All I Want (A Farmers' Market Story)

by Helm, Nicole

She smiled indulgently, which gave him the oddest feeling of being out of his element. Something he pretty much never was. Except here. With her.

  “I’m fine. Ziti is mad I didn’t let her go first. She ate my bracelet, so she’s in trouble.”

  “So, you talk to and punish your goats.”

  “I do,” she said primly, reaching behind her to give the goat a gentle nudge so its hooves fell to the ground, and she stood up from the stool she’d been sitting on. “It’s how you keep a goat herd healthy and happy, Charlie.”

  “Right. Of course.” In crazy-ville. He’d never thought he’d be a willing participant in crazy-ville, but here he was...spending more nights with her than not over the past week. Helping out on a goat farm in the mornings and evenings, spending his afternoons consulting with Cara and Wes, Mia and Dell, studying up on small businesses and agriculture and farmers’ markets.

  Of all damn things.

  Every morning he woke up with the strangest feeling in his chest. Something akin to joy. He was only a little worried about himself.

  “I’ve actually been thinking about adding to the herd so I could expand, offer goat milk cheese at the market. I’ve been testing how to make it.” She touched her stomach lightly as the goat she called Ziti butted her gently in the thigh. “Although I guess I should wait on any of that.”

  “I’ve spent the past week researching small business things. More for Cara, because I do have some grocery contacts. I could help if you want to start some kind of foundation, a plan for after.”

  “Grocery,” she repeated dully, seemingly going pale in front of his eyes.

  “What’s wro—”

  “Who’s Cara?” she demanded before he could ask, before he could step toward her and soothe away that odd break. She was sitting back on her stool, moving the goat that had been on top of her into the little contraption she used to hold them still while she milked.

  “Who’s...? She’s my sister-in-law’s sister. Cara’s Pies. Remember?”

  “Oh. Right. Yeah.”

  It was an odd question, but it made him think it might be good for Meg to meet Cara and Mia. She didn’t seem to have any friends, and she’d straight-up said she wouldn’t tell her family. She needed someone, and as much as he wanted to be that someone, the pregnancy stuff, some of that might be better with someone who’d actually been through it.

  “You know, they’re both pregnant. And Mia, my sister-in-law, this is her second. The three of you actually have a lot in common. We should all have dinner or something. Yes, we should do that.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  “Cara even has a tattoo,” he teased. “You’re like two peas in a pod.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “Pardon?”

  She turned her head, though she kept working with her hands on the goat. “Where is Cara’s tattoo?” she asked, enunciating each word with more force than necessary.

  It suddenly dawned on him what these strange questions meant. It pleased him too, though maybe it shouldn’t. “Are you jealous?”

  “Of course not!” She whipped her head back to the goat.

  Because he was so irrationally pleased, he felt like soothing her rather than teasing further. “Cara is completely not my type. She was kind of a permanent screwup growing up, more interested in partying than being responsible.”

  Her shoulders tensed, and even though she didn’t turn to face him this time, he had an idea of the kind of hurt or maybe even pissed expression he’d see in those blue eyes. Because that had come out all wrong. It also made it clear how little he knew about what she’d done growing up, aside from feel alienated from her family and, of course, the tattoos.

  “But she’s a brunette. Never been attracted to brunettes,” he offered, hoping to break the tension with a joke. Why, he had no idea. He was terrible at jokes.

  She stood, taking a pail of milk over to the counter. Her lips kind of quirked, though that hint of hurt didn’t leave her eyes. He wanted to soothe it away, but he didn’t know how.

  “I’m a natural brunette,” she intoned, working to consolidate the morning’s milk production.

  He stood, immobilized over how badly he’d botched this, until she looked at him and laughed.

  “Charlie, I’m joking.”

  Maybe about the hair, he thought, but there was something under this entire interaction that wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t even jealousy. But he didn’t know what it was, and that was irritating.

  “Listen, I have plans in town this morning,” she said. “I can’t show you the ropes until ten.”

  “What plans?”

  She busied herself with the milk. “Personal plans.”

  Something burned through him, something he didn’t particularly want to address or name, but since he’d done both when she’d been jealous, he couldn’t ignore it.

  He was jealous too. He wanted to know what she was doing. He wanted to know her personal plans and all her plans, and it had as little to do with his desire to maneuver her into marriage as sleeping with her did.

  Once she was done with the milk, she turned and looked at him, everything about her closed off and... He didn’t know the right word. She just seemed off, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He really hated not knowing what to do.

  But all his brain could think was she had personal plans she wasn’t going to tell him about. “I suppose I don’t have any right to know your plans.”

  She cocked her head, eyes narrowing a fraction. “No, you don’t have any right.” Then she let out a gusty sigh. “Do you know Elsie Riley?”

  He thought through his mental list of names, before it clicked. “Dan’s wife.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dan, who you’re friends with?” He remembered those moments in the cab, when Dan had been nice to Meg, and kind of a dick to him. Charlie couldn’t even be irritated by it now. He was glad for it. That there was someone who would stand up for her.

