I smile at him, hook my arm through his, and kiss him onthe cheek. “You do make me happy.” And it’s true. He does. He makes me happy, but would this?
That voice returns, whispering truths I’m often too afraid to face.
Edward isn’t my future. He’s just a distraction.
My steps are heavier on the walk back home. Toto trots beside me.
“What am I to do, Toto?” He looks up at me, shaggy hair hanging in front of his eyes, and says nothing. “You’re no help.”
He yips at me, then bounds ahead.
I cross the dirt road. A chill breeze kicks up and I rub my arms, trying to ward off the goosebumps. The air has changed since I was otherwise occupied in the Gilbert barn. The heat of the day is gone, replaced by something sharper.
As I walk up the rickety front porch and reach out for the screen door, a voice calls out to me from the dark.
“Come sit with me.”
“Jesus.” I put my hand over my heart, feeling the sudden rapid thump of it. “You scared me, Em.”
The rocking chair creaks. As I near, I smell the sweetness of the tea in her hands. She takes a sip, her gaze trained on the horizon. “He ask you to marry him again?”
I sigh and take the matching rocker beside her. “Yes.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I avoided answering.”
She shakes her head. “That boy is smitten with you. He’s a good one, you know. Reminds me of Henry.”
He’s one of the best. There truly must be something wrong with me if I’m so resistant to committing to him.
I lay my head back against the carved spindles of the chairand give a push off the porch with the toe of my boot. “I can’t leave you both.”
Aunt Em clucks her tongue. “Don’t use us as an excuse.”
“Why not? It’s a good one.”
She takes the last drink of her tea, then balances the empty cup on the curve of her knee. “Take me and your uncle out of the scenario. What’s your heart tell you?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Em—”
“You’ve ignored your intuition your entire life. It’s time you start listening to it.”
It’s always been Em who’s tried to convince me I have a keen ability to just know. She likes to remind me of the time a traveling salesman came to the farmhouse trying to sell cleaning supplies and I, at the ripe age of nine, told Em he was a bad man and she shouldn’t let him in.
A few days later he was arrested for assaulting a farmer when they let him into their house.
“Even if that were true,” I say now.
“It is,” she counters.
“How do you know the difference between intuition and doubt?”
“How did you know about the salesman?”
