“I was,” says Natalie.
“But now, now it seems like you’re happy with conditions.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, you’re happy if this video gets so many likes, or that photo comes out the way you want it, or if the calf is born when the kids are awake so you have a record of them helping. Instead of just being—happy that those things are happening.”
“That’s not true,” she says, too quickly. But then it’s her turn to think carefully. She forces herself to do that, letting the thoughts crawl out of their hiding holes, even if it feels uncomfortable to have them out in the open.
Austin goes on. “So if I did anything to ruin your big moment, Nat, it wasn’t on a conscious level, I swear. I really thought it was a harmless joke. And I’m sorry that it blew up the way it did. But maybe below the surface, maybe I was trying to blow things up. You were so worked up over that reporter’s visit, making sure everything was perfect, worrying so much about someone you didn’t even know. It feels like you’realwaysworrying about what people you don’t know think. And I didn’t want that reporter there. I didn’t like her. I didn’t like how you were around her.”
“How was I around her?”
He sighs. “I hate to say this...”
“Say it.” She squeezes her eyes shut as though that will soften whatever is coming next. “Just go ahead and say it.”
“Kind of desperate. Like it was so important to make everything perfect for her instead of concentrating on...” His voice trails off.
“Don’t say instead of concentrating on you. That’s not fair.”
He tents his fingers, leans his forehead into them. “Me, sure, but not just me. The kids, the people who love you. But also, Nat, yourself. Instead of making everything a performance.”
“Hold on,” she says. “A lot of it is real. Most of it. The heart of it, of our family.”
“But do you see where I can’t always tell the difference?”
She nods slowly. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she sees.
“You like the money that comes from what I do,” she points out. “You liked being able to renovate the milking barn.”
“Of course I did. We have the nicest milking barn in the county.”
“And you like the fancy stove.”
“Youlike the fancy stove,” he says. “Ilike what you make with the stove.”
God, Natalie really does love that stove. She misses it the way you miss a person.
“How long have you felt this way?”
“Awhile.”
“Why didn’t yousayanything? Why’d you go along with it?”
“Because it was important to you. Because you put so much into it. I didn’t want to get in your way.”
Natalie realizes that this was a gift and a sacrifice from Austin to her, one she didn’t even know he was giving.
“I think we have to decide what we really want,” says Austin. “And I hope it’s the same thing. Because if it’s not, that’s where we’ll start to have a real problem.”
She’s so scared to ask the next question: “What do you want, Austin?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and she feels the panic all the way in her fingernails. She tries to quiet it by watching the rain hit the sand and the whitecaps beat against the shoreline.
“For me? I want the focus of our lives to be our farm and our family,” he says. “Look, it takes a while for new owners to make a farm profitable. But we have a lot in the bank now—mostly because of money you earned. Now that we’re in good shape there, I don’t feel like we needmore.I feel peaceful when it’s just us and the kids and our cows. I feel happier with a private life. Honestly, Nat, I’d love another baby.” She’s watching Austin’s heart open, display itscontents for her to see, and she loves that. “And I’d love for you to be able do something like what you were doing in Boston. If you wanted to.”
She says, “You want me to find a tech company in rural Vermont?”
