Chapter 38 Dandelion Farm
DANDELION FARM
Brendan
I’d been to Vermont plenty of times. Learned to ski near the Canadian border, gone to business retreats in the Green Mountains, even passed through Woodstock, Simone’s hometown, a time or two without a thought for the people who lived there. Bought a business or two in Burlington.
But as I drove the Range Rover down the winding main street of the tiny colonial town, I felt like I was seeing the place anew.
I still didn’t understand why I’d agreed to do this.
I’d walked into my apartment yesterday morning after the meeting with Huntington with a heavy heart, knowing that despite retrieving Simone’s niece, I was going to have to tell her that the trade would cost her family everything else.
And then I’d taken one look at Simone and the truth had hit me in the face like a knockout punch:
I loved her.
Not in the immature way of a teenage boy or with the fleeting infatuation that typically matched an acquaintance of just a few weeks.
I loved this woman with every cell of energy, every drop of madness, every obsessive instinct I’d ever had.
So it followed that, after I was wrung out from laying my soul at her feet in all the ways my words couldn’t manage, I would have given Simone Bishop the fucking moon if she’d asked for it.
A trip to meet her dad seemed like a minor ask in comparison.
Maybe I thought that coming here would help me find a way to tell her what I’d done.
Or maybe it would give me an idea on how to undo it.
Woodstock was exactly the kind of town that would nurture someone like Simone.
White-trimmed colonial brick buildings lined the town’s main street with restaurants and artisan shops that catered to the weekend tourists, but the rest of the town spilled into the farmland and verdant mountains, a tight-knit community that was gradually giving way to wealthy vacationers.
I knew at least five people with second homes out here. It never occurred to me that I could, or maybe should, be one of them.
Until now.
“Turn left at the end of the street.”
Simone sat in the passenger seat, drumming her fingers against her thigh as I followed her direction onto a narrow road dividing a wood of maples and oaks. Her nervous energy matched mine, though I wasn’t sure why.
“Another mile down, and then right at the fork.”
I reached over the gearshift and stilled her fingers. “All right?”
Maybe we shouldn’t have left Boston so quickly after her niece’s return. I couldn’t lie—I’d been more than happy to leave Simone’s good-for-nothing sister in the care of Ruth. But Simone had been jittery since we’d left the city limits.
Even her smile, normally so warm and easy, was tight. “It’s been a while since I was home.”
“I thought you helped to take care of the place.”
“I do. With money, mostly. It’s…hard to come back here the way it is.” The hand I hadn’t captured started drumming on her thigh. “I paid the back taxes with the money you gave me, but the mortgage company says I can’t finish paying the rest of the debt without my dad. I’m not sure why.”
Guilt churned in my stomach. I knew exactly why that was, actually. The NDAs that had gone along with the contracts with Huntington precluded communication with the owners for two weeks.
I had to tell her what was happening.
I just didn’t know how to start.
A weathered wooden sign appeared around a copse of fir trees: Dandelion Farm - Est. 1847. The paint was faded, the wood gray with age, but something about it felt permanent in a way that most things in my life never had.
Simone directed me down a gravel drive that wound between split-rail fences and pastures dotted with grazing brown cows.
“Jerseys,” Simone said as one of them gave a great moo. “They produce the most milk fat. It’s really good for making cheese.”
The drive wound in front of a farmhouse that looked right out of a Winslow Homer painting, with white clapboard siding, black shutters, and a wide porch that wrapped around the front and side.
Signs of neglect blemished the place, but all of it seemed more recent, as opposed to a home that had been left to rot for decades.
According to the sign, the Bishops had cared for this property for nearly two hundred years.
It was only recently that the roof had been left to moss, the shutters allowed to peel, and the vegetable garden abandoned to weeds.
The result of grief, according to Simone.
And yet, there was a sense of peace here too, evident in the way Simone’s hands stilled at last.
“Home,” she said softly.
It was like someone had strummed a chord deep inside me. The same reverberation I’d felt every time I’d seen her in the kitchen or when she walked into a room.
And now here.
I parked next to a battered pickup and followed Simone toward the house.
The front door opened before we reached the porch, and a slight man emerged with wispy salt-and-pepper hair and shoulders stooped from years of labor.
