Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Ella
The next morning, I stared in disbelief at the freshly chopped wood on my back porch with the note on top. Anger rushed through me that he hadn’t respected my wish. Was this guy really that stubborn, or did he have a death wish? Because I felt absolutely feral at that moment.
I yanked the note from the bundle, preparing to read a Bible verse.
Maggie made me. She threatened me with boiled eggs and pickles for dinner for a week if I didn’t continue to do my good deed for the local widow and chop wood. Please, I can’t cook. Just accept it.
-S
My anger dissolved instantly, and I actually burst out into laughter at the raw confession.
At least there was no Bible verse. With a small grin, I folded the note, looked at the wood, and sighed.
As tempting as it would be to make Maggie torture him with boiled eggs and pickles, the free chopped wood was kinda nice.
“Fine,” I mumbled to the crisp fall air. He was forgiven. For now.
Honey bounded across the yard when she saw me and flew right up on top of the woodpile.
“Hey, pretty girl.” I reached down and stroked her chest.
She purred, which made my grin grow wider, and for the first time since James had died, I felt a sliver of my normal personality break through the clouds of depression inside me.
Maybe things would be okay. They’d never be the same.
I’d never be the person I was before James died, but maybe this new version of me could be okay.
To be honest, I was ashamed of what I’d said in front of Maggie and Seth. Was I mad at God? Yes! Did I have all the answers? No. But I was regretful of how I’d spoken about God in my anger to strangers after meeting them for the first time. It wasn’t right. What was wrong with me?
Deciding to right my wrongs of yesterday, I went inside and did what I did best. I baked.
From scratch, I made my great-grandmother’s cinnamon apple raisin pie recipe.
And two hours later, it was ready. I drove over to Seth’s house this time, parking my old blue Jeep at the base of the driveway and walking up.
Buster ran out to greet me, yapping and jumping for the pie.
“No, that’s not for you,” I told him and pointed a stern finger at him.
“Buster, down!” Seth called from the porch.
Buster sat immediately.
I reached out to pat his head. “Good boy.” I held up the pie, which I’d covered in a red-and-white-checked cloth. “Is Maggie home? I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”
As I stepped up onto the porch, Seth’s nostrils flared. “Is the apology that pie? Because, in that case, I can take it for her.”
Apology pie. He was funny.
I smiled. “Well, I owe you one, too, so you might as well.” I held the pie out to him as heat crept up my cheeks, and he took it. “I’m…having a hard time, and I said things I regret yesterday. I’m sorry,” I told him earnestly.
How many times was I going to have to apologize for my behavior? It was beyond embarrassing at this point. If we were going to be living next to each other, I didn’t want there to be any awkwardness.
He nodded and opened the door wider. “Come on in. Maggie’s cooking lunch.”
“Boiled eggs?” I questioned with a raised brow.
He grinned. “Not yet.”
I stepped into the main house and was surprised at how clean and well decorated it was. The gray couch had pretty coral-colored pillows and a matching rug and curtains.
Maggie must have done it. I didn’t see Seth as the decorating type.
We passed a hallway and then stepped into a bright kitchen with white cabinets and counters. A heavenly smell hit my nose, and I immediately began salivating.
“Maggie, Ella brought us a pie,” Seth told her and set it in front of the table, pulling off the checked cloth.
“Oh, that looks delicious! Thank you, Ella. Stay for lunch. I’m making pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, and corn on the cob. Way too much food for just the two of us,” Maggie called out from behind the stove.
Her comment confirmed that Seth wasn’t married since there were only two of them, and she was always doing the cooking, which also made me assume he was single. A good-looking man in his late twenties—I was surprised he didn’t have a lady.
“I don’t want to impose. I just wanted—”
“Seth Jacob!” she snapped, and my head swiveled to see Seth with a fork in his mouth, his lips wrapped tightly around it, eyes wide. There was a huge chunk missing from my pie. “Not before lunch,” she scolded him, and I had to suppress a grin.
He pulled the fork out, chewed, and then swallowed. “I had to taste it for poison,” he told her with a grin.
She smiled at him as if that were an inside joke. “Oh, I miss your grandfather.”
He nodded. It must have been something his grandfather used to say, and my heart melted a little.
Seth then looked at me. “Best apple pie I ever tasted,” he whispered.
“What did you just say?” Maggie threw the question over her shoulder as he pressed his lips shut and walked over to the cupboard to get three plates so he could set the table.
Three plates? I’d just said no.
“Anyway. I just wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday. I’m having a hard time acclimating to life without…” I couldn’t say his name without crying, so I left it at that.
Maggie waved me off. “You were forgiven the second you left. Sit down and tell me what you do. Do you work in town?”
I looked at Seth and he shrugged as if saying that I was staying for lunch, whether I liked it or not.
After pulling out a chair, I sat down in front of the empty plate. “I’m looking for work. Not much in town, so the hunt continues.”
“Oh, well, what did you do before you moved here?” she asked and then came over to scoop a pile of beans onto my plate, followed by a pulled pork sandwich and then a giant piece of corn on the cob teeming with melted butter.
It was official. I was eating lunch here.
“I was a front office manager for a popular dentist in Boise.”
“That’s great. You should check with the church. I think they need help in office work,” Maggie said as she made a plate for Seth.
I ignored her comment. There was no way I was working in a church right now. I’d probably burn up on site. I was so mad at God.
Maggie dished a plate for herself, and when she sat, she reached for Seth’s hand and then mine. A pit formed in my stomach because I knew she was about to say grace.
I hadn’t spoken to God since James died, except when I was screaming and cursing at him, and I didn’t plan to anytime soon.
