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This little baby won’t ever know its daddy, won’t ever know the joys of being raised on a farm. All it’ll ever know is how sad its mama is.
My internal, self-pitying monologue is interrupted by a firm knock on the door. Sniffling, I wipe my eyes and try to compose myself.I must look terrible. Nonetheless, I square my shoulders and open the door to see Mathilda’s wizened form.
“Hey Mathilda,” I greet. I’m surprised to see my landlady and benefactress standing there. Usually she leaves me be, except for the occasional check in about a task or customer.
“Hi honey. Mind if I come in for a minute?”
I gesture for her to enter and leave the door open. A cool, stormy breeze has picked up outside, and the fresh wind feels nice against my hot face.
Mathilda pulls one of the kitchen chairs and I sit near her on the bed, both of us facing the outside world instead of one another.
“Been crying?” the older woman asks, but I can tell it’s a rhetorical question – it’s obvious I was just sobbing. I shrug and swallow hard.
“I was about to get on with the next set of tasks for today, but I just needed a minute.”
“Chores can keep.” Mathilda leans forward in her chair and inhales the distinct smell of rain about to fall. “It’s been six months since you got here.” I look at her, surprised by the comment. “I know we don’t talk all that much, but I keep track.”
Finally, my boss looks directly at me. Her deep blue eyes remind me of Ranger’s, and I feel my own fill with fresh tears. I look away, unable to control my emotions.
“And so since it’s been close to exactly six months since you got here, I reckon you’re crying about something in your past.” I don’t answer and instead just look down at my ratty shoes. “Or maybe your future?”
“What?” I look up quickly.
“I know you’re pregnant, Darcy. In fact, I kind of suspected that might be why you’d run away from wherever you were before.”
For a moment, I’m speechless as I look at the older woman. Finally, I find my voice and answer her. “I didn’t know I was pregnant when I got here. I wasn’t trying to lie about anything.”
“Oh sugar, I know that.” Mathilda gently takes my hand between her weathered ones. “But tell me, what’s really going on?”
I search Mathilda’s eyes, looking for any indication of duplicity or trouble, but I only see kindness and genuine concern in their blue depths. So for the first time ever, I share my sad, embarrassing plight with someone else. I tell Mathilda about Pa, and the financial struggles with the farm. How all Big Ag kept trying to buy us out. How Ranger had just showed up one day, injured and needing help.
“He told me he was a seasonal ranch hand, nothing more than a wandering cowboy. And how he wanted to help me out in exchange for having helped him. Ugh!” I get up and begin to pace the small area between my bed and the door. “How was I so stupid because it turns out he was just another one of the McLaughlin brothers! Out to get my farm, and he just happened to be smarter about it than them. He told me he was poor, and that he loved me, and that all that mattered was that we had each other.” By now, my tears have returned anew, a mixture of hot anger and crippling sadness.
I tell Mathilda about our courthouse marriage, the fact that the McLaughlin’s probably put the deed in Ranger’s name by now, and that I have nothing, not a cent to my name.
“And neither does my baby.” I sit on the bed again, spent. “It’s mine and Ranger’s, this little one. But he doesn’t know about it.Ididn’t even know about the child until I’d been here for a while. And I don’t know if I should tell Ranger, to be honest. Part of me doesn’t think he deserves to know but another part of me wants him to know what he’s missing out on. That is,” I pause, “assuming he would actually care.”
Throughout my entire story, Mathilda has been listening closely, nodding and clucking with each new reveal. When I finally conclude my saga, she sits beside me and nods her head.
“Well alright then.” She stands up and pulls me to my feet next to her. “Darcy. Listen to me well and good. That farm isyours, and no one else’s. Your daddy left it to you and it’s your responsibility to go back and fight for it. You need to stand on your own two feet, and not let these vile men tell you the rules. You, my dear girl, make the rules, not them.” She grasps my hands tightly in her own.
“But how?” I manage in a small voice.
Mathilda shrugs.
“I don’t know, but you have to go back, Darcy,” she continues. “For yourself, but also for this baby. It’s that baby’s inheritance as much as yours, and it’s on you to make sure the farm stays inyourfamily. Now, I don’t know much about this Ranger fellow, but it sounds to me like maybe he had real feelings for you.”
I start to protest but she just holds her hand up, shutting down any attempt for me to interrupt. “It’s not my business. Whatismy business is making sure that you get back on your own two feet, so your baby has a strong, resilient mother to look up to.”
Mathilda drops my hands and goes to stand by the open door. With her back to me, she concludes her impassioned speech. “I can’t let you stay here, Darcy. Not because I don’t care, but because I do. You deserve better, girl, butyouhave to be the one to fight for it.”
I am dumbfounded, trying to process her words.
“I don’t know Mathilda,” I begin in a hesitant voice.
“No, Darcy, youdoknow,” the older woman counters. “That land is in your heart, your soul, and your very being.”
With that statement, I take a moment to really think on her words. On the one hand, I’m terrified to go home and to see what might have become of my beloved farm.
