26. Az
— ? —
Az
The harvest is done.
It shouldn’t feel like such a victory. It’s just flowers, just a farm, just the same thing that’s happened every year since my grandmother planted the first dahlia sixty years ago.
But standing here on the porch as the last of the volunteers pack up their cars, watching the barn overflow with carefully sorted blooms, I feel like I won something.
Or maybe I just feel like I survived something.
“That’s the last of the leftovers in the fridge,” Wren says, emerging from the house looking exhausted. “You’re going to be eating questionable potato-based dishes for the next month.”
“My kingdom for a salad.”
“There’s a salad in there somewhere. It’s mostly mayonnaise, but it has lettuce, so it counts.”
I laugh, and it hurts a little, my ribs are taking up real estate I don’t have anymore, but it’s worth it. “Thanks for being here.”
“Please. Like I was going to miss the annual dahlia chaos. Besides, Abbie said Eleanor needed to see a working farm. Very educational. She napped through the whole thing.”
“Sounds about right.”
The last car pulls out, headlights cutting through the dusk.
Roz and Hank left an hour ago with promises to call when they get home; Abbie and Grayson are asleep in the guest room, Eleanor miraculously quiet for once.
Dez is still around somewhere, doing the security things he does.
And Eli is standing at the edge of the porch, looking out at the freshly cut rows with his jaw set.
I walk over to him, settle myself against the railing beside him.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“They’re worth at least a nickel.”
“Inflation’s a bitch.”
He laughs, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Dez saw a truck earlier. On the county road. It came back twice. Left whenever the deputy approached.”
“Oh.”
“It’s gone now. Could be nothing.”
“Could be.”
We stand there in silence for a moment. The stars are coming out, one by one, like someone’s slowly turning on the lights. In the distance, Goat Elliot makes a noise that might be contentment or might be judgment. With that goat, you never know.
“You should sleep,” Eli says. “Long day. You need rest.”
“I’m fine.” I’m not.
“You’re thirty-six weeks pregnant and you’ve been on your feet since dawn.”
“I sat down. Several times. I’m very good at sitting.” I stifle a yawn that undercuts me.
“Az.”
“Eli.”
He sighs, that long-suffering sound I used to find annoying and now find almost comforting in its familiarity. “At least come inside. It’s getting cold.”
“In a minute.” I look out at the fields, at the rows of leaves and cut stems where hundreds of blooms were this morning. “I want to remember this.”
“Remember what?”
“Today. All of it. The chaos and the potluck and your dad’s mobile and-” I stop, because my throat is doing something inconvenient. “The way it felt. Having everyone here. Having you here. I want to remember it so I can tell her someday.”
“Tell her what?”
“That this is where she comes from. Not the famous dad or the money or any of that. This. A farm in Ojai and a valley that shows up when it looks like rain.”
He doesn’t answer. Then his hand finds mine, and our fingers lace together like they’ve done it a thousand times before.
Because they have.
Later
The house is quiet. Abbie and Grayson are asleep in their room; I heard Eleanor fuss once and then settle, that particular magic of exhausted parents.
Dez is somewhere outside, doing one last perimeter check.
Wren crashed on the pull-out couch an hour ago, complaining about being single and surrounded by couples with babies.
And Eli is on the porch swing, guitar in his lap, not playing.
I find him there because I know him. Because even after everything, I still know where to look.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask, settling down beside him.
“Could ask you the same thing.”
“I have a small human pressing on my bladder. What’s your excuse?”
He smiles, but it fades quickly. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
“Tell me about it.”
I lean back against the swing, let it rock gently. The chains creak in that particular rhythm I’ve known my whole life. Grandma June used to sit here in the mornings, drinking coffee, watching the sun come up. I used to think it was boring. Now I understand.
“You were my seat,” I say.
Eli goes still. “What?”
“Before the seat. Before this swing or any chair or anywhere else I’ve ever sat.” I take a breath, try to find the words I’ve been carrying for months. “You were where I sat. Where I landed. Where I felt-” I stop, frustrated. “This is coming out wrong.”
“Keep going.”
“I’m trying to say that you were home. Before I even knew I needed one. You were the place I came back to. The person who made everywhere feel like somewhere.” My eyes are stinging. Stupid pregnancy hormones. “And you gave that away.”
His hand tightens on the guitar neck. “I know.”
