Chapter 18 #2
So, her hands sweated and her heart tripped as she pulled in the driveway to his farm and parked beside his truck at his house. He was already out of his truck, wearing a plaid button-down, leaning against the door, watching her pull in.
So handsome, and he looked so capable, so strong and self-assured, and she took a moment to admire him as she pulled in.
She should have backed in, but she didn’t want to take a chance that she might back into his truck, since she was a pretty good driver going forward, but backward had never been her best direction.
“Sorry about the last-minute switch-up,” he said as she pulled in and got out of her car, popping the trunk.
“It’s okay. I’m glad you thought of it. Otherwise, we’d be moving all of this stuff tomorrow. Or we’d be here at your house with nothing to eat.”
“I’m not sure what could be worse than having five children and no food.”
“Having five children and a husband with no food?” she asked, gently teasing him for the amount of food he ate.
She thought his cheeks were getting red, but it was hard to tell since he let his beard grow out in the cooler weather.
She liked it, quite a lot. She’d always loved a neatly trimmed beard, and his was just ragged enough to give him a rough-and-tumble look without making him look like the beard had taken over everything.
“I think the lady thinks I eat too much.”
“The lady does not think you eat too much at all. The lady is happy to cook for people who like to eat.” And that was the truth.
They gathered up bags and walked in together, with him opening the door and holding it with his foot so she could walk in first.
“There is a freezer downstairs that’s mostly empty right now, but if we need any extra room, or if we’d like to butcher a half a beef, there’s room to put it down there.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Do you eat your own?”
“I often do. If someone orders a half, and there’s no one beating the door down for the other half, I might keep that for myself. Or split it out between my family members and others.”
It was interesting the way he said others. Like who else would he share with, other than his family?
She didn’t dwell on that long but walked beside him back out to the trunk to get more.
“I talked to your mom, and she gave me the recipes of the food that she thought you like the best. So, I bought all the ingredients for them. I considered that you might have your own meat, but you hadn’t said, so I bought that too.”
“I’m pretty much out right now. I think there are a few packages of hamburger in the freezer above the refrigerator, but I’m going to have a steer ready to take in another few weeks, and then we’ll have all we can use.”
“No chicken?”
“No. I buy that.” He looked over at her. “You like chickens?”
“I guess I’ve always dreamed about having my own hens. It just seems so…fun.”
“It’s work too, but it probably would be good work for the kids. Although, obviously someone has to supervise.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to let the kids do it. I’m pretty sure that’s something I would like to do by myself for a while, unless I’m too tired.”
He laughed, like the idea of her wanting to take care of her chickens rather than letting her kids do it was funny.
“We live on a farm now, so chickens are fine, and you have your own beef, and I suppose if you’re really excited about it, you could get a milk cow. But that’s even more work, because you have to milk her morning and night, so you really can’t leave to go anywhere.”
“I guess it would tie you down, but that would be so much fun.” She wasn’t being na?ve.
She knew it would be a lot of work. But the idea of having her own cow, her own chickens, meat they’d raised on the farm, were things that she’d just dreamed about before, and here he was casually making all of her dreams come true. Without even realizing it.
“The thing with cows versus chickens, if you go somewhere, it’s not too hard to find someone who will at least make sure your chickens have water.
You leave enough feed for them for a couple days, and they’ll be fine.
But a cow, on the other hand, if you’re milking, it’s kind of tough to find someone who is willing, and knows how, to milk a cow. ”
“I would have loved to have had someone ask me to milk their cow while they went on vacation. Of course, since I’ve never done it before, I might not have been able to. Is it hard?”
He laughed. “Not once you get the hang of it. I’ve seen people struggle with it for a while, just trying to get milk out.
It takes a bit of a knack. For some cows too, it also takes hand strength.
My grandma used to say that it was good for playing the piano, because it strengthened your hands.
I don’t know how true that is, because I don’t think playing the piano really takes a lot of hand strength. ”
“Looks like it would be more arm strength and finger dexterity, but I don’t know. I never had the opportunity to take lessons.”
“My grandma wanted to give me lessons, and the rest of my family, but most of us didn’t want to put the work into it.
Because that’s what it was, time away from playing with our friends, while we sat down on the piano bench and practiced because that’s the only way she would give us lessons.
Was if we spent half an hour every day practicing. ”
“Wow. I guess that’s one way to learn, if you’re forced to practice.”
“Yeah, and who wants to do that rather than play?”
“Some kids don’t have a choice. They just have to do it, like school.”
“I think that’s a good idea. To make kids learn to play an instrument.
