We place our orders with Lila, and when she leaves to place the orders, the conversation migrates to Millie's Thursday farm calls, Daisy's ongoing battle with her landlord, and Kinley mentions a few small morsels of gossip she heard from the clerk's office. Working there gives her the greatest intel. It's easy, warm, and exactly what a Wednesday morning is supposed to feel like.
Then Mrs. Winslow arrives.
She doesn't walk into Ethel's so much as materialize, already moving toward us before the door has finished swinging shut, wearing a cardigan with a pattern that could generously be described as tie-dye floral and bells on her shoes, carrying a pie plate with both hands.
"Falon, sweetheart." She sets the pie plate on the edge of our table. "Would you mind returning this to Janet? I keep forgetting."
"Of course, Mrs. Winslow."
"Thank you." She pats my hand. Doesn't move. "I hear you've got a houseguest."
"He's in the guest house. Not the house."
"Mm." She considers this. "He was fixing the fence along your east line this morning. I drove past on my way to bingo."
"He likes to keep busy."
"He sure does." She looks at me with those sharp, warm eyes that have been reading this town for seventy-something years. “That one’s a keeper.” She winks, and I blush. Not very subtle, is she?
I open my mouth.
She's already turning to go, pie plate business concluded.
Daisy watches her leave. "I love her."
"She's terrifying," I say.
"She's right," Millie says, which is less helpful.
“About what, the shirt or the bells?” I laugh, but I love Mrs. Winslow.
“Both, and about Bo.” Milly drinks her coffee and pretends she doesn’t see me staring at her.
The coffee gets refilled, and our normal friends get together. Kinley steals one of Daisy's fries, and Millie tells a story about Matrix's latest vet checks that involves more drama than the movie.
But underneath all of it, something Kinley says catches me.
She's talking about her week, and she mentions offhand that she ran into Melodie at the pharmacy, and Melodie said Falon had been an absolute rock through all of this with Rick's leg, both ranches, and the farmhouse, and not a single complaint.
"You're always the one holding things together," Kinley says. "I don't know how you do it."
She says it with sincerity. She always does.
I smile. “You know me, just staying busy,” The conversation moves on, and nobody notices how it feels.
Always the one holding things together, dependable, always helpful, friendly,andMelodie’s daughter, orTyler’s sister. No one ever talks about me as me.
I’mRick's daughter.Reliable.Capable.A saint. It’s always said with good intentions and as a compliment, but still. It’s never just:Falon has done such a great job on the old Anderson house.OrI’m so proud of who she’s become.
Never just Falon.
I drive home with the windows down and the pie plate on the passenger seat, and Mrs. Winslow's words stillsitting somewhere in the back of my mind.That one’s a keeper.
I pull into the drive, and his truck is there.
Parked at a slight angle, the way it always is.
His jacket is on the porch rail of the guest house. A thermos sits on the step, probably still warm.