While the remnants of his once-dark hair were a contrast to Simone’s bright halo, their eyes were the same vibrant blue, though his were lined by grief and age.
Even so, they brightened the moment he saw his daughter.
“There’s my buttercup,” he called as he held out his arms.
Simone ran straight up the steps and into them. Something in my chest constricted, as if I could feel her happiness too.
Fuck, was this what love did? Made all the feelings catching?
I barely had time for these new ones I was just starting to acknowledge.
“Who’s this?” the man asked once he let her go.
“Dad, this is Brendan. He’s my…fiancé. The one I told you about on the phone. Brendan, this is my dad, Ryland Bishop.”
It didn’t escape me how she stumbled over the word.
I hated that she was so uncertain.
I hated that she had to lie at all.
“Brendan. Pleasure.” Ryland’s handshake was firm and calloused from years of farm labor.
Simone made her father out to be a pushover, but I had a feeling that once upon a time, the guy was anything but.
“Good to meet you as well,” I said.
“And you. Simone’s told me a lot about you, son.”
I wondered what exactly she’d said. Probably not that I was the bastard who took advantage of his farm’s misfortune for profit.
He turned to Simone. “Well, you wanna see the girls? Delilah just gave birth last week.”
Simone’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oh, yes.”
The “girls” turned out to be the dairy cows, and visiting them required borrowing a pair of heavy rubber boots kept in the great barn next to the farmhouse.
We walked around the pastures where most of the herd was currently grazing, then made our way back to the barn, where the new mother and her calf were resting in a stall.
I could see what Simone had meant about her father’s depression.
There was a listlessness to Ryland Bishop, a man going through motions.
The only time he perked up was when his daughter spoke, but even then, another shadow entered his expression.
A yearning that made me suspect Simone and her sister looked a lot like their mother.
“What did you name him?” Simone tenderly stroked the new calf’s ears.
“Five. He’s the fifth this year.” Ryland shrugged. “Names felt kind of pointless, you know? He’ll just go to the slaughterhouse or be sold to a breeder.”
Disappointment crumpled Simone’s face, but she quickly masked it with a smile for the calf.
“How about…Ferdinand?” she asked as he leaned into her touch. “You seem like a lover, not a fighter. Maybe we’ll keep you around.”
“No point,” Ryland said. “There are only two dairies left in Woodstock. No one left to lease a bull.”
“Dad, you have to go outside Windsor County,” Simone countered.
“There are plenty of farms closer to Burlington or even in New Hampshire and Maine who would be interested. You just have to do a little bit of marketing. Let the vets know about this little guy. No one is going to lease a bull if they don’t know you have him. ”
Ryland grunted. Simone rolled her eyes before she left to greet the other cows in the barn.
“How long since your wife passed?” I asked once Simone stepped out of earshot.
Ryland turned, like he’d just remembered I was there. “Twenty years this fall.”
Eighteen years. Jesus. That meant Simone had been her family’s emotional support system since she was eight.
Christ, who put that kind of pressure on a child?
But also, who mourned like this for close to two decades?
Wouldn’t you?
My own conscience spoke as I watched Simone offering a treat to the calf’s mother. The light in the barn was dim, but she seemed to glow here with belonging. Just the idea of losing that light made my chest constrict again.
Why in the fuck had I been so cavalier when asking for a change in our relationship?
I didn’t want to “see how this goes.” Date casually while maintaining a farce to the outside world.
I wanted her for life, not just for dinner. Wanted the ring on her finger to be for real.
I was head over fucking heels in love with the woman.
And right now I was finding it difficult to breathe.
Because just as quickly, another realization hit me: I loved her, but I was also going to destroy her. Or, when she realized what I’d done to her beloved home, I was going to break her heart.
We spent a bit more time with the cows before Simone wanted to show me around the house.
Just like the rest of the farm, it was obvious that once upon a time, this place had been loved with generations-spanning plank floors, kitchen cabinets that might have been just as old, and tall ceilings and leaded windows that let in the light of spring.
Ryland settled onto a faded floral couch in front of a TV to watch the Sox game.
Simone looked confused. “Dad, don’t you have work to do? One of the barn doors needs welding, and I noticed the north fence needs to be patched.”
Ryland waved over the back of the sofa. “It’ll wait. I want to check the score.”