Chapter 6
six
“No chickens got dead, right Da-dee?” Daisy asked without preamble on Monday morning as Emerson entered her room.
He shook his head, grateful he could start the day with good news.
“No chickens got dead this week, Daisy.”
As much as Daisy loved being on her dad’s farm, she’d also been awakened to harsh truths from an early age. Such as the brutal reality that chickens—as with all animals—often got dead.
“Is new farmer here yet?”
Emerson’s stomach went on a little joyride. Its approximate twentieth trip of the day. He picked up Daisy’s glasses from the dresser.
“Not yet. Come, now. Time to brush your teeth.”
A rumble echoed through the house as they walked into the kitchen, but Emerson’s stomach got a break. He knew this rumble: Jansel’s green pickup truck, lumbering down the drive.
“Hey boss,” Jansel said two minutes later, just as Emerson was cracking eggs into a bowl.
Jansel was tall and lean, with shaggy dark hair and light brown skin.
He wore the same thing every day: Carhartt jacket, Carhartt pants.
A worn baseball hat advertising a farm outside Portland, on Sauvie Island.
Emerson had mentioned, once or twice, that they in fact sold Short King Farms hats, too.
“But this one fits so good,” Jansel always said.
Jansel looked like a real farmer. Emerson was glad at least one of them did.
“Morning, Han-sell!” Daisy shouted at him. This was, for the most part, actually how you pronounced Jansel’s name, but Daisy always put a little extra emphasis on the SELL! that made both Jansel and Emerson smile.
“Morning, flor,” Jansel replied. And to Emerson, “New kid here yet?”
“Not yet.” Luca had only said be there as soon as I can, Monday morning. Emerson tried to calculate what normal, non-farming people considered morning. “Should be here by nine or ten, I think.”
Jansel whistled. “Halfway through the day, then.”
Emerson attempted to give a wry smile, ignoring the engine parts in his abdomen.
“Yeah, think he had some stuff to take care of first.”
Jansel took a sip of coffee from his travel mug, shoulders lifted toward his big ears to ward off the early morning chill that permeated even in August, even through the walls of the house.
Sometimes, on his loneliest days, Emerson found himself charmed by those big ears, the way Jansel’s almost-black hair stuck out from under his hat.
Even though he knew Jansel had a wife and two little kids in a small house a mile down the road and didn’t need Emerson King thinking about his ears.
“You still good having him shadow you today, if he does actually show?”
Emerson had cycled through a variety of emotions and plans in the hours since he’d left Jayden’s house on Saturday about how to handle this change in routine. Each minute, the bluster of confidence he’d tried to show Jay sank away like patches of sand at low tide.
Sometime yesterday, when his thoughts wandered a little too deep into how exactly Luca Yaeger would look in the fields—how his arms would look reaching into the crops, how the back of his neck would look in the sun—Emerson had decided that the smartest thing for him to do would be to delegate.
Jansel could help show Luca the ropes today.
He was better at most of this than Emerson was anyway.
And then Emerson could focus on Daisy and actually getting to work on clearing that wildflower field, on inspecting and cleaning out the old barn.
That was why Luca was here, right? So Emerson could better prepare for the wedding.
It made sense to have some space. For Luca to get adjusted to the job on his own, for Daisy to get adjusted to the idea of having a new person around.
Even though, ever since he’d shared the news on the drive back from Portland, Daisy had only been abuzz with excitement.
“Sure.” Jansel had already moved to the whiteboards behind the kitchen table where he and Emerson exchanged notes and plans each day about what was happening in each bed, each area of the farm, what needed to be done.
He uncapped a dry erase marker with his thumb.
“Could always use extra hands. Already miss Parker and Myriah.”
Emerson sighed as he scrambled eggs in a pan. “Me too.”
“Gonna start in C.” Jansel tapped the marker against the board. Took another sip of coffee.
“Sounds good. I’ll be up the hill most of the day, but just send a text if you need anything.”
“Will do.” Jansel ruffled Daisy’s hair and was gone.
“I want to see George,” Daisy declared ten minutes later, the moment her last bite of eggs was eaten. She hit the table with both hands, her demand to be taken down from her booster seat.
Emerson had tried, from the moment Daisy began to form real words, to dissuade her from naming the chickens. A practice he forced himself not to do, due to the whole often-getting-dead thing.
Daisy had never listened.
After swallowing his own last bite, Emerson picked her up by her armpits. Gave her a small twirl before her feet landed on the floor.
