A Walk in the Sun

by Michelle Zink

Lexie sighed. “Only if you’re calling from the airport.”

  “Bye, Lex.”

  Rose hung up and watched as Marty approached. She smiled at Rose, then let her gaze slide to the animals in the field.

  “The little one’s doing better,” she said. “Buttercup, is it?”

  Rose nodded. “She’s even nursing a little.”

  Marty laughed. “Just in time to be weaned.”

  “Right?”

  “What finally did the trick?” Marty asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rose said. “It’s like she came so close to dying that she finally decided to live.”

  They were leaning on the fence, making a show of watching the animals, but Rose knew Marty had something to say, could feel it in the weight of the silence.

  “Took Bodhi’s final check to Maggie’s just now,” she said. “Wanted to say goodbye.”

  “That’s good,” Rose said. But it wasn’t good. The thought of saying goodbye to Bodhi made her feel like someone had ripped out her heart.

  “Might be good for you, too,” Marty said. “At the very least, it’s never a good idea to part ways with someone until you’ve cleared the air.”

  “Did you clear the air with Tseng?” Rose asked.

  Marty sucked in a deep breath, like the question hurt her to consider.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said. “That was mean. I just . . . I don’t know how to handle this.”

  Marty reached over and smoothed her hair. “I wish I could say it gets easier.”

  Rose looked at her. “It doesn’t?”

  Marty gave her a lopsided grin. “Just more familiar.”

  “Great.”

  “Then again,” Marty said, “maybe you’ll be smarter than me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Marty sighed. “I don’t know, Rose. . . . Sometimes I feel like I’ve been running my whole life.”

  “Running from what?”

  Marty shrugged. “Feelings. Love. Complication. Mom and Dad loved the farm and each other so much. They were happy here, I guess, but it just seemed to me like they were trapped. I never wanted love if that’s what it meant.”

  “It doesn’t have to, does it?” Rose asked.

  Marty looked at her. “What would it mean if it doesn’t mean that?”

  Rose thought about it. “Being really free. Being yourself with someone and doing all the things you want to do, but doing them together.” She looked into her aunt’s eyes, and for the first time she saw a woman. Not Marty or her aunt, but a woman who felt fear and happiness, who had loved and lost. “Can’t you have love your way?”

  “Can’t you?” Marty asked.

  Rose shook her head. “It’s different with me and Bodhi. He’s going to Europe.”

  “I know,” she said. “He told me. But he wants you to go with him. Wouldn’t that be love your way?”

  “No, it wouldn’t. I can’t just run off to Europe with a guy. I have Dad and the farm to think about.”

  “First of all, something tells me Bodhi is more than just a guy,” Marty said. “And second, you’re not sixty, Rose. You’re barely eighteen. You don’t have to think about anyone but yourself.” Rose started to interrupt, to tell Marty she was wrong, when Marty stopped her. “I understand why you stepped up after your mother died. Your dad was in a bad place. He needed time to figure out what his life was going to look like without her. In a perfect world, he would have been able to take care of you while you figured that out, too, but it didn’t work out that way. He was lucky to have you. But it’s time. It’s time for all of us to move on.”

  Tears sprang to Rose’s eyes. “I don’t want to move on. I want to remember what she looked like when she rode the tractor with Dad or when she made daisy chains out of wildflowers or when she stood on the porch in her apron.”

  “Oh, Rose . . .” Marty reached out, touched her hair. “Is that what you think? That leaving will make you forget?” Marty’s smile was sad. “If only it were that easy.”

  “This is where I feel her most,” Rose said softly.

  “I understand that,” Marty said. “But you haven’t been anywhere else. How do you know you won’t feel her standing on a bridge over the Danube? Or watching the sun set from the Eiffel Tower? Or looking out at the sea in Scotland?”

  “She never went to those places.”

  “No,” Marty said, “but she wanted you to go there. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I think she’ll be with you every step of the way, wherever you are. She wouldn’t want you to stay here nursing your grief when you could be out in the world finding joy. And there’s something else you might not realize about your mom.”

  “What’s that?” Rose asked.

  “She was no coward. Love was everything to her. She would have risked everything for it, and I think if she were here, she’d tell you to do the same.”

  Rose turned back to the animals. “It’s probably too late anyway. I don’t even have a backpack.”

  Marty laughed. “Now you’re getting desperate.” She put an arm around Rose and squeezed. “I’m not your mom. This is all the pep talk I’ve got. But I hope you’ll think about it, because this life is a lot shorter than it seems.”

  Fifty-Three

  “I think that’s it.” Bodhi set his pack on the floor of Maggie Ryland’s kitchen and sat down at the table where she was having coffee, the sky barely lightening outside the window. He’d said goodbye to Marty the day before when she dropped off his check. Now there was nothing to do but go to the airport and accept that Rose wasn’t coming.

  “Well, damn it,” Maggie said. “I’m going to miss you.”

