“Oh?” Becca asked. “How would you describe him, Mac?”
“Well,” I licked my lips, “he’s not selfish at all. He’s actually very thoughtful.” There’d been the random texts throughout the day to check on me and see how work was going. One time, after we’d talked about Italy and how I wanted to go there, he’d sent me an article about the best must-see underrated tourist spots on the Amalfi Coast. And then another time, he’d brought breakfast to my office because I’d told him I’d slept through my alarm and had been running too late to eat.
“And the charm thing isn’t an act or for show. He’s genuinely a nice person who likes people,” I added.
Becca’s eyes widened, but she nodded encouragingly. “Go on.”
I would because Brady’s sisters needed to hear this and appreciate him, damn it. He loved them and talked about them all the time. “It’s wrong to say he doesn’t care or want to take responsibility. He was so worried about the orchard when the vandalism was happening, before he knew it was Amos. He installed all those cameras and the security system, and he didn’t let Candace work a single closing shift by herself. And—and Amos!”
I was on a roll now. “He gave that little shit a second chance. He didn’t want Amos to have a juvenile record, and I know he worried that he’d made the wrong decision. But Amos’s mother was so grateful. He’s basically mentoring that kid and guiding him down the right path, giving him a great male role model when Amos doesn’t have that in his life.”
I was breathing hard, and I wasn’t sure why. Everyone was still staring at me, but I forced myself to take a stabilizing inhale and address Candace and Joan, where they sat beside one another. “Your brother does mean well. He’s a really good person. He cares about you both and your parents so much. And the orchard, too. He—he loves his life working with y’all. And I think it’s shitty to sit here and criticize him and compare him to that asshole Jeremy?—”
“Gerald,” Larry corrected again.
I shot her a glare. “Gerald. Whatever.”
Candace was wide-eyed, her long brown ponytail bobbing in time with every nod of her head. Joan watched me with a little smile on her face that made me suddenly very uneasy.
I glanced around the room, taking in the other pleased expressions before landing on Becca, who grinned broadly.
“Thank you for that, Mac,” she said, pleased as lime punch. “But I meant, how would you describe Gerald? The hero? You know, from the story we all read and have been discussing for the last forty minutes. If you’d rather talk about Brady Judd, we can do that too, I suppose.” Her smile somehow got even brighter. “I’m not opposed.”
Realization dawned as heat rushed to my cheeks. The urge to run right out of here with a pocket full of pizza rolls was admittedly strong.
Larry must have noted the tensing of my muscles for flight because she placed a staying hand on my knee. “I think you’d better tell us what’s going on, Mac.”
My eyes darted between the gathered women, specifically the ones who were Brady’s blood relatives. “I—it’s complicated.”
“Mac,” Becca said gently. “Try. It might help.”
Instead of laying out everything that had happened with Brady, another truth forced its way from between my lips. “I think I’m scared. I think ... I’m scared to let myself be happy here. That maybe I’m stuck, and I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you mean by ‘here’?” Joan asked, face impassive but tone patient and curious.
My eyes scanned the space, unsure how to put all my tangled feelings about my life into words that made any sort of sense. My attention caught on the far wall, on the pictures of my family going back generations. My great-grandfather William, riding a tractor. The great-grandmother I’d never met, standing on the front porch of this very house, holding a teacup and saucer. A similar picture but of my cousin Will, his arm draped around Becca’s shoulders as she laughed in the frame. A shot of Grandma Nola and Grandpa Junior on their wedding day. My parents behind the counter in the General Store. A childhood photo of me and Larry and Will sitting in front of a honeysuckle bush, covered in dirt and sticky from nectar.
“Home,” I answered finally. “I feel like I failed some sort of test, ending up in Kirby Falls. Never leaving. Never applying myself. I realized a while ago that I was just coasting along, content to put in my time and then clock out and go home. But our farm—our life—is so much more than that. I just didn’t see it, or, maybe, I didn’t feel like I was a part of it until recently.”
I looked at these women who had all ended up in Kirby Falls one way or another, and guilt twisted my insides.
“Are you ashamed, Mac?” my sister asked. Bonnie was a woman who’d married her high school sweetheart and taught at the same elementary school she’d attended.
“No,” I answered reflexively, not intending to offend or belittle anyone in the room. “I don’t know.”
And I didn’t know, not really. I had good neighbors, and I liked living out in the country. I wouldn’t have made it in a big city. I needed the mountain air and the fields and the scope and range of the life I led. I liked trivia night and bowling league and book club and listening to bands at local breweries. My life wasn’t small by any means. But I didn’t know whose standard I was living by.
“You know,” Candace said, “I think there’s a stigma surrounding small towns. People think they automatically equate to small-mindedness. That people who’ve been raised on farms aren’t educated. It’s in the media and, honestly, it’s part of growing up. I went to college with people who thought they were better than me. Had professors who were surprised to learn I was from a tiny town in Western North Carolina. I hid my accent and other things that would out me as a person from a rural area for a long time. Not because I was ashamed of where I was from, but because they were.”
I nodded because I understood that. I thought of the tourists who came through and said our town was “quaint” or the ones you’d overhear calling us hillbillies. Both comments were offensive in different ways.
“But,” Candace continued, “after a while, I realized it didn’t matter. I wasn’t really going to change anyone’s mind about me by being confrontational or defensive. I couldn’t change their worldview for them. It would only make them cling to those beliefs even harder. They could believe whatever stereotype they wanted. Because where I wanted to be—where I was meant to be—was right here.”
“There are any number of reasons why people stay in their hometown,” Joan offered. “Some just fit better there than anywhere else.”
“Some get married too young and never have the means or the backbone to leave,” Chloe said solemnly.
Larry squeezed my knee again. “Some folks have everyone they love right there with them and never have any desire to move away.”
