30. Rafael
— ? —
Rafael
The orchard looked like a dream I hadn’t known I was capable of having.
String lights wove through the branches, hundreds of them, turning the rows of apple trees into a cathedral of warm gold.
Hay bales lined the aisle, decorated with wildflowers that Rosie had insisted on picking herself.
The whole town was here, packed into folding chairs and standing along the fence line, faces turned toward the arch at the end where I was waiting.
I’d proposed to her at one harvest festival, and here we were, marrying just after the next.
A year, give or take, since Butterbean had carried a ring up an aisle of hay bales.
In between, the fields had given up a second harvest, and the secret Bree had set on the kitchen table one spring afternoon had grown into the round, undeniable center of her.
Eight months along. The baby would come in a few weeks, and we’d both wanted to be married before it did.
My parents sat in the front row. My mother was already crying, and my father was holding her hand and trying to look dignified, which was difficult given that he was wearing a bolo tie at Rosie’s insistence.
Beside them, Gus and Marisol Salazar. The rivalry that had defined our families for decades had dissolved somewhere between the fire and the rebuilding, replaced by what looked a lot like friendship.
I’d caught Warren and Gus sharing a flask behind the barn an hour ago, toasting to grandchildren and second chances.
Molly stood near the front, holding a tissue she’d already used three times. Dot was in position with her phone, filming horizontally, just as she’d practiced. Martha and Ruth were whispering to each other, probably placing bets on whether I’d cry during my vows.
I was definitely going to cry during my vows.
Butterbean was wearing a bowtie.
He’d resisted the accessory at first, but Rosie had been firm, and Butterbean had learned over the past year that resisting Rosie was a losing battle. Now he stood at the end of the aisle, snorting occasionally, serving as the world’s most unlikely ring bearer.
The music started.
Not traditional wedding music. Bree had vetoed that. Instead, the local bluegrass band launched into a warm, rolling tune that belonged to home, to everything we’d built together.
Rosie appeared at the end of the aisle.
She was wearing a white dress that she’d picked out herself, with flowers in her hair and a basket of petals in her hands. She looked beautiful and serious, treating her flower-girl duties with the gravity of a military operation.
She started walking. And hurling.
The petals went everywhere, not scattered delicately, the way flower girls did in movies, but thrown with force and precision, covering the aisle in a thick carpet of color. Some of them hit guests. One of them hit Butterbean, who ate it.
She reached the end of the aisle and took her position beside me, beaming.
“I did a good job,” she announced.
“You did a great job.”
“I know.”
The music shifted.
And then Bree appeared.
She was on her father’s arm, walking slowly, carefully, because she was eight months pregnant and the aisle was uneven and she’d told me that morning that if she tripped and fell in front of the whole town, she’d never forgive me.
She was wearing white, not a traditional gown, but a flowing, comfortable dress, a dress that let her move and breathe, that said this is who I am more clearly than any designer label ever could.
She was radiant.
She was everything.
Gus walked her down an aisle laid out on the same property where, a year and a half ago, I’d shown up uninvited in a ruined suit and been chased onto a kitchen chair by a pig.
The same property where I’d learned to muck stalls and fix chicken coops and fall in love with a life I’d never imagined wanting.
They reached the end. Gus kissed his daughter’s cheek, then turned to me.
“Take care of her,” he said quietly.
“I will.”
“I know.” He smiled. “That’s why I’m letting you.”
He stepped back. Took his seat.
And Bree was standing in front of me, her hand in mine, her face lit by string lights and the setting sun.
“Hi,” she said.
“You look like the rest of my life.”
“Ready?”
“I’ve been ready for four years.”
The officiant, a woman from the county clerk’s office who’d known Bree since she arrived in Marigold, began the ceremony. I heard the words distantly, familiar phrases about love and commitment and the bonds that hold us together.
Then it was time for vows.
Bree went first.
“Rafael.” Her voice was steady, despite the tears on her cheeks. “Eight years ago, I walked into a conference room and agreed to marry a stranger. I told myself it was business. I told myself it didn’t matter. I told myself I could survive anything for three years.”
She squeezed my hand.
“I was wrong about all of it. It wasn’t business. It mattered more than anything. And surviving wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to live. I wanted to be seen. I wanted someone to look at me and know, really know, who I was.”