  He smiled. “I’ll miss you, too. Thanks for . . . Well, for everything.”

  “I should be thanking you. I don’t think I realized how bored I was until I started sticking my nose in yours and Rose’s business.”

  He laughed, but it only lasted a second. “Not that it did any good.”

  She sighed, reaching across the table to put her hand on his. “This life is a lot longer than people think.”

  “Then why do people say ‘life is short’?”

  “Because they forget all the chances they’ve had to make things right,” she said. “Leave me your email address. I’ll pass it to Rose if she changes her mind. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be standing in front of Notre Dame, and you’ll look up, and there she’ll be.”

  He smiled. “You’re being romantic.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But life is romantic if you look at it like that, and I always have.”

  “Will she be okay here?” he asked her.

  “The Darrows come from tough stock. She’ll be okay, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be happy.”

  “I want her to be happy,” he said.

  Maggie shook her head. “That’s not up to you. None of us can do that work for someone else. I’m afraid we’re the president and CEO when it comes to our own happiness. The buck stops with us.”

  “I guess you’re right.” He stood, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I guess I better be heading out. The bus leaves in less than an hour.”

  She got up from the table. “I wish you’d let me take you to the airport.”

  He smiled. “I’m considering it the first leg of my journey.”

  “Good for you.” She stepped toward him, and he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. “Make yourself happy,” she said quietly. “You deserve it, son, and don’t let anyone ever tell you different.”

  He nodded, then turned away so she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes. “See you, Maggie.”

  He picked up his pack and left before he could get even more sentimental. He chided himself. Milford had changed him. Turned him soft. But he knew it was a lie as soon as he thought it. It wasn’t Milford that had changed him but a green-eyed girl with fiery hair and a spine of steel. He wouldn’t forget her.

  He turned onto the sidewalk in front of Maggie’s house and headed for the bu
s station on Main Street.

  Fifty-Four

  Rose woke up suddenly, her eyes adjusting to the blue light of a cloudy morning. She’d heard something outside, and she searched her mind for it, trying to pull the sound out of the haze of sleep.

  A car door. That was it.

  She got up and walked to the window just in time to see the taillights of Marty’s car disappearing down the drive. She looked at her phone. 8:02 a.m.

  Marty didn’t usually get out of bed until at least nine, and Rose stood there in the dim morning light, trying to figure out what would prompt her aunt to make such an early visit.

  A few seconds later, she thought she heard the clink of dishes in the kitchen, and she walked across the room to her bedroom door and listened, wondering if she was imagining it. But no, there it was again. Someone was definitely down there.

  She’d planned to sleep in. After today, she’d be back on the four a.m. shift, herding the animals by herself in the dark. She tried not to think about it. The idea of riding without Bodhi, of doing everything without him, was still an open wound somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

  But she was awake now, and she made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen where she found her dad sitting at the table with a steaming mug in front of him.

  “Dad?”

  He looked up. “Hi, honey. Did I wake you?”

  She sat in the chair across from him. “No. I heard Marty’s car outside.”

  He took a drink of his coffee, then nodded. “Just left.”

  “What was she doing here so early?” Rose asked. “Did she have something to tell Bodhi before he left?”

  “Bodhi wasn’t here this morning,” he said.

  “Then who . . . The animals . . .”

  “I took care of the herd this morning,” he said.

  It took her a minute to process the information. “Is everything okay, Dad?”

  He looked down at the mug. “Everything hasn’t been okay for a long time,” he finally said. “But I guess you know that better than anyone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her met her eyes, and she was surprised to realize he was looking at her, really looking at her, for the first time in a long time. “Having Bodhi here . . . Well, it just gave me an excuse to keep doing what I was doing.” Rose flinched at the sound of Bodhi’s name, said casually, like he could have been anybody. Her dad continued. “But it wasn’t right, and it especially wasn’t right to make you think you had to stay.”

  “Dad . . .”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “Let me say what I have to say, Rose.”

  She nodded.

  “I know you love the farm,” he said. “But loving something—or someone—should free you, not make you a prisoner. You didn’t apply to college because your mom was sick. I understand that. But she’s gone, Rose.” He met her eyes. “She’s really gone. And we’re still here, so we have to figure out how to be happy without her.”

  She was surprised to feel the moisture of tears on her cheeks. She swiped at them with one hand. “It sucks.”

  He nodded. “It sure does. But it’s what your mom would want. The farm will always be here for you. But Bodhi . . . Well, there’s no guarantee there. Your mom was a sucker for love, and if she were here, she’d be throwing your suitcase into the car and dragging you to the airport with your hands tied if she had to.”

  “What about the farm?”

  “What about it?” He smiled. “Been running this farm since your mom and I took it over twenty years ago. I imagine I can still handle it.”

  She looked down at her hands. “I don’t even know if he still wants me to go.”

  “If he has an ounce of sense in his head—and I have a feeling he does—he’ll never stop loving you, honey.”