“You let her in. You let her have pieces of us. Pieces of you that were supposed to be mine.”
“I know.”
“I thought-” My voice breaks, but I keep going. “I thought I wasn’t enough. I thought the baby wasn’t enough. I thought you wanted something I couldn’t give you, and she could, and I was just-”
“Az.”
“Let me finish.” I swipe at my eyes, angry at the tears. “I’m choosing to give it back.”
He stops breathing. I can feel it, the way the air around him goes still.
“What?”
“I’m choosing to give it back. Not because I’ve forgotten.
Not because I don’t still feel it: the anger, the betrayal, the way it felt to see her in our house with her hand on your arm.
I feel all of it. Every single day.” I turn to look at him, make him see me.
“But I’m choosing. That’s what this is. That’s what love is.
It’s not forgetting. It’s not forgiving, not really.
It’s choosing, every single day, to keep choosing the person you chose. ”
“Az-”
“I love you.” The words come out rough, scraped raw.
“I’ve loved you since that stupid night at the bar when you couldn’t figure out how to talk to me.
I’ve loved you for seven years, through the empty bars and then the tours and interviews and strangers knowing your face better than I did.
I’ve loved you through nights when you didn’t come home and mornings when I woke up alone.
And I’m going to keep loving you, because that’s what I chose, and I’m choosing it again. Right now. I’m choosing you.”
He makes a sound, not quite a word, not quite a sob, something in between that breaks my heart all over again. The guitar slides off his lap, forgotten, and then his arms are around me, and I’m holding him while he shakes.
“I don’t deserve this,” he says into my hair.
“Probably not.” But I don’t let go.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to-”
“I know.” My voice is thick.
“I love you. I love you so much it scares me. I’ve never been scared of anything the way I’m scared of losing you.”
“Then don’t lose me.” I pull back, cup his face in my hands. “It’s that simple. Don’t lose me.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise.”
“I promise. I swear. On everything I am, everything I have, everything I’ll ever be-”
I kiss him to make him stop talking, and then I keep kissing him until the porch swing creaks a complaint and I draw him closer by the front of his shirt.
His mouth tastes like relief. Mine tastes like the speech I finally dragged out of my chest. The stars keep turning on overhead like someone approved our paperwork.
“Inside,” I say against his lips. “Grandma June’s room. Lock the door. I don’t care who hears. I want to feel like us again, loud enough that the house remembers what we sound like when we’re not at war.”
“Az, are you sure? You’re thirty-six weeks and I don’t want-”
“I’ve never been surer.” I fist his shirt. “On top. You under me so I’m comfortable. Hands on the belly the whole time. Mouth wherever it fits. And if Wren bangs on the wall, we take it as a standing ovation and a performance review.”
He laughs, watery and undone, forehead dropping to mine for one more breath of porch air. “Performance review. God, I missed your brain.”
“Miss my body too. Prove it.”
He lets me tug him through the quiet house.
Abbie and Grayson’s door is shut on exhausted sleep.
Eleanor’s monitor glows a sleepy green on the hall table.
Dez is somewhere on the perimeter pretending the harvest party ended clean.
We slip into Grandma June’s room, lavender and old wood and the four-poster that has held more Moore women through more weather than I can count, and I turn the skeleton key in the lock until it clicks like a bolt thrown home.
“Locked,” I announce.
“Fortress mode engaged.” He’s already shrugging out of his shirt, eyes too bright, chest heaving like he ran here from another life. “Tell me if anything hurts. Tell me if we need to stop. Tell me-”
“Eli.” I peel my dress up and off before nerves can invent an exit. “I just told you I love you on a porch swing after months of scorched-earth silence. The next sentence is: fuck me like you believe every scratched-raw word.”
Something in him breaks open and rebuilds itself as purpose.
He crosses the room in two strides, cups my face in those huge careful hands, and kisses me soft, then less soft, then hungry, walking me backward until the backs of my knees hit the mattress.
I sit. He kneels between my thighs like prayer and apology share a posture.
Moonlight stripes us both in silver through the old lace curtains.
“I believe it,” he whispers against my sternum as he helps me out of the rest, bra, underwear, the dignity I don’t need tonight. “I believe every word. Let me show you with my mouth before you ride me. Let me worship the body that carried us through hell.”
“Yes. Then loud. Then again if my hips allow. Then we sleep like people who fixed something.”