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“Because when I found her one day, she was still too young to be on her own. I had to bottle feed her, and since I was worried about her, I carried her around in one of those sling things while doing my chores,” I reply.
He bursts out laughing at my admission and I find myself watching his face relax even more than it was after he first woke up. I suspect he hasn’t done a lot of laughing; there’s a solemnness to his expression that almost borders on cold and uncaring, so I’m glad I’m seeing this side of him.
“Guess that’s one way to spoil a pet,” he teases. Glancing toward the window, which still shows it’s dark outside, he says, “It’s too early to get up. I can guarantee that none of the brothers will be up and at ‘em at this time of day.”
“What time is it?”
I should know or at least sense the time. God knows living on the farm, I was up around four thirty in the morning to help with the early chores. However, as Grampy slowed down, he sold off most of the livestock and cut back on the size of our garden. The only thing that we really kept were the chicken coops, and as long as the girls and roosters are fed and watered regularly, they don’t care if I go out there at the butt crack of dawn or later, around nine.
He rolls back slightly and grabs his phone then hits the screen so it lights up and I gasp. “Five? Really, Sassy?” I fuss. “You haven’t done that in a long, long time.”
A small mew comes from the corner where her food is, and we both start laughing. “She’s got your number, Rory,” he rumbles out. “Why don’t we get to know each other better?”
“Okay, what do you want to know?” I ask. “I’m pretty much an open book, though. No deep, dark secrets, or hidden wealth.”
* * *
“Tell me about your ex. When did y’all meet?”
Talk about pulling out the big guns. I close my eyes and think back to when Patrick started coming around. “It was about eight or so months before Grampy passed away,” I murmur. “He started coming to our church, then he somehow finagled his way into eating with us at the diner afterward.”
When Grams was still alive, the only day she didn’t cook was on Sundays. We’d always go out for lunch after church, often with several of their long-time friends, then afterward, head home and if we got hungry later, we’d make sandwiches from the roast she made the day before. As she would say, it was a day of rest and that meanteveryone. After she passed away, Grampy and I began eating in town more frequently, at least for dinner. Not because I couldn’t cook, but he didn’t want us to become too isolated out on the farm. I made our breakfast and lunch every day, and just like Grams did, I’d put a roast in the crockpot on Sunday with all the fixings so we could make sandwiches on Sunday night if we got hungry.
“Is that when y’all started dating?”
I nod, still lost in thought. “Yeah, we’d go out on Friday nights, then he’d sit with us on Sunday at church, go to lunch with us, then take me for a drive afterward.”
I can feel the derision rolling off him and barely resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Kinda sounds like that moviePleasantville,doesn’t it?” I ask, snickering. “But he was always respectful toward me when Grampy was alive, and I didn’t get a bad vibe from him at all. Then, when Grampy died, he was there helping me through everything that had to be done. I never remember asking him to move in, he was just there one day and never left.”
“When did things start to change?” he quietly inquires.
“Maybe four or five months ago? It was little things at first and I was still navigating through my grief over losing Grampy,” I reply. “Time was kind of confusing then, you know?”
He nods. “Yeah, I was still a kid when my parents died, so it probably didn’t hit me the same way, but I remember how the adults seemed to just be going through the motions sometimes.”
“That’s how I felt too. I got up, did the chores, took care of the house, handled my job on autopilot for about six or so months after he died. Then one morning I woke up and saw the date and realized he’d been gone that long, yet everything was ‘done’ as though I’d been aware every single day and I can tell you now, I wasn’t. It was then I noticed that my ex had started treating me differently. He was condescending toward me, stopped going to church, would leave the house and stay gone for hours. That kind of thing.”
“What about physically?” he asks, causing me to blush.
“That was, um, never really a big thing between us, but he started acting like he was offended whenever I was too tired to do anything, so I just gave in, and then he would get angry and say I was nothing but a cold fish.”
The sting of those words still reverberates in my head; I couldn’t help I was bone-deep exhausted from taking care of literally everything there was to do, plus add on the messes Patrick would create in the house and not clean up. I mean, I wasn’t a raving beauty or cover model by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn’t some swamp troll, which is how I started feeling.
He snorts out a laugh before he says, “Babe, I don’t think you could be a cold fish if you tried.”
“I was tired all the time, Banshee. I was getting up around four, taking care of the chickens and other farm tasks, then coming in and cooking him breakfast, before I’d clean myself up, do my job which thankfully is done remotely, then take care of lunch, go back to work, try to keep up with the house and all the bills, make dinner. There were days I wanted to go to bed by seven,” I admit.
“What did he do while you were doing everything?”
“I honestly don’t know. He’d leave after breakfast, come back for lunch, then head out again before coming in right before dinner.”
“So, he never bothered to help you?”
It’s my turn to scoff because after the beating he gave me, the rose-colored glasses were most assuredly off. “Yeah, that would be a great big fatno.”
This whole time we’ve been talking, he’s been lightly stroking his large, calloused hand along my side in a soothing motion. But when I tell him Patrick didn’t so much as lift a finger to help me get everything done, his hand grips my hip so tightly I’m sure I’ll have a bruise.
“What a fucking asshole,” he mutters.