  “Yes.”

  “You know, she used to waitress at Moonrise. She never failed to berate my tipping—and I’m a very generous tipper, Meg.”

  Her smile spread across her face like sunrise. “Hmm. I don’t know if I believe that,” she said as playfully as she’d spoken all morning. “Anyway, I have breakfast with her on Tuesdays. I bring her soap and food and we talk.”

  “So she’s your friend.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I was worried you didn’t have any.”

  She raised her eyebrow, but he refused to feel bad about it. “You never mention anyone,” he continued. “You’re isolated out here. I’m simply glad you have someone to talk to.”

  “So you don’t need to introduce me to your sister-in-law and her sister. I do have friends.”

  She didn’t say it like a question, but it felt like one. It felt like hurt, and he didn’t know how he was stepping in it this morning, over and over. “I’d still like to introduce you to them, to my family. For a variety of reasons.”

  She looked away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked teary and confused and hurt and he couldn’t figure out what he’d done, what he possibly could have done to hurt her.

  “What kind of grocery contacts do you have?” she asked in a whispery voice, her gaze on the side of the barn opposite him.

  He cocked his head. Man, she was confusing this morning. “I sold food containers. I supplied pretty much every grocery store in the St. Louis area with the containers they use for salad bars, delis, et cetera. Why?”

  She swallowed and closed her eyes.

  “What is bothering you, Meg? Tell me.”

  “I just feel weird today.” She shook her head, finally bringing her gaze back to his with a rueful smile. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She shrugged, then forced a
smile that had none of the same light as before, but she stepped toward him and brushed a kiss over his mouth. “I need to go clean up before I head over to Elsie’s. Why don’t we skip today, and you can come back tonight?” She grinned slyly, brushing her mouth against the corner of his mouth, once, twice.

  He bit back a groan and tried to focus on the here and now. He had to clear his throat to speak. “I can clean up here.”

  “But...”

  “You’ve been teaching me how, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but you don’t have to do that. You’ve put in far more hours than I’m going to be paying you for.”

  “I’m not worried about the money. I just want to help.”

  She swallowed, audibly, visibly. He brushed his fingertips over the unruly hair at her temple. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  It struck him that he’d never used endearments like that, even with the woman he’d figured he’d marry eventually. Endearments didn’t roll off his tongue.

  But with Meg they did. Of course they did.

  “I feel like crying and raging for no good reason,” she said emphatically, those tears still shimmering in her eyes. “And if this isn’t hormones, then I’m possibly losing my mind.”

  “We’ll go with hormones, then.”

  “Yes, let’s.” She kissed him again, lingering this time, and he was more than happy to linger in that.

  “Thank you for being a...good guy.”

  He’d been given a lot of labels in his life. Responsible. Serious. Rule follower. Hard. Cold. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever been called good in this sense, and it warmed something in him. He wanted to be good like she thought. So he would be.

  * * *

  “WELL, WHAT’S WRONG with you?”

  Meg was beginning to think she would never again walk over the threshold of the Riley house without bursting into tears. She couldn’t seem to keep any reserves intact when Elsie looked at her and knew.

  She was a mess. Every time she thought she’d stitched the remains of her tattered self together, Elsie stripped them down.

  “Come on now. Sit on the couch and tell me what’s wrong.” Elsie’s hand, stronger with every passing week, curled over Meg’s arm and led her to the couch. She took the food and fussed over it, letting Meg sob her guts out.

  “I should be doing that,” Meg said through sniffles once she found the strength to speak.

  “Nonsense. The doctor gave me a clean bill yesterday. I can putter about again. Even said I could go for walks, long as I was with somebody and we kept ’em short. My strength is coming back. So, you sit down and tell me what’s the matter.”

  Her mother used to demand the same thing. “Tell me what’s the matter...” Except it would always end with “with you.”

  Elsie’s demand never ended that way.

  Meg took a steadying breath. She hadn’t been lying to Charlie earlier when she said this was hormones. This felt so much bigger, so much more frantic than she’d felt in years.

  “Charlie...”

  “That boy hurting you?” Elsie’s shoulders went back, and Meg could believe the doctor said she was regaining strength. She looked like she’d bowl over anyone in her path. “I will tan his hide. I’ll send Dan over there with his baseball bat and—”

  “He’s wonderful, Elsie. It hurts how wonderful.”

  “Well, now.” Elsie straightened her shirt, then took a seat next to Meg on the couch, opening the tray of muffins Meg had brought over from Moonrise. “That’s a whole other thing, isn’t it?”

  “He wants me to meet his family. He wants to introduce me to all these people.” And she wanted to keep him all to herself. Keep them all to themselves too. She knew what happened when you got families involved. Even if his was lovely, they’d have things to say about her.

  Grocery contacts. He had grocery contacts. He’d sold supplies to grocery stores, and it had been like every piece of joy she’d been feeling over the past week of being with him, of thinking they had some weird possible future, had burned to ash when she’d heard he had that kind of connection to her father’s business.

