“He told me that it was your idea, Hannah. To do the fairandto open the farm up. All of it. I never thought he would actually do it.”
“What?” Lauren asks. “Become a farmer?”
Dan chuckles and bobs his head “Yeah. That. But also, I don’t know. He’s always been one to do things because it was the rightthing to do. For the first time, I feel like he’s using his heart. You and Winnie sure have found a big place in his.”
“Excuse me.” I shuffle away from them and wind my own path through the crowd to Winnie and Tanner. Streaks of hope foolishly spread through my heart. Maybe it’s not really over.
Upon my approach, Tanner straightens, then blinks at me and the light of hope disappears. His mom is in the back of the tent, preoccupied with some women who stopped to chat.
“Mommy look!” Winnie bounces. “Tan and I are matching!”
I open my mouth to speak, but the words don’t quite make it. What do I say? I’m proud? I’m sorry? I love you? All true, but the defeated look in his eyes says he wouldn’t believe me anyway.
“For you, Winnie.” He hands her a bouquet of nothing but white lilies.
“Thank you, Tan. I’m going to show Aunt Laurey.” Winnie spins away.
“Can we please talk?” I ask him. “It can be quick.”
“I already know,” he says and messes with the bundle of flowers he is wrapping up now. “I talked to Dollie.”
“I tried telling you and you weren’t at work, and you wouldn’t answer my calls?—”
“I get it. You always told me you were going to leave. I should have believed you. Maybe even from that very first day in Chicago I should have believed you. I mean, you sure as hell warned me enough times.”
He’s giving up.
“Tanner, it wasn’t my choice?—”
“Tanny.” Dollie’s familiar tone splits the air, and it may be the first time I don’t actually want to see her. “Look at these beautiful flowers. I didn’t know you were going to have a stand here.”
“Yeah, it was Hannah’s idea.” His eyes are locked on mine. Solid. Stony. Something I didn’t know his eyes could ever be.
“Well,” she shifts her gaze between us, just as unsure as I amabout what to do with this coldness from him, “I think it’s brilliant.”
He nods once then forces his eyes away from mine and finishes wrapping some yellow flowers in brown paper. Then he ties them with twine and hands them to me.
Yellow carnations. Unrequited love.
He once said to start with flowers. We’re not supposed to be ending with them. I nod, bite the inside of my lip and force myself to walk away with my unreturned love weighing me down.
I return to Lauren and Rhett. Mayben, Jackie and Gwen have joined them and Mayben looks a touch sick as she clings to Jackie’s arm.
“I promise. I’m fine,” she lies.
“Oh, come on.” Lauren loops an arm through hers. “Ginger-ale will help and once you get through the next couple of weeks, you’ll start feeling better. I think feeling sick is just a part of this.”
After the advice I gave Lauren leaves her lips, she sweeps Mayben away to the high school football team’s tent where they’re selling cans of pop for an insane up-charge to benefit their conditioning camp. Their arms clutched together as they whisper and laugh. Like sisters.
Gwen catches my eye, and I wonder if she can see the extra crack in my already broken heart. Her lips pursed to the side.
“Come on,” she says after a moment of pitiful silence. “Let’s go get a mimosa. We deserve it for not being pregnant and it’s the only acceptable alcohol at this ungodly hour.”
With Winnie occupied on Rhett’s shoulders and teasing Jackie, Gwen drags me down a little way to the mimosa tent.
“I know it probably doesn’t help, but I don’t know what Mayben would have done without your sister,” Gwen says to me as we slowly shuffle up the line. “She doesn’t have any sisters, and I know we are technically sisters-in-law, but it’s just not likethat for us. It never has been. We get along great, don’t get me wrong, but when Lauren came, Mayben found someone who balanced her out. She’s so happy-go-lucky, and Lauren is her tortured poet other half. It’s a match made in heaven.”
She’s right. It doesn’t help. I have spent my whole life bending over backwards for my sister. Not that she owed me, but I guess I still thought our relationship would blossom when we hit adulthood. That we would be more sister-like, but it never became that. No matter how hard I try. I’ve always been more of a mom than a sister.
