Epilogue
Bree
The market was packed.
Saturday morning, and the front field of Salazar Farm was alive with people, produce, and the particular chaos that came from a community that had decided to show up.
The market had moved out here after the rebuild, the town’s idea rather than mine, and my stall stood in its usual spot by the gate, loaded with tomatoes and lettuce and the sweet peppers that had become our signature.
The air smelled like fresh bread from the bakery booth and the faint green scent of vegetables warmed by the morning sun.
Children ran between the stalls, dodging their parents, chasing each other around the new barn.
The bluegrass band had set up on the porch, filling the field with fiddle music that made everyone’s steps a little lighter.
I wasn’t running it today. Martha and Ruth had taken over, bickering cheerfully about optimal vegetable arrangement while customers lined up.
“The tomatoes go in front,” Martha insisted. “They’re the star of the show.”
“The peppers have more color. Color draws the eye.”
“The tomatoes are red. Red is a color,” Martha said, rearranging them anyway.
“The peppers are red, yellow, and orange. That’s three colors.”
“Since when do you know anything about marketing?”
“Since I started outselling you at the church bake sale.”
I left them to it. They’d been having this argument for months. It was practically a performance art piece at this point.
I was watching my husband lose his mind on a work call.
Rafael was in the farmhouse kitchen, visible through the window, pacing with his phone pressed to his ear and our son strapped to his chest. James was thirteen months old now, with my green eyes and his father’s stubborn jaw, and he was currently chewing on the collar of Rafael’s shirt with complete dedication.
The carrier was one of those ergonomic ones that Rafael had researched for three weeks before purchasing. He’d read reviews. He’d compared weight distributions. He’d made a spreadsheet of pros and cons for each model. The man didn’t make parenting decisions lightly.
“That works for me,” Rafael was saying into the phone, “but the growers get paid fairly, and I want that part in writing before anyone signs. If the numbers don’t leave room for the people who actually grow the food, then the numbers are wrong.”
James made a sound of displeasure and grabbed for the phone.
“Not yet, buddy. Daddy’s working.”
More phone-grabbing. More displeasure sounds. James had strong opinions about being ignored, even briefly. He’d inherited that from both of us.
“Can you hold for one second?” Rafael didn’t wait for an answer. He muted the call, set the phone on the counter, and turned his full attention to our son. “What’s wrong? Are you hungry? Tired? Existentially unsatisfied with the state of global agriculture?”
James responded by pulling himself up on Rafael’s shirt and taking a step.
Then another.
Then a third.
Rafael’s eyes went wide.
“brEE!” His voice carried across the yard, cutting through the market noise, the fiddle music, the chatter of neighbors. “brEE, HE’S WALKING!”
I was already running.
A display of peppers went over in my haste. Ruth yelled after me. I didn’t hear it. I was sprinting across the yard.
I burst through the kitchen door just in time to see James take two more wobbly steps before sitting down hard on his padded bottom. He looked up at us with an expression of profound confusion, unable to figure out what his legs had just done.
The kitchen was warm. Sunlight streamed through the windows. James sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the scattered remnants of his earlier snack, looking between us with those green eyes that still caught me off guard every time.
“He walked,” Rafael said. His voice was strangled. “He walked. Our son just walked.”
“I saw.”
“He’s walking.”
“I saw, Rafael.”
“We need to document this.” He grabbed his phone, fumbled with it, realized he was still on the conference call. “Oh, shit.”
He unmuted.
“I need to call you back. My son just took his first steps. This is a family emergency.”
I heard voices protesting on the other end. Quarterly projections and time-sensitive decisions, from the sound of it. Someone mentioned a deadline. Someone else mentioned shareholders.
“The board can wait,” Rafael said firmly. “I’ll call you Monday.”
He hung up.
The phone clattered onto the counter. Rafael didn’t even look at it. His entire focus was on James, on our son, on this moment that would never happen again.
Then he dropped to his knees in front of James and held out his arms.
“Can you do it again, buddy? Can you walk to Daddy?”
James considered this, looked at me, then looked at Rafael. Chewed thoughtfully on his fist for a moment, deliberating with the gravity of a tiny judge.
Made a decision.
He pulled himself up using the kitchen chair. His small hands gripped the wood while his legs wobbled. He steadied himself.
Took one step, then another, then a third.
He made it all the way to Rafael’s arms before collapsing into them with a squeal of triumph.
Rafael was crying.
