“He was always bringing her flowers. Every time I went to visit, she had a different bouquet.”
John didn’t say anything. I watched the blush creep up his neck and realized. “It was you,” I said. “The poinsettias, the flowers... They were all from you.”
“Big deal,” John said gruffly. “Anybody can buy flowers.”
“But you did. Oh, John.” I threw myself into his arms. He held me tight. This,thiswas real. My parents’ marriage was a fantasy, a happily-ever-after that was ending now. And, oh, it hurt to let it go. “I always wanted a marriage like my parents had,” I said, the words muffled against his shoulder.
“Then you married the wrong guy.”
“John!”
He smiled a little. “I’m nothing like your dad.”
“No,” I said, relaxing against him. “No, you’re not.” I laid my head against his chest, lightness creeping in to fill the hollow inside me. “I guess I don’t have to be like my mother, either.” Doing everything by myself. Fixing everything by myself.
“I’ve always admired Abby,” John said. “But she’s more than somebody’s mother. She’s more than somebody’s wife. She’s a strong woman. You take after her that way.”
“Thank you.” I sighed. “You’re wrong about one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
I raised my head, smiling. “I married exactly the right guy.”
CHAPTER 25
Jo
Eric commented on my blog again. It felt wonderful, intimate, and the teensiest bit intrusive, like having him in my apartment. Correction—like having him in my apartment while everybody I knew hung around the fire escape, peering through the window and trying to figure out what we were doing.
I didn’t know what we were doing.
But when those tattooed arms popped up in my comment feed, my heart gave a happy little bounce. He started by replying to comments on his mother’s cookie recipe. A top chef, commenting on my blog. My readers loved that.
There were comments that weren’t all about me or about Eric, too. Remarks about the two of us together, curious questions from total strangers, excited encouragement from friends, funny stories from readers about couples who cooked together or worked together or wanted to one day. Traffic on the entire site was up 500 percent, and my affiliate account was going to reward me with a nice deposit at the end of the month.
My pal Rachel called from Portland. “Oh my God, Jo, why didn’t you tell me you were seeing Eric Bhaer?”
“I’m not.” Technically, it was true. I hadn’t seen him for almost two weeks. Thirteen days and ten hours, if I was counting. Which I wasn’t. “I work for him. Worked.”
“Really? Because according to your blog, you two are a thing.”
I squirmed with pleasure and discomfort. “It’s complicated.”
“That’s a Facebook status. Not something you say to one of your closest girlfriends.”
I laughed. “When—if—I ever have something to tell, you’ll be among the first to know.”
She told me about spending Hanukkah with her boyfriend’s family in Lake Oswego. She hadn’t found a position with a design firm yet, but she was working as a barista not two blocks from her new apartment, serving coffee to freelancers, hipsters, and stay-at-home moms. I didn’t know if I could relocate for love, the way Rachel had. But she sounded so happy. I was happy for her. We ended the call with promises to catch up again soon.
The farm was quiet. Too quiet, with my father gone, even though Amy was staying in her old room down the stairs and Meg came over with the twins almost every day. I wrote another post about the short dark days of the dying year, the fallow pastures, the resting goats. How, under the sleeping surface, the land slowly renewed itself for spring. My old advisor would have sniffed at such an obvious metaphor for the creative process. But Eric wrote back to me. That is, he wrote a long comment about the kitchen in early morning. How he used the quiet hours, the review of old ingredients, the delivery of fresh ones, to create each day’s menu.
And my readers ate it up. Other chefs commented. I recognized the names. So many hits. So many clicks. More links. More shares.
Ashmeeta called. “So, you’re in North Carolina,” she said without preamble. “What happened?”
I explained. Not about Eric, but about my mother and the farm.
“But you’re going back, right? To New York? To Gusto? I mean, obviously your boss wants you back.”
