Chapter 22
Rebecca found Cort out in the yard, where the vegetable patch sprawled across the back corner of his property.
Even in the dark, she could see the hulking orange shape of the giant pumpkin, like a wagon-sized jewel waiting to be polished for the fair.
Its smooth surface glowed faintly under the porch light, the color so bright it looked as though it was a captured piece of sunset from earlier.
“Wow,” Rebecca said. “That thing’s the size of a small car. It could be Cinderella’s carriage.”
“Right? I do think there’s something magic about giants.
And this is the biggest one we’ve ever managed,” Cort said, dragging an old tarp across the lawn.
“But it’s also the most fragile. One hard frost and…
poof. Dreams of first place are gone. Pip would be devastated.
We got second place last year, and this year he thinks we really have a shot at number one. ”
“What’s the prize?” Rebecca asked.
“A ribbon,” Cort said with a smile. “Bragging rights. A deep sense of giant pumpkin pride.”
“Definitely worth striving for,” Rebecca said, smiling back, helping him spread the tarp over the pumpkin.
“And the peppers?” she asked, pointing to the line of tall, spindly plants dotted with glossy red fruit.
“They get the blanket treatment, too.” He nodded toward a stack of folded quilts. “No tarp for them. Too delicate.” He raised an eyebrow as she stifled a laugh. “You think I’m kidding.”
“No. I can tell you’re very serious,” she said. “This is a side of you I never imagined seeing, back in high school.”
“What can I say? I’ve changed.”
Together they tucked quilts around the pepper plant stems, the chill in the air making Rebecca’s fingers stiff. Cort glanced up at her, his face shadowed but his eyes glinting with humor.
“Didn’t think you’d be spending your Monday night babysitting produce, did you?”
“Honestly?” she said, hugging her arms against the cold. “This is fun.”
“Want to stick around a little longer? We usually have a fire, roast marshmallows.”
“I’d love to.”
Headlights swung across the lawn then, and Melanie’s car pulled up. She waved but didn’t get out of the car. Moments later, his mother pulled away and Pip bounded up the driveway, backpack bouncing against his shoulders, his eyes wide. But his grin when he saw their progress was even wider.
He spotted Rebecca and his smile turned shy. “Hi, Becca. I didn’t know you were helping.”
“Couldn’t let your dad face the Great Pumpkin Crisis alone,” she said.
Cort chuckled. “Let’s keep this pumpkin alive.”
The three of them fussed with the coverings, Pip darting in with a flashlight to check for “frost leaks,” Rebecca smoothing the tarp, Cort securing the corners with bricks.
At one point, Rebecca and Cort ended up crouched side by side, their shoulders pressed together as they adjusted the edge of the blanket.
She felt the warmth of him seep through the chill night, and when she glanced up, his eyes were already on her.
“Looks good,” he said softly, though he wasn’t looking at the pumpkin, and she felt unmoored again.
Then Pip’s voice broke the moment. “Okay,” he declared, hands on his hips. “Pumpkin fortress is complete.”
Cort ruffled his son’s hair. “Good work, team.”
Rebecca brushed dirt from her palms. “Now what?”
Cort glanced at Pip. “What do you think? Do we recruit her for the full campout experience?”
“We do this at least once every year,” Pip said. He unzipped his backpack to reveal marshmallows and a flashlight. “Mom gave me these. Supplies.”
Cort had pulled a Solo Stove out from under yet another tarp. “Important piece of equipment. Keeps the pumpkin warm and toasts the marshmallows. Pumpkin watch is serious business.”
Pip beamed as though this was the best night of his life as his dad lit the fire, outside of the tarps and blankets. Then they sat around it, chatting and toasting marshmallows on sticks Cort had gathered. Rebecca asked Pip to tell her all about last year’s pumpkin.
“I think it deserved to win,” he said. “But the winning pumpkin didn’t have any spots at all.
It was just pure orange—like this one is.
” Now he frowned. “Which is why we have to take good care of it tonight.” He stood up from his camping chair and shone his flashlight over the patch.
“Now we stand guard,” he said solemnly, turning his back to them.
The firelight caught Rebecca’s amused smile and Cort’s raised brows. “Frost won’t dare mess with us.”
“Should we take shifts?” Rebecca asked, settling onto one of the blankets Cort had spread across the lawn.
Pip dropped beside her, shaking his head. “Nope. It’s better if we all stay awake together. That way the pumpkin knows it’s safe.”
“Well, actually,” Cort said, his tone firm but gentle. “Some people have school tomorrow, so at least some sleep is important, remember? We talk about this every year.”
Pip rolled his eyes, but soon he was yawning. “Will you make sure the pumpkin understands it’s safe, all night long?” he murmured as he started to drift off.
“Of course,” Cort said gently, tucking a second quilt over him. “I’ll tell it every hour.” Then he glanced at Rebecca. “It’s all very scientific.”
“You both have to stay,” he mumbled. “In case one of you falls asleep. You have to take shifts. Do you promise?”
Rebecca glanced at Cort. “You don’t have to,” he mouthed, but she shook her head. “Of course, Pip,” she said. “I promise.”
“Here,” Cort said, laying a puffy quilt on the ground, then handing her a sleeping bag.
She snuggled into hers and looked up at the sky.
The fire crackled in the crisp autumn night.
Just past the edge of the tarp, the stars stretched in endless patterns.
A firefly blinked once, then disappeared into the darkness.
