9. Nora #2
Bree didn’t respond right away. She just rocked slowly in her chair, looking out at the pastures, giving me space to say more or not say more. It was a silence that didn’t demand anything, and I found myself grateful for it.
Then my stomach lurched.
The nausea came out of nowhere, the way it’d been doing for weeks now, and I barely had time to put down my tea and make it to the porch railing before I was heaving over the side.
Nothing came up except bile, but my body kept trying, spasming and shaking while I gripped the wood hard enough to leave marks.
Behind me, I heard Bree’s chair creak as she stood.
“First trimester?”
I froze. Then nodded, not trusting my voice.
She disappeared inside without another word. When she came back, she was carrying a sleeve of saltine crackers and a mug that smelled like ginger.
“Crackers first.” She pressed them into my hand. “Small bites. Then the tea. It’s ginger with a little honey, my grandmother’s recipe.”
I ate a cracker. Then another. The nausea receded slowly, leaving me wrung out and embarrassed and grateful for a stranger who wasn’t making a big deal out of any of this.
“Sorry.” I took a sip of the ginger tea and felt my stomach settle. “I’m not usually this much of a mess.”
“Please.” Bree waved a hand dismissively. “You just saved my cow and then threw up on my rosebushes. That makes us even.”
I laughed despite myself. It came out wet and a little desperate, but it was still a laugh, and Bree smiled like she’d won a bet.
“Can I say one thing?” She settled back into her chair, her green eyes thoughtful. “Might be none of my business, but June mentioned you had a hard year behind you, and I recognize that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re trying to figure out who you are now that everything you thought you knew turned out to be wrong.” Bree took a long sip of her tea. “I wore that look for a year straight when I first moved here.”
“You ran too?”
“Ran might be a strong word. More like walked very quickly in the opposite direction from a situation that was making me stupid.” She smiled, but there was history in it.
“I was engaged to someone back in college. Thought I’d spend my life with him.
Turned out he’d had different ideas about what spending a life together meant, specifically that it meant I’d give up everything I wanted so he could’ve everything he wanted. ”
“What did you do?”
“I left. Drove halfway across the country to a place I’d never been, bought a farm I couldn’t afford, and taught myself how to be a person who didn’t need anyone else’s permission to exist.” She gestured at the pastures around us. “This is what came out of it. Not perfect, but mine.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.” My voice cracked. “Build a life that’s mine. Figure out who I am when I’m not trying to fit into someone else’s life.”
“Good. That’s the work.” Bree leaned forward. “But can I give you some advice? Free with the tea?”
I nodded.
“Stop waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For anything. For him to get his head out of his ass. For you to feel ready. For the universe to send you a sign that it’s okay to take what you want.
” Her green eyes were fierce. “I wasted a year waiting to feel like I deserved my own life, and you know what I figured out? Nobody was going to give me permission. I had to grab the bull by the horns and build my best life with my own two hands. No waiting this time, no asking, just doing.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not pregnant with someone else’s baby.”
The words fell out of me, and I heard them land in the silence between us like stones hitting water.
Bree didn’t blink. “No, I’m not. But that doesn’t change the advice. Whatever you’re carrying, whoever you’re running from, the only way forward is through. Stop waiting for someone else to make this easier. Take your life by the horns and build what you want.”
I sat with that for a long moment. The ginger tea was warm in my hands, and the crackers had settled my stomach, and this stranger with the green eyes was looking at me like I was worth encouraging.
“I miss him.”
The admission came out hoarse, broken, pulled from somewhere deep.
“God help me, I miss him. I hate what he did and I hate that he couldn’t explain it and I hate that I had to leave to make him see me, but I still wake up reaching for him in the middle of the night.
I still hear his voice in my head when a call goes wrong.
I still want him to be the person I thought he was, even though I know he’s not. ”
Bree nodded like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Then make him work for it.”
“Work for it how?”
“You heard me. If you miss him, if there’s still a marriage there worth saving, make him work for it.
Don’t wait for him to figure it out on his own.
Don’t sit around hoping he’ll show up and say the right words.
Tell him what you need and watch what he does.
That’ll tell you everything you need to know. ”
“And if he doesn’t do it?”
“Then you’ll know that too.” Bree shrugged. “Either way, you stop waiting. You take control. You build your life regardless of what he decides to do with his.”
I stared at her, this woman I’d met three hours ago who had just handed me the clearest advice anyone had given me since I left. A weight was shifting inside me, one I’d been carrying without realizing it.
“Thank you.” The words felt inadequate. “For the emergency call, the crackers, the tea, the unsolicited life advice. All of it.”
“Anytime.” Bree smiled. “And the advice wasn’t unsolicited. You needed it. I could tell.”
I laughed again, easier this time. “You’re very confident in your read on total strangers.”
“I’m confident in my read on women who just threw up on my rosebushes. We’re a specific demographic.” She stood up, gathered our empty glasses. “Now go home and get some rest. Rosie’s going to be fine, and you’ve got a life to take by the horns.”
The drive back to Primrose was different from the drive out.
The dust and the potholes were the same, but I’d changed. I felt lighter. Clearer. Like I’d been carrying a fog around in my head for a month and Bree’s blunt words had burned through it.
Stop waiting.
I’d been waiting for months, hadn’t I? Waiting for Hunt to notice me. Waiting for him to explain. Waiting to feel ready to deal with the mess we’d made. Even leaving had been a form of waiting, running away to give him space to figure out what he wanted.
But I was done waiting.
By the time I pulled into my driveway, the sun was starting to sink toward the treeline, painting the sky in shades of orange. Waffles was on the porch, standing at attention like a soldier, and he bleated once when he saw my truck.
“I know.” I climbed out, my kit over my shoulder. “I was gone too long. Emergency.”
He followed me inside, hooves clicking on the hardwood, and watched as I put the kit away and washed my hands. The farmhouse was quiet around us, full of the evening sounds I was learning to love. Cicadas. Wind in the trees. The distant bark of a neighbor’s dog.
I put my hand on my stomach.
“We’re done waiting.” I said it out loud, to the baby, to myself, to the empty house. “Whatever happens next, we’re going to make it happen. No more sitting around hoping for things to change.”
The baby didn’t answer. Obviously. But Waffles bleated his agreement, and that was enough.
Tomorrow I’d call Hunt.
Tomorrow I’d tell him exactly what I needed, in plain words, with no room for misinterpretation. And then I’d watch what he did with it. No hoping this time, no waiting for scraps. Just watching what he actually did, and deciding on the strength of that instead of his promises.
Take your life by the horns.
I went to bed that night feeling like myself for the first time in months. Just Nora for once, building a life with her own two hands, ready to see what came next.
The horns were waiting. And I was finally ready to grab them.