. Interests
in the northern Gulf of Mexico should closely monitor the progress of this storm.
The morning Ingrid reached the Cayman Islands, Betsy woke to an empty bed. Ty hadn’t rolled over and kissed her cheek as he usually did, waking her just enough to make her smile, before tiptoeing out of the room. This morning, just like the two before it, he left without a kiss, word, or touch.
It had been three days since their fight. Squabble, as Anna Beth would have said. Three days since they’d had a real conversation. Granted, Ingrid, now a dangerous Category 4 hurricane, was taking much of Ty’s time. With talk of the destruction she’d flung onto the western edge of Haiti and Jamaica, coupled with his regular farmwork, he was coming in at night long after the girls were asleep. He’d fall onto the bed, still damp from the shower, barely awake enough to mumble good night.
It was still early, at least an hour before the girls would wake up. Thank the Lord they were late sleepers. Downstairs, she poured herself a mug of coffee, then slipped her feet into shoes and crossed the dewy grass to the barn.
“Hey, Betsy,” Carlos called. “What’s up?”
“I just need to talk to Ty for a minute. Is he out here?”
Carlos pointed toward the pasture. “He’ll be another hour at least.” Ty’s tractor had just emerged from behind a stand of trees. “He’s preparing the back pastures in case we need to send the herd out there. Walker and I are handling the milking today.”
“Will you tell him I’ll have breakfast for him when he’s ready? You, too, if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell him.”
Back in the house, she turned on the Today show for distraction, then clicked over to the local news for a weather update. The rosy-cheeked weather girl on Channel 9 pointed out the predicted track of Ingrid—continuing through the Caribbean and over the extra-warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Landfall, expected somewhere between New Orleans and Pensacola, was estimated at midweek.
Betsy’s phone buzzed with a text. She turned off the TV and checked the screen as she headed to the stairs to check on the girls.
Ty: Sorry, can’t make breakfast. Busy day. Will see you tonight.
She checked the time. Eight fifteen.
Upstairs, the girls’ room was dim and cool, the ceiling fan rustling a pile of coloring pages on the dresser. Addie lay curled in Betsy’s grandmother’s white knit blanket. Walsh had flung all her covers off and lay stretched out flat, arms overhead. Betsy stroked the girls’ arms and faces until they woke.
“How about a trip to the beach today?” she whispered.
With a note left on the counter—as cool and impersonal as Ty’s text—Betsy and the girls left with a cooler of food and two bags stuffed full of towels and sunscreen.
The public beach in Gulf Shores was packed, umbrella to umbrella in some spots. Sand buckets, beach towels, foldout chairs, and Yeti coolers filled every available inch of white sand. It was only a matter of days before the parking lots and high-rise condos emptied out, everyone chased away by the threat of screaming winds and fierce undertow. But today, the sun was still bright.
Betsy took one look at Addie and Walsh, the glee on their faces when they saw the sparkling blue water, and packed them back into the car.
“We’re leaving?” they asked, verging on tears.
“Just moving down the beach a ways.”
Betsy drove through Orange Beach, past the Flora-Bama, then onto the narrow two-lane road that ran through Perdido Key only a few hundred yards from the Gulf. She pulled off the road onto an oyster-shell parking lot. A long walkway led to the beach, and the crowd was lighter here. It wasn’t empty, but tourists were no longer jostled together like pickup sticks.
Betsy and the girls gathered their bags and began the walk past mounds of sand dunes, some topped with waving sea oats, others covered in gnarled shrubs and oaks. The salt-tinged breeze whipped around their faces, sharp and damp, stronger than usual. As they approached the water, the walkway dissolved into sand, sugar white and powder fine.
Addie and Walsh dropped their towels and buckets and darted toward the water. They squealed when the water touched their toes, then backpedaled to dry sand. After a few excited minutes, they settled down, Addie with a bucket and shovel, and Walsh squatting low watching coquina clams burrow into the wet sand after each wave receded.
Betsy flagged down a teenager renting beach chairs and paid for two long padded chairs with a large umbrella between them. With the girls happy in the sand, their pale skin slathered in sunscreen, Betsy sank into the soft chair. It had been a while—a year at least—since she’d been to the beach. Living just twenty miles from the Gulf, it was a shame, regardless of how the farm and field trips took up her time. Knots of tension in her shoulders and neck began to loosen, one knot at a time.
