25. Eli
— ? —
Eli
Thirty-Six Weeks
I know every milestone now, every week, every day.
I’ve read the books, all of them, even the one with the cartoon vegetables on the cover that made Az laugh until she cried.
I know that at thirty-six weeks, the baby is the size of a papaya.
I know that Az’s lungs are being crushed by the increasingly aggressive papaya.
I know that any day now could technically be the day, and that thought makes me want to throw up and also run laps and also build seventeen more cribs just in case.
What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t have predicted, is that the entire valley would show up at the farm this morning because, quote, “frost was forecast after the next rain.”
“Did you plan this?” Az asks, standing on the porch with a mug of decaf she’s been nursing for an hour.
“I genuinely did not.” I hold up both hands.
“Because this feels planned.”
“How would I have planned this? I didn’t invite any of these people.” I gesture at the crowd.
“You’re Eli Jackson. You probably Venmo’d them or something.”
“I don’t even know how Venmo works. I have people for that.”
She snorts into her mug, and I feel my chest loosen a little. She’s been wound tight since the break-in, we both have, but right now, watching the chaos unfold below us, she almost looks relaxed.
The dahlia rows are full of people. They’ve got baskets and shears and ridiculous sun hats, and they’re moving through the fields with the kind of efficiency that suggests they’ve done this before. Which, apparently, they have.
“The final big cut usually takes three days,” Lupe explained this morning. “We’ve been cutting all season, but frost is coming. These blooms are promised to market buyers and florists. When the valley shows up to help, you don’t question it.”
“I’m questioning it,” I said.
“Question it quieter. I need more coffee.”
Now I’m standing next to Az, watching strangers pick flowers from a farm I still don’t fully understand, while a sheriff’s cruiser sits at the gate like the world’s most reassuring lawn ornament.
“That was Hernandez’s idea,” Az says, nodding toward the cruiser. “She said a busy day with lots of visitors was a good time for extra eyes. I didn’t argue.”
“You? Not arguing with law enforcement? Mark the calendar.” I bump her shoulder.
“I’m conserving my argumentative energy for more important battles,” she says.
“Such as?” I ask.
“Whether or not you’re allowed to hire a live-in security team when we go back to the house.”
“I feel like that should be a yes.” I keep my eyes on the crowd below.
“And I feel like that should be a conversation.”
“Conversations are good. I like conversations.” I brush my knuckles against hers.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Since when?”
“Since I started having them with you again.”
She doesn’t answer, but her mouth does something that’s not quite a smile and not quite not. I’ll take it.
Around noon, a truck I don’t recognize pulls up to the gate. The deputy in the cruiser checks something, waves them through, and I watch as two people get out.
Mom. Dad.
“Oh my God,” Az breathes.
They’re making their way toward the house, Mom with her usual determined stride and Dad carrying something large and wrapped in a moving blanket. When they get closer, I can see what it is.
A mobile.
Not a store-bought plastic thing with battery-operated music.
A hand-carved wooden mobile with little stars and moons and, when I look closer, tiny dahlias.
Each piece is painted in soft colors that match the nursery, and when my dad holds it up, the pieces spin and catch the light like something out of a dream.
“Hank carved it himself,” my mom says, hugging Az first, always Az first, which I pretend doesn’t sting and also love. “Took him two months. He kept cursing at the fiddly bits.”
“The dahlias were a nightmare,” Dad says. “All those petals. I nearly gave up six times.”
“Seven,” Mom corrects. “I was counting.”
Az is crying. Just silently, tears running down her face while she stares at this mobile my dad spent two months making. “It’s beautiful,” she manages. “It’s… I can’t-”
“You’re family,” Dad says simply. “Family shows up.”
I have to look away because I’m not going to cry in front of a field full of dahlia-picking strangers. I’m not.
Mom catches my eye anyway. Gives me that look she’s been giving me since I was six years old and broke the neighbor’s window with a baseball. The one that says I know exactly what you’re feeling and it’s okay to feel it.
I clear my throat. “Thanks, Dad.”
“You’re welcome, son.”
By three o’clock, half the rows have had their final cutting and the barn is filling up with carefully sorted flowers. People keep bringing food, covered dishes, pies, what might be enchiladas, a truly alarming amount of potato salad, and the porch has turned into an impromptu potluck.
I’m standing by the barn when another car pulls up. This one I recognize.
“Oh no,” Az mutters from somewhere behind me.
The car door opens and Abbie steps out, looking like she just stepped off a photoshoot despite the dirt road and the chaos. Then Grayson, holding Eleanor, who is wearing a tiny sunhat and appears to be very unimpressed by everything.
“We brought the baby,” Abbie calls out. “In case you forgot what they look like and needed a reference.”
“I know what babies look like,” Az calls back. “I have one gestating inside me as we speak.”
“Yeah, but does she have a designer sunhat? Didn’t think so.”
They make their way over, and there’s hugging and fussing over Eleanor and the kind of chaotic socializing that makes my skin itch. Grayson hangs back with me while the women do whatever women do when they haven’t seen each other in months.
“Good to see you,” he says, shaking my hand.
“You too. How’s the road?”
“The other tour I’m handling is fine. We’re taking a break next month. Abbie wants actual time off, can you imagine.”
“Revolutionary.”
