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I’d been called a weirdo, a freak, a crazy mountain girl, but mostly I was ignored, and I was fine with that.
Of course, with the bad came the good, and there was a small number of people I’d grown to know somewhat from my time attending market. And as I rounded a corner, I saw one of them in a small booth to my left.
A genuine smile pulled at my cheeks, pressing my dimples in deep. I lifted my arm and waved, calling, “Myra.”
The older woman’s head came up, the short cap of attractive silver hair shimmering in the sun as her eyes met mine. Her smile matched mine, the subtle grooves in her cheeks and around her eyes deepening as she smiled, appearing genuinely happy to see me. For a woman in her seventies, she hardly looked it.
I’d gotten to know her over the past several years I’d been attending these markets, and I felt confident in saying she was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. She was probably the closest thing I had to a friend outside the Fellowship.
“Oh, sweetheart, it’s so good to see you. I was afraid I’d miss you this weekend,” she said as she rounded the table in her booth, arms spread wide.
I cast a quick peek over my shoulder to make sure I was out of range of Mathias and Agnes before walking into her warm embrace. I wasn’t sure if it was Myra’s hugs specifically or just hugs in general that felt so damn good, given the lack of affection I received. Besides the ones I received from Myra, I hadn’t been embraced in... it was too long to recall.
That realization sent a wave of sadness through me I had to fight to push down. “Not a chance I’d miss this. You know that,” I assured her as I forced myself to pull away. I didn’t want to risk Agnes or her son seeing us. They’d find some way to take the only friend I had and twist that relationship into something wrong and sinful.
Just then a familiar figure stepped into the back of the booth, his back hunched as he dropped a box onto the ground with a groan. “Christ, woman. What did you pack in these boxes, bricks?”
I giggled at the gruff, yet affectionate tone in the man’s voice. A few years back, Myra started showing up to the farmers market with a man named Bennett. At first, his imposing sizeand hardened features set me on edge, but then I saw the way the man looked at Myra, how everything hard went soft, like the warmth from his soul had seeped out of him, and I realized he wasn’t so bad.
Turned out, they’d been each other’s long-lost loves, and when Bennett returned to Redemption a few years earlier from somewhere up north, they’d picked right back up where they’d left off. They were married now, and it was lovely to see Myra so happy. It hadn’t taken me long to discover that Bennett was most definitely deserving of my friend, and since then, I’d grown to really like him.
Myra rolled her eyes dramatically. “Oh, don’t be such a baby.”
He moved in our direction, rubbing the small of his back and pulling his face into a wince I knew was all for show when he shot me an indiscriminate wink. “I’m an old man with an old man’s back.”
Myra blew out a raspberry. “Please. You’re in better shape than most men half your age,” she chided, and I silently agreed with her assessment. After all, Bennett was built like a freaking bear. To anyone who didn’t know him, he might look like a mean old grizzly. But I knew better. He was a teddy bear, full of fluff and warmth.
He stopped beside his wife and placed a tender kiss to her temple before looping his arm around her waist and looking at me. “Hey, honey. Good to see you. How’ve you been?”
“I’m good,” I answered, the lie falling from my lips easy enough. It wouldn’t do me a lick of good to tell them the truth anyway. Telling them I was bored and unhappy with my life, that I felt like I was meant for more, would only make them pity me, and that was the last thing I needed. A lie made everything easier. I looked at the boxes on the ground, the contents waiting to be set out for people to buy. “What do you have this week?”
“A bit of this, a bit of that. My vegetable garden was feeling quite generous this year, so I have some fresh veggies, as well as some jarred and pickled.”
“And?” Bennett said in a coaxing tone. “Tell her what else you’ve been up to.”
Myra batted her husband’s chest. “Oh stop it. You keep tooting my horn, people are going to think I’m doing it for recognition, and that’s not the case.”
My gaze darted between the two of them. “What are you guys talking about?”
Bennett was the one who answered, pride swelling his chest and making his eyes dance. “Myra and the ladies in her book club decided to knit a bunch of hats and mittens for the coming winter so they could sell them and give the proceeds to the local high school.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Myra cut in. “It’s just that everything revolves around technology now a days, and some families can’t afford to buy laptops for their kids. We thought, by doing this, we could give the money to the school and they could buy the laptops to keep on hand and loan out to the students who needed them. I’m not the only one involved in it.”
“No, but you did spearhead it,” Bennet said proudly.
I reached out, taking Myra’s hand in mine. “That is a lovely act of kindness. You’re a wonderful person. It’s no wonder Bennett is so proud of you.”
She twisted her hand, clasping my fingers with hers and lifting the other to give the back of my hand a pat. “What a beautiful thing to say. I appreciate it very much.”
I spared a quick glance to Bennett, returning his earlier wink. “Just speaking the truth.” With a resigned sigh, I pulled my hand away and dropped it to my side. “I should be going.” I lifted the basket of eggs I carried in my other hand. “I need to deliver these to the Winston’s booth.”
A look of concern marred Myra’s pretty face, pressing even deeper the creases she’d earned with age and wisdom. “Before you go, I brought something for you.” She quickly skittered around the table and bent to retrieve whatever she had stored below. When she lifted back up with a small stack of paperbacks clasped in her hands, my heart skipped with excitement before sinking into my stomach as reality set in. “I thought you might get a kick out of these stories. In one of them, the heroine reminds me so much of you.”
I reached out, reverently tracing the spines of the books with my fingers before letting my arm fall. “Oh, Myra. You shouldn’t have.” My throat suddenly felt awfully tight. “That was so kind, but I can’t—”
Where Myra’s expression held sadness, Bennett’s was etched with understanding as he looped a long, solid arm across his wife’s shoulders and pulled her into his side. “How about we hold on to them for you, darlin’? No telling where life might lead you, and you may get a chance to read these sooner than you think.”
Oh, how I wished that were true. I would give anything to be just like the people around me. To be free to do as I pleased, to go where I wanted to go, to read what I wanted to read. I could only imagine how wonderful that would feel.