I was tempted to excuse myself to the bathroom, but I grabbed Maggie’s hand so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself further.
“Dear Lord, thank you for this wonderful meal and for our new friend, Ella. I pray that Seth and I can be a blessing in her life. In Jesus name, I pray.”
“Amen,” Seth and Maggie said in unison, but my throat was too tight to speak.
It was a short prayer, yet in those few words, she’d included me, and it touched my heart.
“Eat up before it gets cold,” she admonished me, and I cleared my throat.
Upon picking up the fork beside me, I took a bite of the beans. They were salty and sweet and delicious.
“What do you do for work?” I asked Seth.
He pointed behind himself to the giant glass window that showed the rolling hills with black and brown dots moving all across his acreage. “Cattle rancher,” he said.
Maggie scoffed. “Not just any cattle rancher. Seth took over his grandaddy’s small farm when he was nineteen. Had one employee and twenty cattle back then. Now, ten years later, he’s got fifteen men working for him and over five hundred cattle on three thousand acres.”
Seth gave his grandmother a sheepish smile and reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “The small farm was pretty great,” he said.
Wow, three thousand acres! I had known that Seth’s land was big. It took over a mile to drive past it, but I had no idea that big.
Maggie smiled at me. “You know the house you’re living in now? That’s where I grew up, and then later Seth and his brothers. My father built the house. Seth bought this one ten years ago, and we all moved over for bigger and better dreams.”
My fork clattered to the plate. “I live in your childhood home?” I asked, shock rushing through me.
Seth nodded, chuckling. “Haven’t been inside for a decade, but I’ll bet ya the third stair still creaks when you walk up it.”
A huge grin broke out across my face. “It does!”
“My great-granddad bought that farm back when it was worth pennies. So the money from the sale bought all this.” He gestured to his new house and the acreage and cattle beyond.
That made me feel good—that selling the small house I now lived in had helped him chase his dream.
The meal was amazing, rich, and yummy, and the conversation was nice, too.
I learned that Maggie had been a homemaker for her entire life and had five children.
All boys. Then Seth’s mom had three children, all boys.
The all-boy thing tended to run in the family, and it was a joke now that they all wanted a girl badly.
Seth’s parents were both retired missionaries in the Philippines and visited a couple of times a year.
Seth’s brothers were scattered across the countryside in various jobs, from lawyer to fireman, but Seth stayed back.
He loved the farm and the childhood it had offered him and his brothers, and he wanted that for his family one day.
They were nice people, and I was grateful for good neighbors. After lunch, Maggie insisted on walking me home.
“I drove,” I told her.
“Well, I’ll drive with ya and walk back. I need to get my steps in,” she said.
I was quickly learning that there was no saying no to this woman.
When we stepped outside, I was shocked to see Honey perched on the roof of my car. “That hen is obsessed with me!” I exclaimed. She kept breaking out of the coop and following me! Could she smell me or something?
Maggie grinned. “I’ll hold her on my lap.”
Without missing a beat, Maggie wrangled the chicken, and then we drove over to my house. When we got there, Maggie let Honey out, and the hen squawked before walking over to my side and pecking at my shoelaces.
“Thanks for lunch,” I told her earnestly and wondered if I had to invite her in to be kind. Truth be told, I was kind of tired and wanted a nap. The house was a mess, too.
“So, my Wednesday night Bible study,” Maggie started, and I gave her a chuckle.
That’s why she’d wanted to walk me home.
She peered over her shoulder as if to check if anyone was nearby and then leaned in conspiratorially.
“It’s really more of a crafting social hour.
I mean, we start with a Bible verse, but that’s about it.
The thing that is special about this group is that we are all widows. You should come, make some friends.”
Widow crafting social hour.
That sounded interesting, to say the least. Anna would get a kick out of it and encourage me to go. Maggie was so forward, but I couldn’t really argue with a seventy- or eighty-something-year-old, could I? Besides, if it wasn’t a Bible study and was just one verse, maybe I could handle that.
“We’ll see. I’m hoping to start work soon,” I told her, still unsure.
She waved me off. “Well, that’s fine. It’s from six to eight p.m. Bring a dish to share!” she shouted as she began to walk away and threw a hand over her shoulder in goodbye.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure I can make it!” I shouted back.
“See you soon!” she screamed and ran faster than I’d thought humanly possible for a woman her age.
“Man, she doesn’t let up, does she, Honey?” I asked the chicken as I opened the front door to the house.
Honey spread her wings and flew inside like she owned the place, and I jumped into the foyer after her. “No, no, out!” I yelled.
But she walked quickly to where the fire was dying and nestled her way into a blanket I had folded in front of it.
I laughed at the sight and shut the door behind me. “What are you, a dog?”
I walked over and plopped down in front of her, petting her head. She purred, closing her eyes.
“More like a cat,” I told her.
Truth be told, I kind of liked having her here.
It made the house feel less lonely. I didn’t have the heart to wake her up and chuck her outside.
So I whipped out my phone, and for the next hour, I looked up information on if it were possible to potty train a chicken, but instead, I landed on a website that sold washable chicken diapers.
“This is crazy. I’m not doing this. You need to sleep in the barn with your flock,” I told her as my finger hovered over a dozen adorable patterned chicken diapers.
One of her eyes opened, and she leaned forward, resting her head on my lap. My heart melted.
Welp. That’s it. I was done for. She owned me now. Heart and soul.
I clicked buy and figured I would just wipe up whatever mess she made in the meantime. It wasn’t like I was going to let her sleep in my bed or anything.