Love, Austin
I pressed my lips together and stared at the screen until my vision blurred. Then I blinked and looked away, willing the tears back down where they belonged.
I set the phone on the counter. My thumb hovered above the reply, then moved to lock the screen instead.
I could hear the deep timbre of his voice in my head.
So proud of you.
Of course he knew exactly what to say. He always had. Austin Calloway was the kind of man who listened, even when you didn’t think he was paying attention. He was the kind of man who knew that Winnie hated plain glazed and loved anything with crunchy sugar eyes. Who remembered which day she had library and when her spelling tests were. Who called herhis girllike it was the best honor he’d ever been given.
A man who said he loved me. A man I knew I loved with every fiber of my being.
I exhaled a shaky breath. I should have let him explain better. Maybe Elodie was right and I was letting the weight of my past shape the way I viewed the present.
Maybe I was still scared.
I stood still and listened to the thrum of my own heartbeat.
The house stayed eerily quiet.
I picked up my cold coffee and poured it down the sink. Then I pulled my hair into a bun, changed into clean jeans, and got ready for work.
By the timewe made it home, Winnie’s mouth was stained blue from the cotton candy twist cone she’d insisted on. I had chosen a small espresso chip I’d barely touched—my excuse for extending the walk as long as I could.
That was what it was, after all. An excuse.
Our walk was a way to loop the long way through town, past the library and over the footbridge, to delay the inevitable moment we’d round the corner and see the duplex.
I wasn’t ready for an accidental run-in, because I hadn’t figured out how I was going to explain the jumbled-up emotions knotted in my heart and that maybe they didn’t really matter, because at the end of the day I was in love with him.
My chest tightened the second the house came into view. The pale golden light of late afternoon stretched across the sidewalk, catching in the hair at Winnie’s temple and making her glow like something out of a memory.
She skipped ahead, trailing melted drips down her wrist, and I shifted my gaze to the yard.
It was clean.Too clean.
The brittle, rust-colored leaves that had been curling along the edge of the walk all week were gone. Raked into neat piles and bagged, the grass showing in soft patches beneath.
My feet slowed. I hadn’t touched the rake. To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about the yard.
I glanced up the steps and stopped.
A simple, woven basket sat in the middle of the porch.
I swallowed and moved toward it, my fingers curling around Winnie’s sticky hand as she danced up the steps.
“Go wash up, okay, baby?” I said, and Winnie darted inside.
The screen door clattered shut behind her, leaving me in a pool of quiet. I crouched in front of the basket.
Inside were peas—still damp, their skins taut and cold—and a handful of sugar snap vines, tangled together like they’d just been tugged free. A few sprigs of basil, wilting slightly but still fragrant. And then, nestled in a dish towel in the corner, a tiny bunch of rainbow carrots.
Not the uniform kind you find at the store. These were knobby and strange, like they’d been shaped by the stubbornness of the earth itself. Crooked stems. Mud-caked ends. One of them was such a deep purple, it looked almost bruised.
I reached for it without thinking.
The root trailed like a thin ribbon, curling at the end. It was still cool from the dirt. I let my thumb trace the ridges in the skin, the places where it had grown wild and a little misshapen. I remembered the day we planted them—Austin kneeling in the dirt beside Winnie, brushing soil from her knuckles and promising her that yes, carrots really could come in funky colors.