“You see me now. You see all of me, the good parts and the bad parts and the parts I try to hide. And you love me anyway. That’s all I ever wanted. That’s all I ever needed.”
“I love you, Rafael. I choose you. Not because our fathers made a deal, but because you’re the man I want to spend my life with. Today and every day after.”
I was crying.
I didn’t care.
“Bree.” My voice cracked on her name. “I’d prepared remarks. A whole speech. I spent three weeks writing it.”
“Naturally.”
“I’m not going to use it.”
“Good. Neither am I.”
I took a breath.
“When I was eighteen years old, I met a girl at a growers’ expo. She was holding my chick, and I spent fifteen minutes telling her about nitrogen fixation, and she listened to every word. I’ve been thinking about her ever since.”
Bree laughed. The sound was wet and beautiful.
“I didn’t know how to love you when we were married. I didn’t know how to love anyone. I was so focused on being the person my father wanted, the CEO the company needed, the man everyone expected, that I forgot to be the person you deserved.”
“I’m not that person anymore. I’m the person who wakes up before dawn to feed chickens. I’m the person who makes spreadsheets about pig moods. I’m the person who would rather fix a fence with you than close the biggest deal in corporate history.”
“You taught me that. You and Rosie and this town and this life. You taught me what matters.”
I looked at her, at this woman who’d remade me from the ground up.
“I’m going to love you the way farmers love land,” I said.
“Carefully. Consistently. With attention to what grows and what needs tending and what should never be allowed to go fallow. I’m going to plant my life in this soil and watch it flourish.
And I’m going to be here, every season, through every storm, because this is where I belong. ”
“I choose you, Brianna. I choose this family. I choose this life. And I’ll never stop choosing, as long as I live.”
The officiant said some more words. I didn’t hear them.
We exchanged rings. Butterbean delivered them without incident, though he did pause to sniff the ring pillow suspiciously.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the officiant said. “Again.”
I kissed my wife.
Behind her, the whole orchard went up in a roar, hats sailing into the string lights, boots drumming the grass.
The reception was everything a farm wedding should be. Long tables under the stars. Food from local farms, including ours. Music that got louder as the night went on. Dancing that started formal and devolved into chaos.
I danced with Rosie, who stood on my feet and giggled.
I danced with my mother, who cried the whole time.
And I danced with Marisol, who told me if I ever hurt her daughter again, she knew people.
And then, finally, I danced with Bree.
The band was playing a slow one. The string lights cast everything in gold. She had her forehead pressed to my chest, her hands on my shoulders, her pregnant belly between us making every step an adventure.
“We did it,” she murmured.
“You did most of it. I just showed up in the right suit.”
“We’re married.”
She looked up at me with her veil crooked and eight months of our kid between us, and I’d never in my life been more certain of anything.
“Again.”
“For real this time.”
“No contract, no clause. Just us.”
I pulled her closer, as close as her belly would allow. Around us, the town was singing along to the music, badly and beautifully.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too.”
“I’m going to say that every day for the rest of our lives.”
“I’m counting on it.”
She shifted against me, and I felt her go still.
“Rafael.”
“Hmm?”
“I think my water just broke.”
I stopped moving. Looked down.
There was liquid on the dance floor.
“Your water broke.”
I heard the words leave my mouth, flat and useless. Behind us the band was still playing. My brain, which had once run billion-dollar models in real time, had gone entirely offline.
“Yes.”
“Right now.”
“Yes.”
“On the dance floor.” I heard my own voice go up an octave.
I kept asking questions I already knew the answers to. Saying them out loud was the only thing keeping me upright.
“Yes, Rafael, I’m aware of where it happened.”
I stared at her. She stared at me.
“OKAY,” I announced to the crowd. “CHANGE OF PLANS.”
The town mobilized.
I’d never seen anything like it. Within seconds, Dot was directing traffic, pointing people toward cars and clearing a path. Peter the sheriff was running to his cruiser, lights already flashing, ready to lead the convoy. Molly was grabbing the hospital bag we’d left in the farmhouse, just in case.
“Contractions?” I asked Bree.
“Starting.”
“How far apart?”
