5. Tess
Tess
I shade my eyes with my hand and squint across the farmyard at where Shel and Jacinthe are leaning up against a fence.
Shel is clutching a plastic bag stuffed with chunky carrots.
I watch as Jacinthe mimes throwing something football-style over her head.
Shel fishes out a carrot and copies the gesture, sending the vegetable arcing through the air to land straight in a plastic bucket in the middle of the pasture, where it’s quickly snapped up by Joaquin the donkey.
The two of them whoop and clap. Jacinthe offers her hand for a high-five, and Shel gives her palm an enthusiastic smack.
I find myself grinning even as I shake my head in disbelief. Shel doesn’t usually warm up to people this fast. It was one of my biggest worries about moving her to a new school. She’s only ever had a handful of friends, and they’re all kids she’s known since kindergarten.
I wish she felt safe showing more people this side of her: the silly, rambunctious, animal-loving adventurer with more questions about the world than I could even begin to answer. Somehow, Jacinthe doesn’t seem to have had any trouble coaxing that version of Shel to the surface.
“They look like they’re having fun.”
Gabrielle steps up beside me after pulling the house’s front door shut.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Shel is loving this.”
We watch Shel launch another carrot missile into the field. This one misses the bucket by several feet, but Joaquin trots over to gobble it up anyway.
It’s late enough that the sun has started sloping towards the horizon. The light streaking the pastures is shifting from pale yellow to burnished gold. I can smell wood smoke from a distant bonfire in the air.
I’m hit with a rush of that same sensation I got driving through the mountains today: like every problem in my life has been stretched out wide across the sky, pulled into strands so taut I could reach up and pick apart every crooked seam to sew something new for myself, something solid and strong.
“Does she ride horses?”
Gabrielle’s question jerks me back to the present.
We’ve moved to stand on the edge of the farmhouse’s covered front porch, which is scattered with mismatched rain boots, old soccer balls, and a couple cozy wooden rocking chairs with gingham cushions that look perfect for enjoying a crisp fall evening with some hot chocolate in hand.
“Oh, yeah, a little,” I answer. “Horses have always been more my thing than hers, but she loves a trail ride every now and then. She’s crazy about animals in general, though.
Especially cats. God, every Christmas, Santa gets a very long letter with bullet point lists of all the reasons she’d be an excellent mom to a kitten. ”
We both chuckle.
“ Ben là , I can’t guarantee kittens,” Gabrielle says, “but we do have a few barn cats she is welcome to play with, and she can go along on any trail ride she wants if there’s a spare horse. You too. If you want the place, you can both ride as much as you want.”
“Oh, that’s way too generous.” I drop my hand to my side and turn to face her. “Of course we’d pay you if we ever want to go out for a ride.”
She clucks her tongue and waves off my protest. “ Pas du tout . Just call it a perk.”
She’s already offered me plenty of those.
She’s willing to give me a six month lease to start off with, so I can figure out if the location is going to be compatible with my job and Shel’s school schedule, and she’s fine with me taking up half the driveway with the farrier rig even though the lease only includes one parking spot.
It’s a lot to consider from someone I only met a few days ago, and it’s not like I haven’t considered stranger danger, but on paper at least, the whole arrangement sounds perfect.
I’m half-expecting to walk into the back of the house and find a raging cockroach infestation. There’s got to be something wrong with this place.
Before I have a chance to call Shel over, Gabrielle lifts two fingers to her lips and lets out the most impressive whistle I’ve ever heard. I can’t keep from gawking at her as the sound echoes through the property, making Shel, Jacinthe, and every grazing horse within sight turn their heads.
“My special talent,” she says with a laugh.
We trudge up the well-worn path running along the side of the house and meet Shel and Jacinthe at the entrance to ‘the back,’ as it seems to be known.
There’s a simple platform made of graying deck boards that leads to a plain white door set in the house’s dark brown siding. Gabrielle fishes a key out of her pocket and leads the way inside.
“Sorry it’s a little stale in here. I keep forgetting to crack some of the windows open. It’s clean, though. We gave it a good scrub when Yvon left.”
I can still smell the tinge of cleaning products lingering in the warm, stagnant air. It’s too dim to see much at first, but then Gabrielle flips a light switch on.
“Of course, you can keep any of the furniture you want, or we can get rid of it if you prefer your own things. There’s not much left, really. Yvon took more than I thought. There is still a bed frame, though. Oh, and the table, of course…”
She lists more items as she putters around the space, but I’ve stopped listening.
I can’t do anything except stumble a few steps forward into the center of the room and spin in a slow circle while a thousand images flit through my head, like a film strip playing at double speed.
It’s just a simple room, with a small dining table under a picture window overlooking one of the pastures and the rudimentary kitchen from the ad set up against one of the walls.
There are doors leading to what I assume are the bedroom and bathroom, as well as some simple wooden steps up to the lofted area above the empty expanse of floor that would be perfect for a couch and TV.
The walls are a plain cream colour. There are no curtains, no decorations, nothing but some old scraps of furniture, and yet, the place is bursting with colour in my mind.
We could live here.
I can see it all playing out in front of my eyes, like I’m catching glimpses of ghosts—not from the past, but from the future.
