Another lump formed in Emerson’s throat. He paused until he was sure he could talk through it.
“But looking back, it’s like, I should have known from the start, you know? And the fact that we had Daisy at like, almost the same time as we moved here…it was so chaotic. Just…so much. But having Daisy, becoming a dad, pushed Jay to be who he really wanted to be, which started with him transitioning, and then, eventually…” Emerson sniffed, looked to the side to calm himself before continuing. “It was him realizing he wasn’t happy here. Not fully, not truly.”
Luca’s hand crawled through the sand until his fingers rested fully on top of Emerson’s.
“We started fighting a lot. Always about the farm. Raising Daisy was stressful, for sure; it definitely added to the tension. But the farm was always at the heart of it. And I knew, eventually, that I had to choose. Jayden had already sacrificed so much for me, quit his job when we moved here. Now I had to decide if I could sacrifice for him, if I could give Short King up. Except from the moment we bought it, the moment I started building it up, it was like…it feels like my soul, you know? Which sounds dramatic, but. It was like having to choose between the two great loves of my life. And I chose the land over the person.”
“That’s hard, Emerson.”
Emerson shook his head at himself, swallowing back more lumps.
“I’ll probably feel shitty about it for the rest of my life. Even though there are some days when I’m outside, working in the beds or feeding the chickens or collecting the honey or…any of it. And it feels like enough. Like, no question, no doubt about it. This is my soul, this is my heart. This place. I couldn’t have chosen any other way without losing myself.”
Daisy stood and then tripped over something, falling onto her hands and knees in the sand. Emerson waited to see if there would be a cry.
With a giggle Emerson couldn’t hear over the wind but he could see on her face, she picked herself up and moved on.
“But then I go inside at the end of the day,” he finished, “and I just want to tell Jay all about it. Everything I learned about the farm that day. But I can’t, anymore.” Another sniff, followed by a humorless puff of air. “So.”
Luca circled a fingertip against Emerson’s hand. They sat like that in silence, watching Daisy and the waves behind her, for a long time.
“You can tell me,” Luca eventually said. “What you learn about the farm each day.”
Emerson released a slow breath. He thought the urge to cry had finally passed, but now it rushed through him again, the same sensation but totally different at the same time.
“Thank you,” he eventually pushed out. The most inadequate words of all time. Others jumbled up in his head:I know. I want to. Please never leave.
But then Daisy called, “Da-dee. Loo-kah. Come look!”
And so they did, oohing and ahhing over her castle and its intricate moats and nearby lands. Luca crouched on his haunches, asking questions about the people who lived there, who its rulers were, if they were fair and kind or if there was any trouble brewing in the kingdom. More questions than Emerson had ever asked in his life about any of Daisy’s sand castles, or anything else she’d ever created.
She had answers to some of his questions; others stumped her. He only nodded and asked something else. It took Emerson a minute or two to realize.
Daisy was speaking Luca’s language.
He retrieved his phone from his pocket. Took a picture of the two of them, dissecting Daisy’s kingdom. Luca was pointing at something in her creation, face serious. Daisy was looking at him, face decidedly not. The sun, still miraculously shining, lit the back of Daisy’s hair, the side of Luca’s face.
Emerson knew he was possibly getting ahead of himself.
But he thought of that wall in his bedroom, the one he knew Luca had more questions about. The one Emerson hadn’t added to in over a year.
He looked at the picture on his phone.
And he thought maybe it was time to buy a new frame.
twenty
Luca and Emersonwere on their way down the dirt road from the wildflower field when the first car arrived.
“What—” Emerson stopped short, brow furrowed.
“Everything okay?” Luca glanced between Emerson’s face and the car, now parked right next to the Short King Farms van. “Someone who’s not supposed to be here yet?”
It was early, light just starting to fill the sky.
“It’s—”
And without saying a word more, Emerson jolted into motion, running to meet the man stepping out of the car. Anxiety crawled over Luca’s skin as he hustled after him. He had just assured Emerson not ten minutes ago, standing in the middle of the ceremony site, which looked fucking incredible even in the near darkness, that everything was going to go just fine. As he had assured Emerson about this day pretty much from the first time they’d met. If something messed up Emerson’s dayalready?—
