Chapter 38 Dandelion Farm #2
She frowned, then turned to me. “Come on. I’ll show you my room, and then we should probably go look at some of that stuff for him.”
Once again, taking care of everyone else’s problems for them.
She toured me around the rest of the modest farmhouse, through a room with robin’s egg blue walls that she once shared with her sister, past a bathroom and a study that seemed to have been untouched for the last eighteen years, and then through an abandoned garage and into an adjoining building that was half brick, half the same clapboard siding.
The windows, however, were larger than the house’s, and the walls were lined with metal shelves and commercial-grade kitchen equipment.
“Mom’s kitchen,” Simone explained as she closed the door behind us. “Over there is where we baked. And on the other side, we made cheese. There’s an industrial fridge beyond that door, although it hasn’t been used in years.”
It was as if someone had frozen the building eighteen years ago and never returned.
The industrial ovens were cold and silent.
The stainless-steel surfaces were muted by the cobwebs stretching between them.
There were still recipes pinned to a corkboard near the entry, and even a bit of flour decorated the corners of the workspace.
Simone swiped a finger through a surprisingly light layer of dust on the counter before picking up a rag and spray bottle in the corner.
“He never cleans in here, so I try to do it when I come home,” she said as she started wiping down the great wood table in the center of the room. “He can’t bear to come in. I think he still expects her to walk through that door and start a batch of sourdough.”
Considering how I felt the first time I’d seen Simone bake, I understood how Ryland might have felt.
I was pretty sure that once she left my apartment, I’d never walk into that kitchen again.
I’d probably have to move.
A picture next to a white cast-iron sink caught my eye.
“You do look like your mom.” I crossed the room to pick up the framed photo of a beautiful blond woman and two identical twin girls, all of them laughing while they tossed a sheet into the air. The girls had blue eyes, but the woman’s were brown. Even so, it was obvious she was their mother.
Simone finished cleaning the table and came to stand next to me. “That was taken just before she got diagnosed. We were outside helping her hang the laundry. Well, I was. Selena usually preferred to run through the sheets and pretend she was a ghost.”
“You were happy here,” I observed. “After she died, too?”
Simone shrugged as she took a seat on a stool. “Less so, but yeah. I didn’t want to leave.”
“Why didn’t you come back after Selena left Boston, then?”
“I thought about it, but by that point, I’d been in Boston for over a year.
And when I did come home, it was like living with a ghost. My dad had fallen deeper into”—she waved one hand through the air—“whatever he’s in, and I was so obviously not enough to pull him out of it.
Maybe I even make it worse, since, as you noticed, I do resemble the woman he can’t stop mourning. ”
I studied the picture again, trying to imagine the qualities that made Mary Ann Bishop so extraordinary that her husband fundamentally couldn’t live after she was gone.
All I saw in the photo was joy. But I was willing to bet that if she were here today, she’d be disappointed in her husband for not doing whatever he could to live well without her. Or make sure his daughters did too.
“Would you come back now?” I found myself asking. “If your dad got the help he needs. If you could make the house your own?”
She smiled again. “Oh, without a doubt.”
I didn’t know why I was asking. Not when I knew there was no way it would ever happen.
Even so, I could picture it so vividly. Simone in this space, her hands covered in flour, pulling golden loaves from the ovens as a pair of small children darted around her legs. Smiling with the joy I’d only seen glimpses of when she baked for the cafe and others she loved.
She belonged here in a way that was so fundamental it hurt. This was her element, her future.
The future I’d been forced to steal. Then sell.
Once again, I found it hard to breathe. Guilt clawed at my ribs, yowling to be let out. How could I tell her? How could I look at this woman and admit that just over twenty-four hours ago, I’d destroyed everything she loved with a signature?
“Brendan?” Simone’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “Everything all right?”
I was about to respond when movement outside the window over the sink caught my eye. A flash of color through the dirty glass.
“Holy shit.” Quickly, but quietly, I leaned toward it, trying not to disturb our visitor.
“What is it?”
“Right there.” I pointed to where the bird was perched on the windowsill, its rainbow plumes catching the light. “That’s a painted bunting.”
Simone peered closer, her cheek next to mine, her scent of flour and lilac blanketing my senses. “It looks like a rainbow. Is it rare?”
“Extremely. I’ve never seen one north of the Carolinas.
” I watched the bird flit from the feeder to a nearby branch while cataloging its field marks.
Damn, I wished I had a better camera than my phone.
“It’s probably looking for a place to live.
The U.S. has lost about a third of its bird population since 1970.
Did you know that? Mostly due to habitat loss. ”
God, I was really laying the guilt on for myself, wasn’t I? Who was I to pretend the very habitat this bird was seeking here wasn’t about to be destroyed to build a fucking airport for the rich?
“They’re monogamous, you know,” I told her. “Well, most of the time.”
“For life?”
I shook my head. “No, just during the breeding season. Most birds don’t. Swans do. A few raptors and species of geese. Emperor penguins.”
I glanced at her, and I could see the question in her eyes that had to be brewing on my face too: if given the chance, would we mate for life or last just a season?
The bunting stayed for another minute before disappearing into the canopy of an old maple tree.
“I should make some lunch for my dad, and then I want to check on some of his chores before we leave.” Simone squeezed my hand, breaking the spell. “Are you hungry? Do you need anything?”
When I turned from the window, the afternoon light was behind her, making the halo effect of her blond hair that much more ethereal. She was all but drenched in gold.
“You, baby.” My voice was suddenly choked with all the emotions I didn’t know how to handle. “I need you.”