3. Aurora on the Farm
Chapter three
Aurora on the Farm
T he farm truck smelled heavily of goat. Or cow? No, no, it was goat . There was something more distinct about goat odor. The blessing and curse of having a farm vet mother: everything we ever owned always smelled like animals. When I was younger, I never noticed. Everyone in the rural area I grew up in smelled like farm or oil. If it wasn’t animals, they worked on cars or made minimum wage at the local gas pump. There wasn’t much for a teenager in a small town where the theater was run by a very generous couple from California and the one fast food restaurant closed at 10pm.
I noticed every scent now. At first, I flinched when I sank into the front seat of the truck. The stench was repulsive. Then, as I sat in my disgust, I realized that I wasn’t repulsed by the scent of fluffy farm animals or wet hay or a rainstorm that just passed. Anthony was the one repulsed by the scents of my home… repulsed by me .
Anthony told me I should be grateful he was taking me out of the back-woods. He used to boast about how I was his charity work. At the time, it seemed flattering… but things change. I changed.
My mother didn’t say anything as I sank back in my seat and cried. Heavy tears left me heaving for air and a nasty headache. I chugged the water bottle she put in the drink holder and accepted the handful of aspirin she popped out of the glove box. She didn’t even ask me why I threw my half-busted suitcase in the back or why I didn’t look like the woman who left her house five years ago. Instead, my mother let me cry, heave, and soak my sleeves with tears the whole two hours home from the airport.
What was there to say? He left me. My dream husband took everything I had and left me a hollowed husk of a person.
It wasn’t until I trudged up the driveway to the porch that the first words I’d spoken to my mother probably in years fell off my lips. “He kept Fluffy.”
“What?” my mother chuckled with confusion.
I broke—there, on the gravel, like a cracked vase; it didn’t even take a heavy touch. I shattered, sobbing all over again, gulping down air as the words tumbled out of my mouth. “He left me, Mom. Well…he made me leave him. He told me to pack a bag and to never come back. I don’t even know what I did! I just woke up one day, and he was kissing Heather on the couch and telling me he didn’t love me and that I needed to get out. I… I don’t…I don’t …”
But I knew what happened, and so did Anthony. I changed is what happened. Little by little, in tiny increments, I woke up. I stopped smiling at his nitpicky demands. I would tell him about my day, and when he clearly didn’t want to hear it, I would just keep talking. And when he said I was a charity case at a company dinner four months back, I corrected him.
I’m not a charity case. I never was. You were the one who asked me on a date, and I took pity on the new guy who didn’t know anyone.
I changed because I demanded the same treatment in our relationship that I gave him for free.
When did you stop being the woman I married?
Was it too much to ask for Anthony to love me like I loved him? Guess so.
I stood on the gravel of my mother’s farmhouse and prepared myself for the onslaught of I told you so . Because she did tell me so, years ago when I brought Anthony home for the first time. High off the fresh tingle of a first kiss and the sweet nothings in my ear, I presented Anthony to my mother. When he went home that night, she looked me dead in the eyes and told me, “Aurora Murphy, that boy is going to break your heart. He’s no good for you.”
However, my mother reached past me, gripping screened-in porch door and pulling it open. She nodded for me to go inside. “Go grab a glass, hunny.… Seems like we’re going to need it. ”
I gawked at my mother like a trout stuck in some fisherman’s hands. She smiled at me, patting my shoulder tenderly before pushing me inside. I stumbled across the stained wood of her porch and headed for the kitchen just inside the front doors. The memory of my home flooded back. I kicked off my sneakers into the basket next to the door, tossed my wallet onto the telephone table across from the door, and hung up my tear-stained jacket to my left.
Tip-toeing across the oak floorboards, I purposely stepped on the pieces that groaned just to doublecheck. A weak, teary-eyed smile crawled across my face as I ran my hands along the scratched countertops. From chickens that needed tending to in the kitchen sink to emergency surgery on a neighbor’s dog on the counter, the kitchen was soaked in memories. I counted the cupboards, stopping at the third one on the right. I opened it to find the mason jars we used as cups and the wine glasses up top.
“You still a red girlie, or you okay with white?” My mother’s voice bounced off the walls. I stepped out of the kitchen, glasses in hand.
“I’ll drink whatever, and I don’t care what you pair it with,” I beamed.
“That’s my girl!” my mother growled proudly, clapping at me in victory.
I put the glasses onto the table, scooping up snacks out of the pantry while my mother rummaged through her wine bottles. I came back with arms full of salty chips, pretzels, and Oreos as she popped open a bottle of wine.
We sank into the kitchen table chairs, everything laid out before us like a smorgasbord. Yet, we hesitated. The unsaid words hung over my head. I glanced up from the array of snacks to study my mother’s face—the woman who raised me when my father didn’t want us anymore, the woman I left when I, too, found ‘someone better’. I deserved the ‘I told you so’.
And yet, she poured us both a glass and raised it to me. “To a fresh start.”
I laughed, choking on my own tears and heartache as I raised my glass to her. “To it being just us again.”
“I’ll drink to that. I missed you, hunny.”
“I missed you too…” I trailed off, riffling through the bag of chips on the table. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” she whispered hoarsely. I peeked up at her as she shook her head. “Don’t be sorry, hunny. Life happens. Just know I’ve got your back.”
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I groaned. “That’s Heather, probably.”
“The woman he cheated on you with?” She grimaced.
“The woman I had as my maid of honor and who I thought was my best friend.” I checked my phone, rolled my eyes, and turned it off once more. The last thing I needed was to hear her begging me to forgive her. Can we still be friends, Rory? Please, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I trusted her. I told her about standing up for myself with Anthony. I confided in her about the divorce. And when he tossed me onto the sidewalk, screaming at me, she just watched.
“Oof!” my mother grimaced, looking into her wine.
“Yeah,” I sighed, stuffing the device as far into my back pocket as I could. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t have anything anyway. He can keep the house, the car, the dog… Heather. I don’t care. I don’t want any of it.”
I didn’t need those things anyway. Before him, I only wanted Anthony. He came with all those things because he needed them. I just needed someone who wanted me as I was, not for what they could make of me.
My mother filled up my wine glass even more. “Alright, start from the beginning.”