Cort laid his own quilt and sleeping bag down beside her, got inside, and put his hands behind his head as he gazed up at the sky.
Silence settled over the garden. He was a few feet away, but she could still feel the warmth of him—and suddenly, it made her shiver.
He looked at her. “You’re freezing,” he said.
“No, I’m…” But she didn’t know how to describe what she was feeling.
Flustered, she sat up, ostensibly to check on the pumpkin, to keep her promise to Pip.
She focused on the hulking orange shape, listened to Pip’s even breaths.
There was the rustle of leaves, the crackle of the tarp shifting in the breeze.
She felt her heart settle and her own breathing return to normal.
Then she heard Cort sliding out of his sleeping bag and standing up.
He nodded toward her sleeping bag, then his.
“We could zip them together,” he said. “They hold heat better that way.”
She looked up at him, then slid out of her own sleeping bag, murmuring an “Okay.”
The zipper made a soft, steady sound as he joined the bags, and when they slid inside, the shared warmth was immediate.
Rebecca let out a quiet breath. “That helps. I guess I was a bit cold.”
“I could tell,” he said, a faint smile in his voice.
They lay side by side, shoulders just brushing, both staring up at the sky. Pip’s breathing was steady nearby, the fire crackling low.
After a moment, Rebecca said, “Your place is beautiful.”
He turned his head slightly. “The house?”
“All of it,” she said. “The house, yes. The garden.” She hesitated, then added, “You’ve built something really good here.”
He was quiet for a beat. When he spoke, his voice was thoughtful. “It’s nice to hear that. When Melanie and I split up, I honestly didn’t know what single-dad life was going to look like for me.”
Rebecca turned her head toward him and could smell the sharp mint of his breath.
“My parents’ divorce knocked my dad completely off-balance,” Cort went on.
“He loved us, but he never quite found his footing again. And when it happened to me, all of a sudden, I understood him. How hard it is to hold things together when what you pictured just…well, it’s not what you pictured anymore. ”
The fire popped softly. Pip shifted in his sleep.
“But I also knew I didn’t want Pip growing up feeling like he was living out of a suitcase,” Cort said. “Like he had two houses but no real home. I wanted him to feel settled. Like wherever he was, he belonged.”
Rebecca’s throat tightened. “I get that,” she said. “Lenore gave that to me—a sense of belonging, even if I didn’t have parents. I know it was so important to her.”
He exhaled, slow and thoughtful. “It isn’t easy being a kid. It’s good to have adults in your life who get that, who care, right? Who don’t put their own happiness in front of yours—because really, in the end, with a family that works, it’s all the same happiness.”
Rebecca found herself smiling into the darkness. “It’s all the same happiness,” she repeated. Then: “You’re a good dad, Cort,” she added.
“That means a lot, Rebecca. It’s my most important job.
Thank you.” They lay there in silence after that, but it felt like companionship, not awkward or empty.
The night pressed in around them, and for the first time in a long while, Rebecca felt the urge to stop bracing herself for what might come next.
Instead, she let herself go a little, and as she relaxed, their shoulders touched. Neither of them moved away.
“I don’t really know what that’s like,” Rebecca said after a moment. “Having a dad. So maybe I’m not an expert. But I do think I understand what it means to be a good parent. I always had an anchor, and that’s what it is, right? Being steady and constant.”
She felt him nod beside her. Now his arm was against hers.
She wasn’t sure who had moved closer but allowed herself to relish the warmth, the contact.
She wanted to tell him things, she realized.
Because with Cort, there always seemed to be understanding between them.
It was possible, she realized as she lay there beside him, the warmth from his body and the warmth from hers indistinguishable, that aside from Sabrina, she had never felt so comfortable, so herself, with anyone else.
She stared up at the sky and spoke again.
“I think I spent most of my life striving for what I thought I wanted because although Lenore was my anchor, I always knew it wasn’t permanent—that she wasn’t the age of a parent, that she’d be gone one day.
I wanted my life to be so steady and sure that I could survive losing my bedrock.
But…” She shook her head. “It turns out steady and sure lacks something.”
He turned his head toward her again, and she turned, too. His eyes shone silver in the flickering firelight. “You have choices, you know.”
“But what if I choose the wrong thing? What if I don’t actually know what right even feels like?”
He looked away then, turned his face toward the night sky. When he spoke, it was a low rumble through her body. “What if it feels like this?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” she found herself whispering back, and his soft chuckle echoed through her body the way his voice had.
“I think it might be the very definition of one,” he said.
Then he shifted beside her, and now their pinkies were touching.
And then their pinkies were linked. They both squeezed at the same time, and the feelings this elicited were too big for Rebecca to ignore.
But just because she wasn’t ignoring them, she told herself as calmly as she could, did not mean she had to analyze them.
So she just gazed up at the sky and let the happy, cozy feeling stay where it was, in her heart, in her mind.
“Good night, Becca,” he whispered eventually.
“Night, Cort,” she whispered back.
Just then, a star streaked across the sky, leaving a shining tail as it fell through the atmosphere. She had seen shooting stars before—but this one felt like magic, especially when Cort squeezed her pinkie again. “Did you see that?”
She smiled at the wonder in his voice—felt it, too. “I did.”
They were both silent again, their hands still connected, and Rebecca’s heart, for once, was calm and settled even if she was firmly under the influence of the Cort Adams Effect. She sighed softly, happily, and heard Cort do the same just before she closed her eyes and drifted off.