I was crying too, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
“He’s a genius,” Rafael declared, lifting James above his head. James giggled, delighted by the sudden elevation. “He’s the smartest baby who ever lived. He’s going to win the Nobel Prize.”
“He took six steps.”
“Six extraordinary steps. Revolutionary steps. Steps that will change the course of human history.”
James grabbed Rafael’s nose.
“Also, he has excellent grip strength,” Rafael added, his voice slightly muffled by the tiny fingers squeezing his nostrils.
I laughed. Crossed the kitchen. Let Rafael pull me into a hug that included both of them, our son sandwiched between us, giggling at the attention.
James reached up and patted my face with a sticky hand. I didn’t mind. I’d stopped minding sticky hands about thirteen months ago.
“I love you,” Rafael said, muffled against my hair.
“You’re squishing the baby.”
“I love our genius baby,” he added.
“He’s not a genius. He’s thirteen months old.”
“He’s a genius and I’m putting it in the spreadsheet.”
He had a spreadsheet. Of course he had a spreadsheet. Tracking James’s developmental milestones, comparing them to averages, annotating the margins with his own observations. He’d done the same thing with Rosie’s data, retroactively, once he’d gotten access to the records Molly had helped me keep.
Our children were thoroughly documented.
“You know,” I said, “most fathers just take videos.”
“Videos are subjective. Spreadsheets are science.”
“You’re impossible,” I said, and meant it fondly.
“You married me twice. What does that say about you?”
“That I’m a slow learner.”
He grinned. James grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled.
The back door banged open.
“MOM!” Rosie came running in, her hair escaping its braid in all directions. She was breathing hard, having sprinted the whole way from the market stalls. “Mom, you’ll never guess what happened!”
“What happened?”
“My show-and-tell went viral!”
I blinked. “Your show-and-tell went viral?”
“Emma’s mom filmed it and put it on the internet and now a million people have seen it!” Rosie was vibrating with excitement, bouncing on her toes, her words tumbling over each other. “I’m famous!”
“What was your show-and-tell about?”
“Dad’s pig subordinate.”
I looked at Rafael. He shrugged. James continued chewing on Rafael’s collar, unconcerned with pig-related developments.
“You told your class about Butterbean?” he asked.
“I told them about how you trained him to follow you everywhere and how he screams when he sees you and how he’s basically your employee now. I said he has a job reporting to you about farm security.” Rosie pulled out her tablet, already navigating to the video with practiced speed. “Look!”
The video was, indeed, viral. It showed Rosie standing in front of her first-grade class, earnestly explaining the organizational structure of our farm, with special emphasis on “my dad’s pig subordinate” and the “duties and responsibilities” she’d invented for Butterbean.
She’d drawn a chart. An actual organizational chart, with boxes and lines and job titles. Butterbean was listed as “Head of Security (Pig Division)” with a dotted line reporting to “Dad (Farm Operations).”
The comments were overwhelmingly positive. People thought it was adorable. Several people had made memes. One comment just said “I need a pig subordinate” with a thousand likes.
“I’m going to be on the news,” Rosie announced. “Emma’s mom said a producer called.”
“No news,” I said firmly.
“But-”
“No news. We’re private people who live a quiet life.”
“We have a pig subordinate, Mom. That’s not quiet.”
She had a point.
Rafael was scrolling through the comments, his expression cycling between pride and horror. “This one says they want to hire Butterbean for their company’s security team.”
“Tell them he’s not available,” I said. “He’s under exclusive contract.”
“This one wants to know if we offer pig subordinate training seminars.”
“Absolutely not.”
“This one-” Rafael stopped. Grinned. “This one says you’re the best mom in the world for letting your daughter bring farm organizational charts to school.”
Rosie beamed. “See? The internet agrees.”
“The internet isn’t a parenting resource.”
“The internet has spoken, Mom.”
I gave up. Some battles weren’t worth fighting.
The market ran until noon. I worked the stall for the last hour, catching up with neighbors, accepting compliments on the tomatoes, answering questions about the new greenhouse we were building.
“Heard about the video,” Dot said, stopping by on her coffee rounds. “Your girl’s famous now.”
“Apparently.”
“My nephew in California sent it to me. Said it was all over his feed.” She shook her head, grinning. “Pig subordinate. Only in Marigold.”
The self-defense class had a waiting list now. Three towns over, women were driving in to learn how to throw someone twice their size. Martha had become my assistant instructor. She was terrifyingly good at it.