21. Az
— ? —
Az
“Azalea.”
My hands go still. That voice. That specific tone, disappointed, measured, like she’s already decided the conversation is a waste of her time but she’s going to have it anyway because someone has to guide me.
I look up.
My mother stands in the doorway of Dahlia & Thorn in a cream blazer and pearls, her blonde hair blown out like she’s got somewhere important to be after this.
Which she probably does. She’s holding a leather folder with a gold clasp, and she stops beside the succulent wall as though this is an appointment I made.
“Mom.” I set down my shears. “What are you doing here?”
“I tried calling,” Diane says, stepping further into the shop and looking around with that expression she gets, like she’s cataloging everything that’s wrong with my choices. “You didn’t answer.”
“I blocked you after the morning show thing. You know that.”
“I assumed you’d come to your senses by now.” She sets the leather folder on my work counter, right on top of the ranunculus. “We need to talk about the farm.”
My stomach drops. “Excuse me?”
“Juniper Hill.” She says it like I might have forgotten. “I’ve spoken to a developer. There’s interest. Significant interest.”
“There’s-” I actually laugh, the sound coming out wrong and sharp. “You’ve spoken to a developer about my farm?”
“It’s a lot of land for a girl with a baby and no husband, Azalea.
” She opens the folder, spreading out glossy pages, aerial photos of Juniper Hill, projected lot divisions, numbers with too many zeros.
“The market’s hot. You could walk away with enough to secure your future properly, buy something reasonable closer to the city, hire actual help-”
“I have actual help. Lupe runs the farm. She’s run it for thirty years.”
“Lupe is sixty-something and this is a business decision, not a sentimental one.” Diane taps a manicured nail on one of the projected numbers.
“I’m trying to help you. You’re thirty-one, pregnant, separated from your husband, and you’re clinging to a dahlia farm in Ojai like it’s going to save you. ”
“It’s not clinging, it’s living there. Grandma June left it to me.”
“Your grandmother left you a burden she dressed up as a gift.” Diane’s voice is so smooth, so reasonable, and I hate how it still makes me want to fold. “You don’t have to martyr yourself to her memory. You can be practical. You can think about what’s actually best for the baby.”
“What’s best for the baby is a mother who isn’t selling her grandmother’s legacy to a developer because her own mother thinks she can’t handle her life.”
Diane sighs, long-suffering, theatrical. “There’s also a network opportunity. Exclusive interview, your side of the story. They’re willing to pay.”
“Pay.” The word tastes like rust. “You want me to go on another show and what? Talk about my marriage falling apart? Give them quotes they can twist around?”
“I want you to control the narrative. Right now everyone’s talking about Elliot’s grand gesture, his canceled tour, his public accountability.” She says it with air quotes, like she finds the whole concept ridiculous. “You’re the wronged wife and you’re invisible. That’s a waste.”
“I don’t want to be visible. I want to grow dahlias and have my baby and figure out my marriage in private like a normal person.”
“You’re not a normal person. You’re married to Elliot Jackson and that ship sailed the moment you said ‘I do’ in that tacky courthouse ceremony.
” She pulls out another document, some kind of media contract, I think, with my name already typed at the top.
“The interview would be sympathetic. Soft lighting, gentle questions. They’d make you look good. ”
“Like you made me look good on that morning show?” My voice is rough, but she is going to hear me. “When you went on television and made me sound like an unstable daughter?”
“That wasn’t-”
“That was exactly what it was. You fed me to them.”
Diane’s expression flickers, irritation maybe, or the closest she gets to shame. “I was trying to help you get ahead of the story.”
“You were trying to help yourself get ahead of the story. There’s a difference.”
“Ungrateful.” The word lands like a backhand, even though her tone doesn’t change.
“You’ve always been ungrateful. I gave you everything, the lessons, the introductions, the connections, and you’ve spent your entire adult life running from it.
Playing florist. Playing farmer. Playing wife to a man who couldn’t even keep his tour manager out of your bed. ”
“He didn’t-” I stop myself, because I’m not going to defend my marriage to her. Not again. Not anymore. “You need to leave.”