I can see Shel scampering up the stairs to the loft in her pajamas, begging to spend just ten more minutes reading before bed.
I can see photos of my parents on the walls.
I can see a handpicked bouquet of wildflowers in a mason jar on the windowsill, the evening light refracting through the glass.
I can hear the TV on low at night while I prop my feet up after a long day out shoeing horses.
I can smell cherry pie in the oven, which is crazy because I’ve never baked a cherry pie in my life, but maybe I could get into it, or Shel could, or maybe we’d just pick up treats at Café Cloche to take home and heat up every Friday.
Maybe we’d have little rituals like that.
Maybe we’d sit out on the front porch looking at the stars, blankets wrapped around our shoulders.
Maybe Shel would make a few friends and have them over on Saturday afternoons, a whole gaggle of gangly ten year-olds out making forts under the maple trees and chucking carrots over the fence to Joaquin.
Maybe I could even give her a kitten. Maybe I could give her everything, and maybe then, I’d stop waking up at night with guilt gnawing at my stomach, its gnashing teeth a vicious reminder that the life we’ve lived so far has been nothing but a reminder that Shel was not part of the plan.
I want to give her a life where she is the center, where she is the start and end of the story, not the plot twist halfway through that everyone had to scramble around.
Maybe I could do that for her here.
“You good?”
I whip around and gasp when I find Jacinthe standing right behind me. She holds her hands up in apology and takes a step back.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I didn’t hear her come inside behind me. I shake my head to clear it, and as I look around the room, I realize Shel is gone. So is Gabrielle.
“Where—”
Before I can finish my question, I hear footsteps up in the loft. A low half-wall along its edge functions as a safety rail as well as a room divider. As I look up, Shel’s head pops up over the top, a huge grin on her face.
“Mom, you have to come see this. It’s so cool!”
She disappears again, and I hear her chattering away to Gabrielle.
My head spins as I try to figure out just how long I was zoned out for. I take a step back and end up clipping my hip against the edge of the table. I hiss with pain and lurch away, which sends me stumbling over my own feet.
A hand clamps around my upper arm, holding me steady.
“ ?a va . I’ve got you.”
I catch my balance and find myself staring straight into Jacinthe’s dark eyes.
She’s got gorgeous eyes. I haven’t had a chance to notice them, considering she’s spent most of the time I’ve spent with her stomping around and scowling, but with the tips of our noses just a foot apart, those coffee-coloured irises are impossible to ignore.
They’re warm eyes, like rich brown earth baked by the sun. If I breathed in, I can almost imagine she’d smell like a garden, like damp leaves and deep, dark secrets sprouting up from the ground to taste the light.
I can’t breathe at all, though. I can’t even move. All I can do is stare at her and wonder what the hell is happening until she releases my arm and scuttles away like someone just told her I’m covered in poison ivy.
“Uh, yeah, so, um, you good?”
She raises a fist to her mouth and coughs, her gaze pinned to the bare floorboards.
“Um, yeah,” I answer. My throat has gone dry, and I have to cough too. “Thanks for, uh, that.”
She jerks her chin in a sharp nod, still not looking at me.
“Mom! Seriously! You have to come up here!”
I seize the opportunity to rush away like Shel is screaming for her life. I take the steps two at a time, and I’m panting before I’ve even reached the top.
What the hell was that?
It’s not like I’m into Jacinthe. If anything, I’m a little afraid of her. For someone who can’t be much more than five feet tall, the woman sure can make some noise. Watching her stomp down the warpath to get Joaquin the other day made me realize I would not want to be on Jacinthe’s bad side.
I’m probably just tired. I’m stressed and sleep-deprived. I keep spacing out, and I just happened to space out in Jacinthe’s eyes this time.
With that sorted, I focus on the task at hand: the ten year-old yanking on my arm to drag me up the final step into the loft.
“This would be my room, right?” Shel asks. “Isn’t it cool? We could put twinkle lights in the ceiling, and Gabrielle says she has a little bench I could put in the window for a reading spot. It’s so aesthetic!”
I have to swallow a laugh at that. Lately, everything is an ‘aesthetic’ for Shel.
“It is cool,” I agree, taking a moment to properly check the place out.
The loft would be any kid’s dream come true.
It’s like an indoor tree fort, with glossy wood-paneled walls, exposed beams in the sloped ceiling, and a cute little bay window just big enough for a kid-sized bench to fit underneath.
The room is just begging for some tie dye sheets, a bean bag chair, and the already requested twinkle lights twined around the ceiling.
Shel is beaming like she can see the scene playing out in the same Technicolor I can, the vague sketches of what a life here could look like getting filled in with more vibrant detail by the second.
“Are we gonna live here?” she asks.
The ‘yes’ is on the tip of my tongue, dangling like a skydiver ready to take the leap, but for some reason, I can’t let it fall.
Gabrielle comes over from where she’s been swiping at some dust on the windowsill and gives me a pat on the shoulder.
“You don’t have to decide today, chérie . Think about it as long as you want.”
I try to tell her there’s not much else to think about, but my thoughts are echoing too loud with other words.
What’s the catch?
This place is everything I need and more. There’s got to be a catch.