Chapter 45
RIDICULOUS, BUT MAGNIFICENT.
DARCY
In the last few days, I have become a man who smiles at his coffee.
Not because the coffee is particularly good—though it is, since I’ve finally dialed in the ratio on the machine I bought specifically because Beth drinks coffee like it’s a competitive sport—but because there’s a toothbrush next to mine.
A purple one. It’s been there since Saturday.
Every morning when I see it, I smile like an idiot, and every morning, I tell myself to stop, and every morning, I don’t.
Yesterday, she burned toast.
Not a little. Catastrophically. The kind of charred that sets off the smoke detector and sends us both scrambling—her waving a dish towel at the ceiling, me opening every window in the cottage.
When the alarm finally stopped, she stood in the kitchen holding two pieces of what could generously be called carbon and said, completely deadpan, “I think these need another thirty seconds.”
I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the counter.
We ate cereal instead, standing at the island, and she handed me my meds without looking up from her bowl.
She slid the bottle across the counter with one hand while scrolling through her phone with the other.
I slid her pill case back, and neither of us acknowledged the casualness of it.
The fact it’s become as automatic as pouring coffee brings me a level of joy that can’t be normal.
I should probably discuss that with my therapist.
She left for work with wet hair, wearing my T-shirt. She kissed me at the door the same way you kiss someone when you know you’ll see them later. Quick. Easy. A period at the end of a sentence, not an exclamation mark.
I’ve been useless ever since.
I tried to review the marina’s financials.
Read the same paragraph four times. Opened my laptop, closed it, opened it again, then spent twenty minutes staring out the window, replaying how she looked in my kitchen the other morning in bare feet, a messy bun, that specific wrinkle between her eyebrows when she’s concentrating on not destroying a piece of bread.
And I decided, productivity is overrated.
So now I’m on the back deck with my second cup of coffee, smiling at it. I’ve made peace with the fact I am a deeply unserious person when it comes to Elizabeth Cameron.
The morning is cool and bright, so quiet you can hear the water from half a kilometer away. I close my eyes, tip my head back, and let the sun warm my face. I am thinking about absolutely nothing important when I hear it.
A grunt.
Not a human grunt. It’s lower. Wetter. Accompanied by what sounds like hooves on gravel and a rustling in the hedge that separates my yard from the road.
I open my eyes, my legs moving on autopilot. I’m thankful I followed my instinct to leave my coffee on the side table because…
A pig is standing in my driveway.
She’s enormous. Significantly larger than I expected Tammy to be, which I realize is a stupid thought because I’ve heard about this pig at least a dozen times, yet nothing prepared me for the reality of her.
She’s pink and grayish-brown and built like a small tank.
She’s staring at me with an expression I can only describe as judgmental.
Like she’s deciding whether I’m worth her time.
“You must be Tammy,” I say, because, apparently, I now speak to livestock.
Tammy grunts again and takes a step forward.
Then another. She’s heading for the stairs with the slow, deliberate confidence of someone who’s been here before, which—given what Beth has told me about the solstice party and every other interaction she’s had with this pig close to my house—she probably has.
I should be alarmed. I’m not. I’m mostly fascinated—and a little concerned about the herb garden.
“Those are my basil plants,” I tell her as she veers toward the raised bed along the side of the deck. “I need those.”
Tammy doesn’t care about my needs. She roots her snout into the edge of the bed, snuffling loudly, and I have approximately four seconds to make a decision before my plants are consumed by a three-hundred-pound escape artist.
I go inside, moving quickly, and grab the first thing I can find: an apple from the bowl on the counter.
Beth’s apple, technically. She left it here yesterday and forgot about it, which means it’s been sitting on the counter, slowly becoming pig bait, and I choose to believe the universe orchestrated this.
Back on the deck, Tammy has progressed from sniffing to actively excavating. There’s dirt on her snout and what appears to be a piece of thyme hanging from her mouth.
“Hey, Tammy. Look.” I hold the apple up, and her head swings toward me with a speed that’s startling for an animal her size. Her ears twitch forward. Her eyes lock onto the apple with laser focus.
“Yeah. You want this?” I take a step down, and she takes a step toward me, and we regard each other with mutual wariness.
Up close, she’s sort of magnificent. Ridiculous, but magnificent.
Her eyes are surprisingly intelligent, and there’s a stubbornness in the set of her jaw that reminds me of someone I know.
But I will never admit that out loud. I like breathing too much.
I hold the apple out, and she approaches cautiously at first, then with growing confidence until her snout bumps my palm. Her breath is warm and damp. Her mouth is gentler than I expected when she takes the apple. Not a snatch. Almost polite.
“Good girl.” I’m petting a pig.
A few months ago, I was having panic attacks in a fancy office on Bay Street. Now, I’m standing in my driveway in Nova Scotia, petting a pig, and it feels completely normal. Life is strange.
Tammy crunches the apple with devastating efficiency. It’s gone in four bites. Then she looks up at me expectantly.
“That’s all I’ve got. Time to go home.” I point in the general direction of the Hendersons’ farm, which is about a kilometer down the road and has, to my understanding, a fence Tammy treats more as a suggestion than a boundary.
Tammy snorts. Considers me for a long moment. Then, with the air of a queen dismissing a courtier, she turns and waddles down the driveway, across the road, and into the tall grass on the other side, heading vaguely farm-ward.
I watch her go and pull out my phone.
Me:
You’ll never guess who just visited me.
Beth’s reply is almost instant:
If you say Tammy, I swear to God…
Me:
She ate my thyme. I bribed her with your apple.
Beth:
MY apple????
Me:
It was for the greater good. She was going for the basil.
Beth:
Peter Darcy. That pig has been terrorizing me for YEARS and she just... took an apple from you? Calmly? Like a lady?
Me:
What can I say. Animals love me.
Beth:
That pig hates everyone. She knocked me into a ditch. She bit Cole. She once chased Neve for ten solid minutes.
Me:
Maybe she just needed someone to offer her an apple instead of running away screaming.
Beth:
I didn’t SCREAM. I made a strategic retreat.
Me:
You showed up to our reunion covered in mud because of a pig, Beth.
Beth:
Reunion? I was going to Neve’s boyfriend’s annoying friend’s pretentious party
Me:
And now you’re leaving your toothbrush at the annoying friend’s house.
Beth:
Don’t push your luck, Mister. Tammy and I have more in common than you think.
Me:
Stubborn, unpredictable, and terrifyingly charming?
Beth:
I was going to say we both have excellent taste in fruit and gardens to destroy, but sure. Yours works too.
I’m smiling at my phone the way I smiled at my coffee, and I don’t bother trying to stop.
I set it on the railing and look out at the water, and the morning is bright, and the basil survived, and there’s a purple toothbrush in my bathroom, and an apple-bribed pig making her way home across a field. And this is my life.
This ridiculous, beautiful, entirely unplanned life.
I pick up my phone again.
Me:
Come over tonight? I’ll replace your apple.
Beth:
Only if you make the pasta again.
Me:
Deal.
Beth:
And Peter?
Me:
Yeah?
Beth:
I’m glad Tammy likes you. She’s an excellent judge of character.
I set the phone down, finish my coffee, and go make sure I have all the ingredients for tonight’s dinner.