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“Even if she wants to be a stubborn old woman, she has a circle of people to look out for her.” Nash echoed her thoughts.
“I can see that. It’s really admirable.”
Nash pulled a face. “Admirable?”
It was then she realized that what she deemed a rarity, he viewed as typical. “Where I come from, almost everyone is out for themselves. Living in the city, knowing the people I do, you learn early on that the only person you can truly rely on is yourself.” She shrugged. That was her normal, so different from his. It was a sad reality when she stopped long enough to analyze it.
“You city people are somethin’ else,” he said, shaking his head.
“I’m guessing that wasn’t a compliment,” she responded rhetorically.
“You’d be right about that.”
They walked a ways more in silence, enjoying the warmth of the fading sun and the chirping of the crickets combined with the eerie ebb and flow of the cicadas high in the trees before Vivian realized they were no longer on Gretta’s property.
Scanning her surroundings, she took note of the faded-red pull barn that’d seen better days, the miscellaneous farm equipment in various states of use and disrepair. The small house set back from the road, surrounded by neatly trimmed grass and backed up to a split-rail, fenced-in pasture containing a single tall oak tree and a sable horse.
If it hadn’t been the horse that tipped her off to where she was, it would have been the green truck sitting in front of the house, parked on a patch of gravel. He’d driven home earlier after dropping her back off at Gretta’s and then walked back later. Now she realized just how close the pair lived to one another.
“Is this your place?” She asked the obvious question.
Nash paused to look up at the old homestead and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Sure is. Bought her straight out of high school at eighteen. Single best investment I ever made.”
Vivian couldn’t help but compare the home to the modern and pristine constructs she’d been raised around and taught to strive for, but despite the comparison, she wasn’t judging. Out here, life went at a different pace and by different standards.
“It’s a beautiful home. I’m sure you and your wife were really happy here,” she offered gently.
“Yeah, we were.”
Seeing the sadness in his eyes, she asked, “Have you ever thought of selling it?”
“Once, but then I realized I’d rather live with the memories than bury them.”
In a single instant, Nash managed to touch Vivian’s heart. She could feel the love he had for his wife still alive and well, no less weakened by her absence.
Would anyone ever love her that way? Cherish her memory when she was gone from the world, desire her to the very ends of it and beyond?
Andrew mimicked such a claim, but he had already proven himself to her. He wasn’t the man for her—or any woman, for that matter.
Maybe love like the kind Nash and his late wife shared was one of those rare kinds that came around once in a lifetime and couldn’t be replicated.
Which didn’t leave much hope for the rest of the sorry saps in the world, did it?
Vivian was fast on her way toward a downward spiral of depression and self-deprecation when Nash said, “Come on,” and headed off toward the pasture at the back of the property.
The question was at the tip of her tongue, but Vivian held off giving it voice, instead choosing to follow and see what had sparked his interest.
The simple home surrounded by untended and wild flowerbeds that had clearly once benefited from a woman’s touch gave way to the backyard, which turned out to be far deeper than the view from the front had suggested. Vivian spotted a dirty and rarely used patio set with a tattered green, and white umbrella pushed up against the side of the house, along with a dusty round grill that she imagined a man like Nash was probably proficient at using but hadn’t in a while. Sprigs of grass and wild ground cover poked up from between the brick platform it was all set on, and she wondered if their disuse occurred this season or if it, too, had a long-reaching history that stretched back to when the woman of the house had infused it all with life and light.
Trudging through a patch of tall grass, they finally reached the fence that divided the yard from the pasture, and Nash propped a booted foot on the lower rail and bent to support himself on the top.
With a bright smile, he said, “There’s my beauty. I believe you two sorta met on your way into town.”
Vivian’s dour mood slowly gave way to a smile as she watched the horse trot her way around the perimeter, paying her visitors no mind. “From afar, yes. I remember.”
“She doesn’t like strangers much. Or people in general. Hell,” Nash said, almost laughing, “I think she only barely tolerates me.”
“Gretta mentioned she was a bit moody.”