  “I’m not packed . . . I don’t have a backpack or . . . anything.”

  “Sounds like you’re looking for excuses, Rose.” He reached across the table and put his big hand over her smaller one. “And the Darrows don’t make excuses when there’s something to be done, now do we?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I imagine if you get moving now, you can still make that flight,” he said.

  There was a sudden lightening inside her, like the moment they throw off the ropes on a hot air balloon, the moment you rise into the sky and realize you’ve been seeing the world through a pinhole instead of a picture window.

  She walked around to her father’s side of the table. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  She headed for the hallway before she could talk herself out of it.

  “Rose?” her dad said as she reached the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Marty left something for you in the foyer that might help with your packing problem.”

  She hurried down the hall. Something was leaning against the door, a hulking mass in the early morning shadows. It was only when she got closer that she realized it was a giant backpack. She recognized it from the last time she and her mother had picked Marty up at the airport.

  It was Marty’s old pack.

  A piece of paper was pinned to the top. Rose leaned down, reading her aunt’s sloppy handwriting.

  Time to go. See you on the other side of the world. xxoo

  For a few seconds she was frozen in place. Then she grabbed the backpack and ran for the stairs.

  Fifty-Five

  The shuttle got Bodhi to the airport a full six hours before his flight, but it was the only bus from Milford that day, and there was no way he was going to mention the timetable to Maggie. She would have insisted on driving him to the airport, and he didn’t want her to go to the trouble. She’d done enough for him.

  He got off the bus and stepped under the awning outside the terminal. After an almost entirely dry summer, the sky had opened up. It had been pouring buckets since Bodhi had left Maggie’s that morning.

  He took one last look at the New York sky, the clouds thick and ominous overhead, blocking out almost all the light from the sun. He would miss the soft air on the farm, the shuffle of the animals under the hayloft, the way the sun set orange and lilac behind the mountains. Most of all he would miss Rose, the gentle strength of her hand in his and the way her smile lit up all the places inside him that had been dark for so long.

  But she wasn’t coming, and by this time tomorrow there would be thousands of miles between them. He felt hollowed out thinking about it, but he couldn’t change it, so he would have to find a way to get used to it.

  He shifted his pack on his back, getting used to the weight all over again, and walked through the sliding doors.

  Fifty-Six

  Rose dragged the pack down the hall, wondering how she’d ever haul it through Europe on her back. She’d find a way, and it wouldn’t matter, because she would be with Bodhi. That was all that mattered. She saw that now.

  Her dad was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when she got there. “You sure you won’t let me drive you?”

  “I think I need the time to figure out what I’m going to say when I get there,” she said.

  He nodded. “Let me know where you park the truck and I’ll have Maggie take me down to pick it up.” He reached for the pack. “I’ll get this outside for you.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I have to get used to carrying it anyway.”

  His eyes were sad, but he smiled anyway. “You have your passport?”

  “Yep. And my driver’s license.”

  “Money?” he asked.

  “I’ve been saving for three years. I have enough, I think.”

  “Call me if you run short.” He handed her a Windbreaker from the hook by the door. “You’re going to need this.”

  She slipped it on.

  “And call or email along the way so I know you’re okay,” he said.

  She laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  He held open his arms, and she stepped into them, hugging him with more force than she intended. They stood like that for a l
ong moment.

  “I love you, honey, and wherever your mom is, she’s cheering for you right now. Look for her if you need her. I think you’ll find that she’s right there.”

  She nodded, choking on a sob. “She’s right there when you need her, too, Dad. And so am I.”

  He hugged her fiercely and kissed her forehead. “Better go. You’ve got a plane to catch.”

  She stepped away from him and knew for sure Bodhi had been right. She’d been scared. Scared to say goodbye to her dad and the farm. And, yes, scared to lose sight of her mom, too. But now she didn’t want to be afraid. She wanted to be free.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  She grabbed the backpack and half carried, half dragged it to the truck, the rain beating on the hood of the Windbreaker like noisy little pellets.

  She’d thrown the pack in the passenger side of the truck and was opening the driver’s side door when she caught sight of Will making his way up the driveway in the rain. She watched as he approached, wondering if he would turn and make for the house, but he kept walking until he was right in front of her.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  “So you’re going.”

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Your dad was at my place today, talking to my dad about hiring some extra help, I think.”

  Rose nodded.

  He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Rose. For everything.”

  She smiled. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You’ve always wanted what’s best for me, and you’ve always wanted me to be happy.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, you were right about Bodhi leaving,” she said. “I mean, I understand why he didn’t tell me, but you were looking out for me. I can’t be mad about that.”

  He met her eyes. “But I wasn’t doing it for you, Rose. I was doing it for me. Because I wanted to keep you here, even if that meant you were unhappy.” His breath came out in a shudder. “I guess I have a lot to learn about love.”

  She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest. “Don’t we all.”