“I know. Next she’ll be wanting regular sleep and home-cooked meals.” He pauses. “Speaking of revolutionary things.”
I tense. “Yeah?”
“Hell of a thing,” he says, voice casual, looking out at the dahlia fields. “What your husband turned down for this.”
I don’t realize at first that he’s talking to Az. She’s drifted over, Eleanor now in her arms, looking comfortable in a way that pulls my chest tight.
“The tour?” Az asks. “He told me.”
Grayson glances at me, then back at her.
“Good,” he says. “Then you know I’m still recovering from being rejected in favor of goat feed.”
“Goat feed?”
“Grayson,” I say.
“The feed store,” Grayson says. “That’s where he was when he turned me down. I could hear the goat.”
Az turns to look at me.
I shrug. “Lupe needed supplies. And you needed me here.”
For a moment she doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, holding Abbie’s baby, looking at me without giving anything away. Then her face cracks, not breaks, exactly, but shifts. Opens. Like a door that’s been stuck for months finally giving way.
“You were buying goat feed,” she says slowly. “While he was offering you a stadium tour.”
“You were thirty-one weeks pregnant. Someone had just broken into the house. It wasn’t a hard choice.”
“You made it sound like an ordinary phone call when you told me.”
“It was an ordinary phone call. Saying no doesn’t need a production budget.”
She keeps staring at me. I shift my weight, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. Eleanor makes a noise that might be agreement or might be gas.
“You were at a feed store,” Az says.
“Lupe needed supplies. I was helping.” I spread my hands.
“Helping.”
“Is there an echo out here? Yes. Helping. I carry things now. That’s my job. Chief Thing Carrier.”
“And when Grayson called-”
“I said no.” No hesitation.
“Just like that.”
“Just like that.” I take a step closer, lower my voice even though we’re surrounded by people who could probably hear anyway.
“Az. It was a tour. It was… it’s always going to be a tour.
Or a recording session. Or a premiere. Or some award thing where I stand around pretending to enjoy overcooked chicken.
But this, you, the baby, being here, I only get this once. I’m not missing it for money.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she hands Eleanor back to Abbie, who’s appeared beside us looking far too interested in this conversation.
“I need to sit down,” Az says.
“Are you okay? Is it the baby?”
“I’m fine. I just… I need to sit down.”
I take her arm, guide her toward the porch. Behind us I hear Abbie say to Grayson, “Nice work, subtle guy,” and his pained response, “I was trying to be complimentary!”
Az settles into the porch swing, one hand on her back, breathing slow and deliberate. I crouch down in front of her.
“Talk to me.”
“I’m fine. Just…” She pauses, breathes again. “Practice contractions. The book said…”
“I read the book.”
“Then you know they’re normal and I just need to breathe through them and they don’t mean anything.”
“I know what the book says. I also know that books don’t know everything and I’m getting the car-”
“Eli.” Her hand catches mine. “I’m fine. I promise. They’ve been happening for weeks. My doctor says it’s just my uterus warming up. Like stretching before a marathon.”
“That’s a horrifying metaphor.”
“Pregnancy is a horrifying miracle. I contain multitudes. Mostly heartburn and anxiety, but also multitudes.”
I laugh despite myself. “Can I at least sit with you?”
“Was I stopping you?”
I settle onto the swing beside her, and she leans against my shoulder without being asked. Her hand is still on her belly, rubbing slow circles. We call the maternity advice line anyway. After the questions and instructions, she rests and the tightening settles. I keep the number open on my phone.
I still hate them.
“Goat feed,” Az says quietly.
“It’s not about the money.”
“I know. That’s what makes it different.” She pauses. “You told me what you wanted. You didn’t ask me to choose for you.”
“I wanted to be here.” I hold her gaze.
“We can plan another tour. Later.”
“Together,” I say.
“With a calendar I actually get to see.”
“Your appointments go in first. Then we work out the dates that fit.” I lace my fingers through hers. “I want to play music, Az. I want to come home from it too.”
She doesn’t answer. Just squeezes my hand, and we sit there together, watching the chaos of the harvest unfold below us.
***
The sun is setting by the time Dez finds me.
He’s been keeping a low profile all day, helping with the flowers, making sure the gate security stays tight, doing all the invisible work that keeps things running. But now his face is serious in a way that makes my stomach clench.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
He glances around, moves us a few steps away from the nearest group of people. “There’s a truck. Showed up twice on the county road over the last two hours. Moved off each time the deputy approached.”
“Could be nothing.”
“Could be. The deputy followed it until it reached the highway. We have a partial plate and a report in. Tonight we keep the house covered.”
I look toward the gate, toward the road beyond it that I can’t quite see from here. “You think it’s her?”
“I don’t know. Could be someone lost. Could be someone who wanted to join the harvest and got too shy to actually show up. Could be-”
“Could be Brynn.”
“Yeah.” Dez’s jaw is tight. “Could be Brynn.”
I think about the nursery. The baby clothes sorted by size. The hospital bag, restocked. SEE? I’M READY.
“I’ll tell Az now,” I say. “Let me know as soon as the deputy gets back to you.”
Dez nods, claps me on the shoulder. “I’ll let you know.”
He walks away, and I look back toward the porch, where Az is laughing at something my mom said, one hand on her belly, face lit up by the last rays of sun.
A truck on the county road.
Two hours.
Watching.