“Azalea-”
“No.” I’m shaking now, I can feel it in my hands, but my voice comes out steady and that’s something.
“You raised me to be furniture. To be decorative and agreeable and grateful for whatever scraps of approval you decided to throw my way. And I spent twenty years trying to be small enough to fit in the box you built for me, and it nearly killed me, and I’m done. ”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic, I’m being honest. Probably for the first time in my life with you.
” I pick up the leather folder and hold it out to her.
“I’m not selling Juniper Hill. I’m not doing your interview.
And I’m done apologizing for needing things you couldn’t be bothered to give me. Get out of my store.”
Diane stares at me. For a second I think she might actually argue, might dig in the way she always does, find the crack in my armor and pry until I crumble. But then her gaze shifts to something over my shoulder and her expression rearranges itself into something almost pleasant.
“Elliot. How nice.”
I turn. Eli’s standing in the doorway to the back room, arms crossed, and I don’t know how long he’s been there but from the set of his jaw it’s been long enough.
He’s in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tattooed forearms on display, and he looks like he wants to break something but is holding himself very, very still.
Diane extends her hand like they’re at a cocktail party. “I was just discussing-”
“I heard what you were discussing.” Eli doesn’t take her hand.
Just looks at it, then back at her face, and she lets it drop.
“You talked about my wife on a morning show while she was pregnant. Sold her private life on national television. And now you’re in her shop trying to sell her grandmother’s farm and pimp her out for an interview. ”
“I’m trying to help my daughter make sensible choices-”
“You’re trying to control her because you can’t stand that she doesn’t need you.” Eli moves to stand next to me, not touching, just there, and his voice is so calm it’s almost scary. “The mortgage payments are done. I’m not funding this anymore.”
Diane’s face goes tight. “That was between me and Azalea.”
“It was money I sent you, and it stops now.” He puts his hand on my lower back, warm and steady, and I lean into it without thinking. “We’re done here. Get out of her store.”
For a long moment, nobody moves. Then Diane picks up her leather folder, tucks it under her arm, and walks to the door. She pauses with her hand on the glass.
“Cody would have taken you back, you know.” She says it like it’s supposed to hurt. “He still asks about you.”
“Cody was a controlling asshole and you loved him because he made me smaller.” I don’t know where the words are coming from, but they keep coming. “That’s not a recommendation. That’s a warning.”
Diane leaves. The bell chimes behind her.
Through the window, I watch her get into her black car and pull away from the curb, and then she’s gone and I’m standing in my shop with my hands shaking and my husband beside me and a raw, broken-open feeling in my chest that’s relief and grief all tangled together.
“Hey.” Eli’s voice is soft now, nothing like how he sounded with her. “You okay?”
“No.” I laugh, but it comes out wet. “I just told my mother to get out of my store and called her son-in-law preference a controlling asshole and I think I might throw up.”
“Do you need to sit down?”
“I need to-” I don’t know what I need. I’m thirty weeks pregnant and my back hurts and my mother just tried to sell my grandmother’s farm and I can’t stop shaking. “Can you drive me home?”
“Yeah.” He takes my hand, careful, like I might break. “Yeah, I can do that.”
***
The drive to Ojai takes two hours and I spend most of it staring out the window trying not to cry. Eli doesn’t push. He puts on some old Johnny Cash album and hums along under his breath, and his hand finds mine on the console and I hold on like it’s keeping me tethered to the earth.
By the time we pull up the gravel drive, the last light is fading and everything looks golden and soft and I think maybe I can breathe again. But then I see it.
The east fence is torn out. Not knocked down, torn, like someone took a crowbar to every post and ripped them from the ground.
And the windows, two of them, on the side of the house facing the dahlia fields, are shattered, glass glittering on the ground like something violent happened here while we were gone.
“Jesus.” Eli stops the truck at the edge of the drive.
My hand goes to my stomach.
Dez appears at my door before I can open it. He’s in tactical mode, face grim. “Deputy cleared the property. Nobody inside. We haven’t touched the scene.”