“Keep an eye on the place, Moomoo,” Emerson commanded with a solemn head tilt before grabbing the scrap bin from the counter and sliding open the glass door to the back porch.
“You sure—” Daisy wheedled as she stepped over the threshold.
“I’m sure,” Emerson cut her off. “No stuffies in the barn. It’s for their own good, and yours.”
Daisy took Emerson’s hand as they stepped off the porch into the overlong grass, starting to go dormant now.
Other than his herb garden on the far side, the backyard was a mess.
Emerson always had ambitions of making it into a place Daisy and Moomoo could actually sit and play, like a regular house—like Jay’s backyard in Portland—but he never seemed able to get around to it.
The rest of the land took all his focus.
Daisy’s hand remained in his as they crossed the dirt road that lay between the house and the barn until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she took off running.
“Hey now.” Emerson jogged to keep up. The latch on the gate was a little tricky; he always worried about her small fingers getting pinched. But Daisy only grasped her hands around the wire of the fence, making sure the animals were aware of her arrival.
“Geeooooorge! Saaaallyyyy! I here!”
A goat bleated in the distance.
Emerson unlatched the gate and opened the barn door, his mind already quieted by their regular routine. Maybe Luca’s arrival wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Maybe he wouldn’t even show at all. Maybe they’d all move on just fine.
A gaggle of chickens, alerted by Daisy’s call, hopped out of the barn and danced around their feet. Daisy squealed in delight.
“George!” She held out her hands to a Rhode Island Red. It promptly strutted away.
“Careful, Daze.” Parenting here was a combination of constant vigilance and loosely monitored freedom.
As time moved forward, Emerson tried to rely more on the latter.
Daisy had already learned, through a variety of painful pecks, to give the chickens at least a bit of distance.
She’d keep learning, as one did on a farm, by getting her hands dirty.
Emerson chucked the daily food scraps from the kitchen into the feed, mixed in some crushed oyster shells before distributing it to the girls. They clucked and pecked around them while he refilled their water and Daisy went to check on Sally in her pen.
Half the chickens had strolled out to the pasture, Emerson about to let Sally follow, when Daisy froze, tilting her head.
“Da-dee, I think someone’s here.”
Emerson turned from Sally’s pen just in time to see Daisy flounce out of the barn.
“Daisy—dammit,” he muttered, opening the pen and leaving Sally to her own devices. He hustled after Daisy, who was already at the gate, peering through the wire.
“See!” She pointed to the road beyond. “New farmer!”
Emerson’s jogging feet came to a stop behind her, his chest rising and falling on a surprised huff. There was, indeed, a black car kicking up dust as it pulled in front of the house. A beat-up black car Emerson recognized. Its engine sounded like the one suddenly revived in Emerson’s body.
Luca had shown after all.
Several hours before Emerson had expected him.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
“All right.” Emerson reached over Daisy’s blonde head and unlatched the gate. “Go say hi.”
He watched his daughter run down the dusty track toward their new guest, thinking cool cool cool over and over. Like someone else’s brain had temporarily occupied his body.
Until it occurred to him he should probably follow.
And damn, Daisy was fast. Even with his longer legs, she reached Luca a few breaths before he did.
He hung back when Luca squatted on his haunches to look her in the eye.
“Hey there, tiger.”
“Are you Luca?”
Luca nodded, giving Emerson a brief glance before returning his gaze to Daisy. Emerson worked to keep his face neutral. Not at all disconcerted by those eyelashes, here again, on his farm.
“I am.”
“I’m Daisy.”
“Nice to meet you, Daisy. I like your glasses.”
“Thank oo. What’s your favorite animal?”
Luca furrowed his brow as he thought. He wore a faded San Francisco Giants hat, his expression almost hidden beneath its brim. He looked so good that all thought escaped Emerson’s brain entirely.
Daisy waited.
“The octopus.”
Daisy gasped, loud and theatric, as if this was the best answer she’d ever been given. Having been witness to the answers to this question several times, Emerson was tempted to agree.
Luca laughed a little at the gasp, and it startled Emerson’s brain awake. Emerson had almost forgotten the way this man looked when he laughed. Like it was natural, like his mouth was always ready once he gave it permission, his cheeks made to be stretched in this exact way.
Emerson perhaps should have anticipated how it would make him feel, witnessing that smile being directed at his daughter.
“The octopus,” Daisy repeated.
“They’re pretty incredible,” Luca said.