  “And you’re...upset by this?” Elsie asked carefully, not so subtly pushing a muffin toward Meg. Funny, really, always pushing food at each other, always comforting each other.

  She was awed by these people who could take her in and take care of her and think it was just the way it should be. Did she hide the screwed-up pieces of herself that well? Or was she not as screwed up as she’d thought?

  Of course you’re as screwed up as you think. “I’m sure he means well, but he doesn’t understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “How can he introduce me to these nice, lovely people who raised someone like him? So they can look at me with my tattoos and my...getting knocked up and...” She was going to cry again. How were there so many tears and emotions still buried in there? Hadn’t she expelled them all yet?

  “I know the Pruitts and the Wainwrights, Meg. They’re good people. Whatever you’re dredging up, it isn’t fair to put it on their shoulders.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  Elsie really didn’t. She didn’t see it—see that deep down she was screwed up and flawed and always one step away from failure. Elsie didn’t know all the times she’d fallen.

  “If you think you aren’t as good as those people, you need to take a good hard look at yourself, young lady.”

  “Elsie, I—”

  “No, ma’am. You will see here. It takes a goodness to come have breakfast with me every Tuesday morning. It has lit up my life, and I have worried less about my inevitable end, and Dan has worried less, and I am healing, baby, and it is because you have given me hope and companionship.”

  Meg didn’t have anything to say to that. How could she have anything to say?

  “You know the best thing you can give that child of yours?”

  “The knowledge I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe and happy?”

  “It’s the mistake we make, thinking parenthood is all about the kids. All about giving them what we didn’t have. I think when we do that, when we bend over and over doing that, we twist something in them. I only had one, I guess I don’t know, but I’ve spent a whole lot of time thinking about where I went wrong.”

  “Elsie—”

  “Don’t interrupt my wisdom, child. The best thing you can do as a mother is to believe you are doing your best. The belief that you are worthy of being considered a good parent. You’re as good as anybody. Nobody gets to tell you you’re not, sweetheart. And you shouldn’t be the one telling yourself that either. You tell yourself that, you try to be perfect for that child, you’re hurting both of you.”

  Sweetheart. Charlie had said that to her this morning. What’s wrong, sweetheart? She hadn’t had the words for how hearing the word grocery come off his lips had shattered everything inside her.

  It was truly amazing how certain words could turn to poison.

  “He knows my father,” she whispered, because wasn’t that really what this was all about? She could transfer those feelings into nerves over meeting people who were important to him, but the real thing, the heart of the matter and the freak-out was that.

  “Charlie knows your father?”

  Meg nodded and swallowed, the panic from this morning building again. “He worked with him. Maybe not directly. But close. He said he sold to grocery stores and...”

  The silence that grew had Meg closing her eyes, bracing for the impact. She knew what came next.

  “Oh, sweet Lord, girl. You’re that Carmichael?”

  How often had someone asked her that? It was a common enough name, but the stores were everywhere. Everyone who lived in the St. Louis area had been to a Carmichael Grocery. It was a tradition, an institution, and so
was her family. People were always asking or wondering. Are you that Carmichael?

  “No offense, Meg, but you don’t dress like a woman with that kind of money.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money. My parents do. And they made sure they kept me from just about all of it when I started my...rebellious phase.”

  “You know, I used to wonder if Dan and I made more, had more, if we could have kept Hannah clean.”

  “That, Elsie, I can almost guarantee you, isn’t true. My parents paid for a few fancy treatment places, but it never mattered. You know why?”

  Elsie shook her head, eyes shiny with tears.

  “Because they didn’t love me and they made sure I knew it. Because I knew even if I got clean, I’d never be more than a failure in their eyes. Every mistake I ever made they took as a personal insult, and I took that as a slap. A bruise. Which isn’t even their fault. They were...just raised that way, to see only what was on the outside. So, whatever is keeping your daughter on that path, it isn’t you and it isn’t money. It’s something in her, and until she sees it...”

  “What got you to see it?” Elsie asked, her voice almost a whisper, and it was like they’d traded places, wisdom for wisdom.

  “I guess I realized—no, accepted—they weren’t ever going to love me. But my grandma did, and I was hurting her by doing this to myself. She wanted more for me. She loved me even when I made mistakes, even when I looked strange or said the wrong thing. No matter what, she held my hand and pulled me through. She got me out of it, away from it—which did have to do with money, I’ll grant you—but she helped me get somewhere I could really get my head on straight and heal.”

  There was a long, weighted silence.

  “But then she died,” Meg whispered, knowing there was some lesson she needed to learn here, but not being able to see it. Not yet. “And I fell off the wagon a little. So...maybe I wasn’t healed.”

  Which meant there was still a lot of healing to go.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “MEG? ARE YOU READY? I told Mom we’d be there at six.” Charlie paced the kitchen, Meg’s tendency for not being ready when they had to leave wasn’t so much annoying as it was... Okay, it was annoying.