Tied
ELEVEN
Jake
Lunch at Mom’s table materialized quickly.
By the time Autumn came back from getting Stetson into a fresh diaper, the back porch table had disappeared under a spread of cold fried chicken, potato salad and all the fixings, goat cheese with a drizzle of Jamie’s honey, and a pumpkin pie standing off to the side, waiting on its moment.
“Looks great. I’m starving, Mom.” I came to stand beside Autumn who stared at the table like it had performed a magic trick. Watching her discover my family, one wonder at a time, had become my favorite thing I’d done all year.
She gestured at all of it, helpless. “How did you manage to put this out so fast?”
Mom shrugged off her apron. “You never know who’s going to stop by, so I’m always prepared. Sit and eat. Mr. McCall, retrieve the old wooden high chair from the basement. We have company finally worth dragging that thing back upstairs.”
“That old thing?” Jamie exclaimed, exchanging a glance with me.
We’d both eaten our first birthday cakes in it, and Mom had refused to part with it through four garage sales and one basement flood scare.
Watching Dad carry it up the stairs and set it at the table for Stetson did something to my throat I had to swallow around as I dusted it off.
Over lunch, my family informed Autumn about the whole operation, showing off the way McCalls do.
The Double M ran close to two hundred goats: the dairy does, the meat herd, and Macho, who contributed nothing and was retired on full benefits.
Mom’s soap and goat milk business filled a separate barn now, with a few employees, and she and Dad had worked a standing booth at the Lewistown farmers market every weekend, spring to fall, going on eleven years.
Autumn listened to all of it, leaning in with her chin on her hand, while I fed Stetson tiny morsels of food. He ate it all and wanted more. I happily obliged.
This was home—even better with the two of them at the table beside me.
Mom regaled Autumn with family stories. Jamie let her in on inside jokes, making her laugh. Even Dad popped out a smile or two.
Jamie served up plates of pie. “People drive from all over for Mom’s goat milk soap. I’ll give you a bar to take home and try. It’s rich in fats and good for your skin. Even safe for Stetson because it’s all natural.”
“I’m sold,” Autumn giggled.
“Don’t let Jamie fool you. Her honey products are also well-regarded. She’s one of the best beekeepers in the state,” Mom bragged.
“Mom has a seasonal waiting list for her pumpkin spiced goat soap. That one’s popular every fall with brides ordering it for wedding favors,” Jamie explained.
Brides. Wedding favors. Autumn and I shared a glance. Oh yeah—we had yet to tell them our news. Her look said it plain: your people, your move. Fair enough.
I found her knee under the table and squeezed. She jumped a little—only because my hand found new territory for both of us—but then her hand came down and covered mine and stayed. That small weight steadied me more than she’d ever know.
My mouth had never gone this dry before.
I cleared my throat. “Think you could make about a hundred of those wedding favors by next weekend, Mom?”
All conversation and eating—and practically breathing—stopped. Forks froze in the air. Every pair of eyes at that table zoomed in on the two of us.
“Dada, bah, bah.” Stetson chose the silence to stand up on the seat of the high chair and take a nosedive into my arms. He yawned against my chest, in a full-belly stupor, eyes already drifting closed. “Dada, na, na.”
“Dada? Wedding favors?” Mom whispered.
I watched it all register on her face, like the sun dawning over a mountain. Then she jumped up so fast her chair crashed over onto the wide pine floorboards, and the baby startled right back awake.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Stetson—but what are you saying, Jake?” She held her chest.
I grinned at Autumn, and let myself say the best sentence of my life.
“I’m saying I asked this lovely woman to marry me. And if you’re not busy next weekend, I hope you’ll join us for a wedding at the ranch.”
The screams between the two McCall women shook the house to its footings. They nearly hurdled the table getting to us. Stetson cried. Mom cried harder. The hugging women took over the porch.
I caught my father patting his eyes with a napkin, which made three times in my life I’d ever seen that happen.
“Now wait right here.” Mom disappeared down the hall. I had an inkling what she was after.
“Son.” The first word my father had spent all day, and he put his hand out with it.
We shook, and his grip said the whole speech.
Then he ruffled Stetson’s hair and took him off my hands, carrying him over to the porch rail where his whittled animals stood in a patient row.
Stetson picked one up and put it straight in his mouth, and Dad let him, which told me everything about how this grandfather thing was going to go.