Just like we make them go to school. There are far worse things they could learn, and probably are learning, in school than to have to sit in a music class for half an hour a day practicing an instrument.
In fact, I would say there aren’t too many better things that they could be doing with their time. ”
“Can’t say that I disagree with you on that one, and I kind of wish that’s the way it would have been when I was going to school. But that ship has sailed for me.”
“For me, too. But we can make the kids learn to play instruments if you want to.”
They had carried the last load of groceries in and stood at the table, facing each other as he said that last statement, and she realized he was serious.
“Who would give the lessons?” And then she looked around. “I don’t even have a piano.”
“I have my grandmother’s piano in here. So don’t let that stop you.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I don’t know if I should be suggesting it though, when I didn’t do it as a child even though I had the opportunity.”
“I can’t imagine a kid not wanting to learn to play the piano. I would have jumped on that with both hands if I would have had someone offering to give me lessons.”
“I guess it’s just different interests. Although, every once in a while, I regret not learning.”
“So… Do you think it’s worthwhile to make our kids do it?”
“I know that some people would say that you should allow the child to guide you and let them do what they’re interested in, but there is a certain amount of discipline that it takes to learn to play, and it develops your character.
I guess… If you’re for it, I’m down for it too.
Although, I’m not sure I’m down for all five of them learning at one time. ”
“That’s two and a half hours of practicing each day. Two and a half hours of constant piano noise in the background.”
Some days, it was all she could stand to listen to the kids chattering in the background, and by the time they went to bed, she was so ready for the peace and quiet she could hardly stand it.
“You’re going to be the one who has to listen to it. Are you going to be okay with it?”
She couldn’t believe that he was giving her the option. Just like he had given her his wallet.
“Oh! Here, before I forget.” She took his wallet out of her pocket and handed it over.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to see that again or not.”
“Really?” she asked, and they grinned at each other.
“It’s yours anytime you want it. I guess we should talk about a budget and our expenses and that kind of thing, because I do kinda try to watch, but… It’s not like we have to pinch pennies, because we don’t.”
“Well, if you tell me what the budget is and the expenses that we have, I am perfectly okay with it. I shouldn’t have much of anything, since my car is paid for, and…
The house is not, but if we sell it, then that’s out of the picture, and there’s nothing else other than insurance and the phone bill. ”
“We’ll have two bills until we sell the house too, but yeah. We’ll sit down sometime and talk about it. I didn’t want to overwhelm you when we were first married. There are a lot of things for both of us to get used to. Combining a family isn’t easy.”
“You are the one who had to make the most adjustments. I was used to the constant noise and chaos of five children. It was probably a bit of a wake-up call for you.”
“It just took me back to my childhood.” He looked around the kitchen. “I think it’s going to be really nice having that kind of noise in this old house. I got a little lonely, and it definitely seemed quiet at times.”
“Sometimes I crave quiet,” she admitted. And then figured she probably shouldn’t, because it was going to be a long time until her life had any semblance of quietness in it again. A long time.
“I get that. I guess I’m more of an extrovert.
But I think Terry especially sometimes was overwhelmed with all the noise in our house, because she’s more of an introvert.
” He paused for a moment and then looked at the stuff on the table.
“How about I show you where all this stuff goes? And then, you can rearrange the kitchen at your convenience. Actually, you can rearrange anything in the house if you want to. It’s ours, not mine. ”
“I don’t want to come in and upend everything that you’ve done.”
“I want you to feel at home. And if that means that you need to rearrange some things, then that’s the way it needs to be. I don’t have anything that’s so precious that it can’t be moved. You’re more important than anything I own.”
He said it so casually as he grabbed some of the dry goods and started talking about where he put them in the cupboard.
She followed along, listening, figuring that she probably wouldn’t move anything to begin with and just try to get used to his system.
But she appreciated his consideration, the fact that he made sure that she knew that she was more important, and while she supposed that some people might have just been saying that to sound good, she knew that Wilson actually meant it.
She thought again about what his mother had said about him being the golden child, the one that everything always came easily for, and who never really had to work for anything.
Sometimes that could make a person spoiled, inconsiderate, assuming that everyone else should be as good as they were or there was some merit of their own which gave them their ability to turn things from nothing into a success.
But Wilson seemed to have remained humble despite it all.
Maybe it was whatever had gone down with his dad.
She heard different people saying that that had been hard, and maybe that was what had forged his character into the strong, upright person he was today.
Whatever it was, she appreciated it and felt like she was benefiting more than she should have, as she usually did when she spent time with Wilson.
Would she ever feel like she deserved him? And better yet, would she ever feel like he wanted her as much as she wanted him?