“I don’t know, I just started having them.”
If there was one part of this I could control, it was going to be the data.
“Okay. Okay. I have a stopwatch.”
“Of course you do.”
I pulled it out of my pocket. I’d been carrying it for three weeks, just in case.
Gus and Warren materialized beside us, their rivalry fully forgotten in the face of impending grandparenthood.
“We’ll follow in my truck,” Gus said.
“We’ll come too,” Warren added.
“There’s room for both of you in the bed,” Bree said through gritted teeth. “Please stop talking and get me to the hospital.”
We got her to the hospital.
The drive was fifteen minutes, but it felt like three hours. Bree squeezed my hand so hard I thought bones might break. The contractions were coming faster, closer together. In the back of my mind, I was tracking and timing.
Six minutes apart.
Then five.
Then four.
“We’re here,” Peter announced, pulling into the emergency bay. “Told dispatch to have a team ready.”
Nurses appeared with a wheelchair. Bree was transferred, whisked away, and I was running alongside, refusing to let go of her hand.
“Sir, you can’t-”
“I’m her husband.”
“Sir-” The nurse put a hand on my chest.
“I JUST MARRIED HER. THREE HOURS AGO. I’M NOT LEAVING.”
They let me stay.
The labor was fast and intense. Bree swore at me in three languages, one of which I was pretty sure she’d invented on the spot. The medical team moved with calm efficiency. I held her hand and told her she was doing amazing and tried not to pass out from the size of the miracle.
At 12:17 a.m., our son was born.
He came into the world screaming, furious at the indignity of existence, red-faced and beautiful and perfect.
“He’s got a good set of lungs,” the doctor observed.
“He’s got his mother’s eyes,” I said.
It was true. Even through the newborn squint, I could see it. Green. Bree’s green, bright and vivid and full of life.
They placed him on Bree’s chest. She was crying. I was crying. The baby was still screaming.
“Hi,” Bree said to him. “Hi, baby. I’m your mom.”
He stopped crying. Looked at her with those green eyes.
“That’s better,” she said. “Let’s not do the screaming thing too much, okay?”
The door opened. Rosie burst in, followed by what felt like every relative we had.
“Is that my brother?” She climbed onto the bed without asking, peering at the baby with intense curiosity. “He’s very small.”
“Babies are small,” I said.
“Was I that small?”
“Yes.”
“Weird.” She reached out and touched his hand. His tiny fingers curled around hers. “I like him.”
“Good,” Bree said. “Because he’s staying.”
The room filled with family. Both sets of grandparents, crowding around to see the baby. Molly, crying in the corner. The nurses, trying to clear people out and failing completely.
Eventually, the chaos settled. The visitors were ushered out. Rosie fell asleep on my chest, exhausted by the excitement.
And then it was just us.
Bree, wrecked and triumphant, holding our son.
Rosie, snoring softly against my shoulder.
Me, in my wedding suit, still wearing my boutonniere, surrounded by the family I’d almost lost and somehow been granted a second chance to keep.
“We need a name,” Bree said quietly.
“I have a list.”
“Ranked, I assume.”
“It’s very comprehensive. I ranked them by syllable count, cultural significance, and potential nickname implications.”
She laughed. The sound was exhausted and happy.
“We can decide tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight, let’s just look at him.”
I looked.
At the boy the old deal had wanted so badly. The heir the contract had specified. The male child who was supposed to inherit Grant Foods and carry on the family legacy.
“You know,” I said, “according to the original agreement, this baby would’ve been everything to them. The reason for all of it. The prize.”
“I remember.”
“My father spent thirty years building an empire for a grandson to inherit.”
“I remember that too.”
I looked at my son. At his mother’s eyes in his tiny face. At his sister asleep on my chest. At the woman I’d married twice, once for business and once for love.
“He inherits nothing but us,” I said quietly. “The company will go to whoever runs it best. The money will go wherever it does the most good. But him?” I reached out, touched his hand the way Rosie had. “He just gets us. This family. This life.”
Bree’s eyes were wet.
“Lucky kid,” I whispered.
She leaned her head against my shoulder.
Our son slept in her arms.
Our daughter slept on my chest.
And outside the window, the sun was starting to rise on the first day of the rest of our lives.