13. Lo
— ? —
Lo
The baby kicks while I’m stacking hay bales, which is either a complaint or a compliment. Hard to tell with someone who communicates exclusively through internal percussion.
“Settle down,” I mutter, pressing a hand against the side of my belly where a tiny foot is making its opinion known. “We’ve got three more loads to stack before lunch.”
The kick comes again. Definitely a complaint.
“Lo!” Rafael’s voice carries across the barn. “You’re supposed to be on light duty!”
“This is light duty. I’m barely lifting anything.”
“Those bales weigh forty pounds.”
“I’m not lifting them. I’m relocating them horizontally.”
He appears in the barn doorway, arms crossed, wearing the expression of a man who’s learned not to argue with pregnant women but hasn’t quite given up trying. “Bree’s gonna kill me if you hurt yourself.”
“Bree’s gonna kill you if we don’t get this hay stacked before the delivery tomorrow.”
“She’ll understand.”
“She’ll understand that I sat around being useless while there’s work to be done? That I let you do all the heavy lifting while I just stood here looking decorative?”
“You’re not useless. You’re gestating.”
“I can gestate and work at the same time. Women have been doing it for thousands of years. My grandmother baled hay until the week before she delivered my mother, and she did it without power equipment.”
He sighs, that particular exhale of a man who knows he’s lost. “At least let me get the high ones.”
“Deal. But only because I can’t see my feet anymore, not because I’m fragile.”
“Wouldn’t dream of calling you fragile. Stubborn as a mule with a grudge, maybe.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”
We work in comfortable silence for a while, the rhythm of lift and stack settling into my muscles. The JONES HAY sign is visible through the barn door, hanging slightly crooked from the fence post where I nailed it four months ago. My grandmother’s name. My name, before I took Jesse’s.
A week after I arrived, Ruth called asking permission to connect me with Sheriff Peter and a Nashville detective named Pruitt.
I said yes. They told me about Brandi Kell, showed me her photo, explained the letters had started before Jesse even knew about them.
I got a safety plan, started varying my routes, reported the letter I’d been carrying since the ranch.
Pruitt couldn’t say how long she’d been watching, but at least I knew what I was watching for.
Jesse still doesn’t know this address. That’s my choice.
Life goes on anyway: hay deliveries, doctor visits, Rosie’s endless questions.
You learn to hold fear and ordinary days in the same hand.
Six farms buy from me now. It’s not much. It’s not the Cooper ranch. But it’s mine.
“Tuesday’s still on?” Rafael asks, grabbing his lunch from the cooler.
“Self-defense class? Yeah, why?”
“Wanda said something about it conflicting with the church potluck.”
“The potluck’s Wednesday. It’s been Wednesday for thirty years.” I don’t even look up from the feed bucket.
“That’s what I told her. She said she’d have to check her calendar.”
“Wanda’s calendar is a series of Post-it notes stuck to her refrigerator, half of which are from the Reagan administration.”
“I’m aware. I helped her find one last week that reminded her to tape something off the television in 1987.” Rafael says it with a straight face, which makes it worse.
“Did she ever tape it?”
“She can’t remember. It haunts her.”
The baby shifts, pressing against my ribs, and I put my hand on the swell of my belly.
Twenty-three weeks along now. The obstetrician in Bell Creek, forty minutes east, the county seat where Bree sent me when I first arrived, confirmed everything’s on track.
Due in November, if she decides to stay put that long.
“You coming to Dot’s later?” Rafael asks.
“Saturday lunch? Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Molly said she’s got something to show you.”
“Molly always has something to show me. Last week it was a video of a goat screaming like a human. The week before that, a compilation of cats falling off things. I’m sensing a theme.”
“This is probably different.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s been talking about it all week, and she won’t tell anyone what it is. She’s got that look. You know the one.”
I know the one. Molly’s “I have information and I’m enjoying withholding it too much” look. It never leads anywhere comfortable. “Great. Something to look forward to between the pie and the inevitable heartburn.”
“Could be good news.”
“Rafael, in my experience, when someone says ‘I have something to show you’ with that particular gleam in their eye, it’s never good news. It’s always ‘look at this rash’ or ‘guess who died’ or ‘here’s a video that will ruin your afternoon.’”
“You’re a pessimist.”
“I’m a realist. It’s a gift.”
“The difference being?”
