“Ambitious.” But he has a point. Some more handrails inside and a ramp off the porch might help. And I won’t turn down an extra pair of hands at the Farmer’s Market.
Maybe Friday night would be a good time to let Griffin in on my vodka visions. And, of course, offer him a taste.
“But that sounds good. I have some things I want to tell you about anyway—after I hear all about the trip, of course.”
“What kind of things?” Grif presses, and I swear I can hear him frowning.
“Nothing bad, man. Just some ideas I’d like to run past you.”
“Uh-oh,” he teases. “You and your ideas.”
Griffin is only too aware that since I’ve taken the helm at the farm, I’ve made changes. Most that Pop has hated. Many we both know are necessary.
“Like I said, nothing bad.” But I know that “bad” is relative. The security a distilling business could buy for us won’t come cheap. It’s an investment. And investments come with risks. But no need to get into that over the phone. “We’ll talk Friday. And in the meantime, enjoy the rest of your trip. Tell Kennedy hey for me.”
My brother and I say goodnight, and I lie back down, grateful to him. The knowledge that he’ll be here this weekend unwinds a little of the ever-present tightness in my gut.
I should have thanked him for calling.
And then, out of nowhere, I hear her.
Farm Boy! Thanks for staring at me!
I can picture her there at the end of the alley, looking back at me over her shoulder the instant before she disappeared.
Even now, the memory lights me up like a Christmas tree.
Farm Boy.
She was referencing The Princess Bride, right? She had to be.
The look she gave me held so much.
Embarrassment. Regret. Frustration.
Longing.
Was she thanking me for noticing her? For giving her room to feel her pain? For listening? I can’t help but feel that what she meant was nuanced. Complex.
They were only seven parting words, but turning them over in my mind—along with that look she wore—it all pushes back against her mother’s declaration.
Can’t you see she’s vulnerable?
Yes.
She’d shown me she was vulnerable. But I think she showed me a whole lot more, too.
Sunday and Monday are peak harvest days. Clear weather. Few hiccups. We only stop once to grease the gear box and another time to adjust the scraper clearance. But the hauls are so big that we don’t leave the cure shed until around seven both nights.
By the time I see to Pop—and guiltily serve him up a ham sandwich and potato chips for dinner—I’m wrecked.
I stand in the shower until I sway on my feet. I’m dying to climb under the covers and sink into sleep, but I haven’t checked the website for orders in two days, so I take my laptop into bed with me.
It’s the right call since there are orders from Fresh Pickin’s grocery and Scratch Kitchen. I confirm deliveries for the tomorrow—relieved that we’ll have a reason to wrap up harvesting a little earlier—when I see a notification for our online form submission.
Hardly anyone uses the Contact Us form on the website. No one real, anyway. Our web hosting package is pretty good at weeding out the bot spam, but crap squeezes through every once in a while.
I’m already mousing over the delete button when the truncated subject line stops me cold.
