“Sounds good. I’ll be up the hill most of the day, but just send a text if you need anything.”
“Will do.” Jansel ruffled Daisy’shair and was gone.
“I want to see George,” Daisy declared ten minutes later, the moment her last bite of eggs was eaten. She hit the table with both hands, her demand to be taken down from her booster seat.
Emerson had tried, from the moment Daisy began to form real words, to dissuade her from naming the chickens. A practice he forced himself not to do, due to the whole often-getting-dead thing.
Daisy had never listened.
After swallowing his own last bite, Emerson picked her up by her armpits. Gave her a small twirl before her feet landed on the floor.
“Keep an eye on the place, Moomoo,” Emerson commanded with a solemn head tilt before grabbing the scrap bin from the counter and sliding open the glass door to the back porch.
“Yousure—” Daisy wheedled as she stepped over the threshold.
“I’m sure,” Emerson cut her off. “No stuffies in the barn. It’s for their own good, and yours.”
Daisy took Emerson’s hand as they stepped off the porch into the overlong grass, starting to go dormant now. Other than his herb garden on the far side, the backyard was a mess. Emerson always had ambitions of making it into a place Daisy and Moomoo could actually sit and play, like a regular house—like Jay’s backyard in Portland—but he never seemed able to get around to it. The rest of the land took all his focus.
Daisy’s hand remained in his as they crossed the dirt road that lay between the house and the barn until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she took off running.
“Hey now.” Emerson jogged to keep up. The latch on the gate was a little tricky; he always worried about her small fingers getting pinched. But Daisy only grasped herhands around the wire of the fence, making sure the animals were aware of her arrival.
“Geeooooorge! Saaaallyyyy! I here!”
A goat bleated in the distance.
Emerson unlatched the gate and opened the barn door, his mind already quieted by their regular routine. Maybe Luca’s arrival wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Maybe he wouldn’t even show at all. Maybe they’d all move on just fine.
A gaggle of chickens, alerted by Daisy’s call, hopped out of the barn and danced around their feet. Daisy squealed in delight.
“George!” She held out her hands to a Rhode Island Red. It promptly strutted away.
“Careful, Daze.” Parenting here was a combination of constant vigilance and loosely monitored freedom. As time moved forward, Emerson tried to rely more on the latter. Daisy had already learned, through a variety of painful pecks, to give the chickens at least a bit of distance. She’d keep learning, as one did on a farm, by getting her hands dirty.
Emerson chucked the daily food scraps from the kitchen into the feed, mixed in some crushed oyster shells before distributing it to the girls. They clucked and pecked around them while he refilled their water and Daisy went to check on Sally in her pen.
Half the chickens had strolled out to the pasture, Emerson about to let Sally follow, when Daisy froze, tilting her head.
“Da-dee, I think someone’s here.”
Emerson turned from Sally’s pen just in time to see Daisy flounce out of the barn.
“Daisy—dammit,” he muttered, opening the pen and leaving Sally to her own devices. He hustled after Daisy, who was already at the gate, peering through the wire.
“See!” She pointed to the road beyond. “New farmer!”
Emerson’s jogging feet came to a stop behind her, his chestrising and falling on a surprised huff. There was, indeed, a black car kicking up dust as it pulled in front of the house. A beat-up black car Emerson recognized. Its engine sounded like the one suddenly revived in Emerson’s body.
Luca had shown after all.
Several hours before Emerson had expected him.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
“All right.” Emerson reached over Daisy’s blonde head and unlatched the gate. “Go say hi.”
He watched his daughter run down the dusty track toward their new guest, thinkingcool cool coolover and over. Like someone else’s brain had temporarily occupied his body.