“Pessimists are surprised when things go right. Realists just nod and wait for the other shoe to drop.”
***
Dot’s Diner is the only restaurant in Marigold, unless you count the gas station that sells hot dogs of questionable origin. Red vinyl booths, spinning stools, a jukebox that only plays songs from before 1985. The coffee is terrible. The pie is transcendent.
Our booth is in the back corner. Bree’s already there when I arrive, Rosie beside her coloring on a paper placemat, James in a high chair systematically destroying a pile of crackers with the focus of a tiny demolition expert.
“Lo!” Rosie waves her crayon. “I’m drawing the baby!”
“Let me see.”
She holds up the placemat. There’s a circle with stick limbs, what might be hair or possibly a small explosion, and the word BUTERCUP written across the bottom in purple crayon.
“Beautiful,” I say, sliding into the booth. “But still not naming her Buttercup.”
“You don’t know it’s a her.”
“Rosie’s convinced. She’s been lobbying for Buttercup for three months because it matches Butterbean the pig and Butterfly the horse.”
“What about Buttermilk?” Rosie asks, not looking up from her coloring. “That’s not poisonous.”
“That’s a type of pancake ingredient.”
“So? Pancakes are delicious.”
“She’s got you there,” Bree says, smiling.
“Last week she suggested Buttercream,” I tell her. “We’re working through the complete butter lexicon.”
“Butterscotch!” Rosie announces triumphantly.
“That’s a candy.”
“Butterfingers!”
“That’s an insult and also a candy bar.”
“What about just Butter?”
“I’m not naming my child Butter.”
Rosie sighs with the dramatic weight of a six-year-old who’s been gravely misunderstood. “You’re very difficult, Lo.”
“I’ve been told.”
Molly slides into the booth beside me, phone already in her hand, that gleam Rafael warned me about bright in her eyes. “You’re here. Good. I’ve been waiting all week for this.”
“Rafael warned me you were up to something. He said you’ve been insufferably mysterious.”
“Rafael needs to mind his business and also his word choices. I’m not insufferable. I’m intriguing.” She’s grinning, though. The kind of grin that means trouble. “Okay. Before I show you this, I need you to promise you won’t throw anything.”
“Why would I throw anything?”
“Just promise.”
“I’m not promising that. The last time someone asked me to promise not to react badly, a neighbor told me she’d accidentally set my car on fire. What is it?”
“It’s about Jesse.”
The name drops into my chest and keeps sinking. I keep my face neutral. I’ve gotten good at that, these past four months. “What about him?”
“He’s been making videos. A lot of them.
Posting them online.” Molly’s watching me carefully.
“I didn’t want to show you before because you were finally starting to seem like yourself again.
You were eating regular meals. You stopped crying in the produce section in Bell Creek.
You went a whole week without saying his name. ”
“I don’t say his name.”
“You did in your sleep. Bree heard you.”
I look at Bree. She shrugs, apologetic. “Your first night here, you slept in my guest room. I heard you through the wall before I even got to the coffee maker.”
“The point is,” Molly continues, “it’s been four months, and people are talking, and I think you should see what’s out there. So you’re not blindsided.”
“People are always talking. That’s what people do. It’s their primary hobby, right after breathing and making poor decisions.”
“These have millions of views, Lo. Millions. And they’re all about you.”
“Millions of people also watched that video of the sneezing panda. Popularity isn’t an indicator of value.”
“Will you just look at it? Please? Thirty seconds, and if you want me to turn it off, I’ll turn it off.”
She turns her phone toward me.
The screen shows a video paused on Jesse’s face. He’s on the porch of our house, his house now, I guess, and he looks tired. Thinner than I remember. The guitar on his knee isn’t being played; it’s just there, like a prop he’s forgotten he’s holding.
“There are dozens of these,” Molly says. “He posts a new one every few days. Some are just him talking. Some are songs.”
“Is he wearing his ring?”
Molly pauses. “In all of them. Since the first one.”
“Play it.”
She hits play.
“Hey.” Jesse’s voice is rough. Familiar in a way that makes my chest ache. “It’s been three months since my wife left. Ninety-two days. I’ve been counting. I know that makes me sound pathetic, and I probably am. I don’t really care anymore how I sound.”
He pauses. Looks down at his hands. His ring catches the light. I notice that immediately.