“How.” The word comes out flat. “How did someone-”
“East boundary’s outside our main gate sightline, Mrs. J. Acreage this size, we can’t see everything at once.” His jaw tightens. “Whoever did this was fast. In and out before we spotted them.”
“The baby’s room,” I say.
Dez nods slowly. “Yes ma’am.”
Eli is already out of the truck, rounding the hood to help me down. His hand finds mine, squeezes hard. “You don’t have to see it.”
“Yes I do.”
We follow Dez inside. Deputy Morris is on the radio in the living room, photos taken, clipboard in hand. He nods at us, keeps talking. Dez leads us down the hall to the nursery door.
The door is open. From here I can see the scattered mess, the torn curtains and scattered glass.
“New coverage on the east perimeter starts tomorrow,” Dez says quietly. “Additional patrols. It won’t happen again.”
But we all know he can’t promise that. Not really, not across all this acreage.
Eli’s arm comes around me. I lean into him and stare at the doorway to our daughter’s room.
Glass. Everywhere. On the floor, on the windowsill, glittering on the rug that Lupe helped me pick out.
Shards caught in the folds of the curtains beside the crib.
The curtains are torn where something came through.
And in the middle of it all, the crib stands untouched but surrounded, like a small island in a sea of broken things.
I don’t know how I know it’s her.
But I know.
The same way I know weather, the same way I know when a frost is coming before there’s any sign. My mother. She sent someone. Arranged it. Because I told her no and Eli told her no and she walked out of my shop with nothing, and Diane Moore doesn’t walk away with nothing.
“I’ll check with the deputy.” Eli looks toward the living room. “Don’t touch anything.”
“It was her.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I know her.” I stay in the hallway outside the nursery, and I wrap my arms around my belly and I don’t cry because I’m too tired to cry. “We both know.”
He speaks to the deputy. I sit and watch the last of the daylight fade through the broken window. And then he’s back, crouching in front of me, one hand on the hallway wall.
“They’re finishing the report and checking for prints. We can board the windows when they’re done.” His voice is steady, grounding. “You shouldn’t be in here. Let me take you to the kitchen. I’ll make tea.”
I nod because I don’t know what else to do.
The kitchen is warm and undamaged and it feels like a lie.
Eli makes tea the way I like it, chamomile with honey, not too hot, and I sit at the table and watch him move around the space like he belongs here.
Which he does. Which he doesn’t. Which is complicated in ways I can’t think about right now.
Through the kitchen window, I can see the east fence. Or where the east fence used to be. Just empty posts and torn wire and darkness falling fast.
“I’m going to board up the windows,” Eli says, setting the mug in front of me. “And fix the fence. Tonight.”
“You don’t have to-”
“Yes I do.” He pulls up a chair across from me and sits, his knees almost touching mine. “Az. Look at me.”
I look.
“Someone broke into your home. Someone destroyed the room you built for our daughter. I’m not leaving you here with broken windows and no fence. That’s not-” He shakes his head. “That’s not an option.”
“It could have been random.”
“It wasn’t random.” His voice is gentle but certain. “And we both know it. But even if it was, even if this was just some bored asshole with a crowbar, you’re not staying here unprotected. I’m fixing it. Tonight.”
I want to argue. I want to tell him I can handle it, I’ve been handling things alone for months, I don’t need him to swoop in and save me. But I’m thirty weeks pregnant and exhausted and someone tore apart the room I made for my baby, and the truth is I don’t want to be alone tonight.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”
He squeezes my hand, once, and then he’s gone, out the back door, into the shed for tools, coming back with a headlamp strapped to his forehead and lumber in his arms.
I sit at the kitchen table with my cooling tea and watch him through the kitchen window. Watch him nail boards over the shattered glass. Watch him disappear into the darkness to rebuild the fence line, the beam of his headlamp bobbing through the dahlia fields. He doesn’t come back for hours.
He doesn’t ask for anything.
I fall asleep at the table with my head on my arms, and when I wake up it’s dawn and there’s a blanket over my shoulders and the windows are boarded and through the intact kitchen window I can see new fence posts standing tall where the old ones were torn out.
Eli is asleep on the couch, still in his flannel shirt, still wearing his work boots.
He stayed.