Time passed quickly as the sun made its arc through the sky. When it was overhead, Betsy called to the girls and pulled from the cooler their Ziploc bags of sandwiches, apple slices, and crackers and three bottles of water. Addie and Walsh sat in the shade of the umbrella with their legs crisscrossed, a thin layer of sand covering much of their skin.
Betsy watched the water as she ate. On such a clear day, it was hard to imagine a storm swirling almost directly south of them. The waves were still slow and lazy.
“Why don’t you come here every day?” Addie asked around a mouthful of Ritz crackers.
“It’s a little far to come every day, but I should come more often,” Betsy said.
“I think Uncle Ty would like it,” Addie said.
“You do?”
Addie nodded. “Maybe you could come on a date.”
“A date? What do you know about a date?”
“It’s what you do when you love someone.”
“Oh, I see,” Betsy said. “Have you ever been on a date?”
Addie nodded. “Mommy takes me on dates sometimes. She picks me up from school and takes me to the park for Mommy-Addie dates. She does it with Walsh sometimes too, but not together. We each get our own dates.”
Walsh nodded. “We eat cookies and swing and slide.”
“That sounds like fun,” Betsy said.
“Yep.” Addie chewed thoughtfully for a moment. Betsy watched them. They so rarely talked about Jenna, even when Betsy knew they were thinking of her. It was like a plug kept their words in tight.
After lunch and making drip castles in the wet sand, Walsh climbed up on the chair next to Betsy and laid her head down.
“Are you tired, sweetheart?”
Walsh shook her head no.
“If you want to close your eyes, you can. I’ll wake you up if I see a dolphin.”
“Okay,” Walsh said, her eyes heavy.
Addie joined her not long after. “I’m not tired, I’m just going to rest a little bit.” She sat back against Betsy’s shins. After a few minutes, Addie dozed next to her sister.
Betsy pulled out her phone to check the time. Half expecting to see a text from Ty, she was disappointed to see only a red banner at the bottom of her phone alerting her to the hurricane watch in effect for the coast. She tucked her phone back into the bag and closed her eyes.
Ty was the proverbial man of few words, but when he spoke, what he said was important. Each word measured and careful. Because she’d been on the receiving end of such sweet, thoughtful words from him, the absence of his words now felt like a knife twist.
While the girls slept, she returned to a conversation she’d had with Ty a few days after their last appointment with Dr. Fields back in January. She’d canceled two field trips, unable to muster the energy necessary to keep the kids’ attention. Ty had found her lying in bed at noon, fully clothed, with the lights off. He sat next to her.
“I just need a few minutes.” She wiped tears off her cheeks. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m worried about you, babe.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” Why couldn’t she be more like him? Somehow he was able to pick up and continue on, seemingly unfazed by the pr
ognosis the doctor had given them.
“Anything’s possible,” he’d said. “You could always try praying.”
“I was thinking,” Ty said, taking his cap off and rubbing his head. It was unusually cold this January, and the chill clung to his clothes. Temperatures had dipped into the twenties and thirties for long stretches, downright frigid for south Alabama. “He didn’t say it couldn’t happen. Or that it would never happen. We’ll just keep trying.”
“I’m tired of trying. I’m tired of looking at my calendar, counting days. Of having to be so careful and exact. It’s exhausting.”
“So let’s not do it like that. Let’s just get back to me and you, minus the calendar. Like it used to be.”
Betsy sniffed and wiped her cheeks again, unsure if it was possible to go back to that carefree, casual place they’d been before they decided to start a family. Maybe for him it was. But it wasn’t a possibility for her. Not yet.
“There’s also adoption,” he said.
She looked at him. He held his hat in his hands and smoothed a frayed string at the edge of the brim.
“Do you even know how much that costs? Way more than IVF.”
“Not always. I’ve done a little research.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If you go international, yes, it’s expensive, but adoption within the U.S. is less, maybe even more so if you stay within the state. And there’s even a program where you can foster a child first, then apply for adoption. That brings the cost down more.”
Betsy blinked hard and pushed herself up until she was sitting. “Is that really what you want? To adopt?”
“Betsy, I have what I really want. Do I want children with you? Absolutely. But you are who I want. I know you want this more than anything, so I’m trying to figure out a way to make it happen.”
Hurricane Season Page 28