Mom returned with something in her hands that put my heart on notice.
A red velvet box.
“Here you go, son. I’ve been saving this family heirloom for years, hoping one of you two would use it.” She took a seat expectantly, looking between us, hands folded in her lap like church.
Autumn shot a look between me and Jamie, a little awkward. “But—wouldn’t you rather have this?”
Jamie made a face with her tongue out like the box contained liver and onions, her least favorite dish Mom ever made.
“Absolutely not. I think the ring is hideous. I mean, it’s gorgeous for you, but not my style.
A simple gold band is all I want. Someday.
Maybe. I mean, if I ever get married, which I’ve made clear I likely won’t. ”
She’d been making it clear for many years. Mom sighed and let her daughter’s comment go by, the way you let a familiar train pass.
“Well, go on. Ask Autumn again, Jake, properly, with a ring. I didn’t see one on her finger, so I’m assuming that’s one reason you’re here today.” Mom continued to wait.
My ears went hot. “In front of all of you?”
She raised one eyebrow. That was all it took. I’d stared down enemy fire before. But I couldn’t last two full seconds against my mother’s eyebrow. I slid to one knee and took the ring out of the box.
I hadn’t seen it in years, and it was even more pretty than I remembered—a smooth diamond in the middle, bordered by small garnets on all sides, on a band of old, solid gold. Family lore stated Grandpa McCall had panned for the gold himself in the Gruff Bear River.
Autumn’s breathing came out in shaky spurts.
I reached for her left hand and rubbed my thumb over her knuckles in circles, considering what to say.
Granted, the first proposal was more like a debate, trying to win her over on the idea.
This… was real, even if she gazed upon the ring and this entire setup with questioning eyes.
“Sweetheart… we both know how we got here and why.” That was a loaded start only she’d comprehend.
“Separate journeys that found their way. As far as I’m concerned, every road I’ve ever been down was just the long way around to you.
All that matters now is we found each other.
Where we go from here is together, on a new path of our own making.
You, me, and Stetson. So—marry me, Autumn?
Become a McCall, a part of this crazy family, goats and all? ”
“Even Macho?” Autumn sputtered, tears brimming over her eyes.
“Especially Macho.”
Through tears came her reply: “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
The ring ran a little big, and went right on. Hugs came next—Jamie, Dad, and Mom all welcomed Autumn to the family, and I stood in the middle of it trying not to cry myself.
“Dada! Mama!”
We all turned. Stetson—almost forgotten in all the excitement—stood on his own two feet where my father had set him down.
With a wooden goat clutched in his fist, he lifted one foot, and the other, and walked—four steps, five, wobbling, arms out like a tiny tightrope artist. He made it right past his gasping mother, and dove into my arms.
“Well, look at that,” Dad uttered.
“First steps,” I whispered, holding that boy against me, and there wasn’t a dry eye left among the women. Or among the men, too. “First steps, sweetheart.”
“Hm-hmm.” Autumn nodded. “Right to you.”
We left an hour later with a jar of honey, three bars of soap, a whole pie, one wooden goat, and my entire family following behind us in their truck—because the moment Mom heard the wedding was happening in one week, she’d announced she needed “a melding of the minds with Ivy Wylde” to make sure everything was perfect, and no force on this earth was going to stop her.
“Whew. That went well,” I relaxed.
Autumn sat too quiet. I’d been watching her from the driver’s seat as we left the Double M—how she twisted the ring around and around on her finger, how she gulped shaky breaths of air. I figured her for tired. Overwhelmed, maybe, hopefully in a good way.
Stetson fell asleep immediately. But Autumn made it about four miles down the road before she broke. The tears came on fast, the way a Montana storm does, and kept coming. Every alarm I owned went off at once.
“Hey, sweetheart.” I checked the mirror, the road, her face, in that order, and her face frightened me most.
I put on the blinker and pulled the truck onto the shoulder.
Behind us, my entire family pulled over too. In the side mirror I watched Mom’s door start to open. I stuck my arm out the window and waved her back. The door closed, reluctantly.
Then I turned in my seat, and the cab got very small and hot. God, I wanted to reach for her, assure her everything would be fine.
Fuck it. She was about to be my wife. I couldn’t sit here while she cried about it another second more. I pulled her into my arms, across the truck seat, almost into my lap.