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I hum in agreement. Marsh Cooper and his clan put their property up for sale the day after we began constructing our home here. He didn’t much like foreigners “taking over” the neighborhood. Those boys also seemed strangely offended when I paid off Hailey’s deceased father’s debt in cash; I still shudder at what that implies: they’d rather have been paid in favors and deference. Disgusting.
We hardly took over the neighborhood. We sold Hailey’s mama’s house and combined two lots already belonging to the family. Mama lives with us and the baby, and I’ve never seen her happier. Toad and Hailey made amends shortly after the wedding celebration here in West Virginia, and whatever weirdness between them is forgotten now that he has a life of his own to focus on.
Under the current circumstances, we’re unsure what to do with Papaw, and with all of Memaw’s animals. But we don’t have to decide anything right now, and whatever we do is nobody’s business but ours and Papaw’s.
That’s the difference between the life I used to have and the life I have now. The optics don’t matter. We’re allowed to be private.
Hailey closes the paper and adds quietly, “Even if the thoughts I hear make me sad right now.”
I slide my hand across the patio table and cover hers.
“I’m glad we moved home,” I say.
Hailey searches my face with eyes welling with tears. “Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m so glad you said that,” she says on an exhale that sounds like she’s been holding it for hours. “I wouldn’t want to be halfway across the world right now. Not with Papaw in such a state, having to go through her things and find all her documents.”
Her voice cracks.
“Hey. Come here.”
My lap and my arms are built for the moments when I have no words. She burrows against me and sobs into my shirt.
I say nothing, only stroke Hailey’s back, waiting for this fresh wave of sadness to pass.
I’m not sure how long we sit there like that, but eventually, her breathing evens out. And still, I hold her to me as we listen to the wind in the trees, the animals in the field, and the creatures in the creek.
Then, her phone pings, and the peace and quiet is over for now.
My wife rubs her rounded belly absently as she picks up her phone from the table.
“It’s Layla. We’ve got company,” she says of our new neighbors down the road, sniffing and hoisting herself up out of my lap.
“Don’t trouble yourself. They don’t need us to wait on them hand and foot,” I say, keeping her pinned to me.
She grunts, and I relent.
Hailey’s tanned, bare feet cross to the patio door. Sliding it open, she proceeds to pace back and forth from the kitchen to the hallway, hauling around guest linens, tablecloths, pots, and pans.
Here we go.
I follow her inside, shutting the patio door behind me against the sound of slow, approaching tires on gravel.
Inside, every kitchen cabinet hangs open, and already the counters are covered in ingredients, knives, and cutting boards.
“How do they know company’s coming for us?” I ask.
“Because Layla and Gwen see everything and everybody, and if those two say somebody is coming our way, someone is coming our way.”
I cross to my wife, wresting a stack of china from her arms, and begin setting places around the massive table in the dining room. “And?”
Hailey smiles knowingly with her puffy red eyes. “And she says it’s three black SUVs with state department plates.”
My heart stirs when I finally accept that someone from Gravenland has sent flowers or a representative to attend Memaw’s funeral.
And Hailey has to feed them no matter who it is—my mother, my siblings, or someone from Parliament. It’s just the way she is.
