I stayed there longer than was strictly necessary, hand pressed to my own ribs in the middle of a greenhouse row with the grow lights humming overhead and no one around to say a word to about it.
That last part—the no one—was a new kind of fact, and I stood with it for a moment before I went back to work.
The greenhouse timer clicked over at exactly 9:17, switching the lights from morning to midday settings with the efficiency that meant Cruz had rebuilt it properly. I made a note on the clipboard about the magnesium treatment, checked the last three vines with careful attention, and moved on to greenhouse 4.
The day continued in that familiar rhythm—greenhouse to tool shed to house and back again, each task executed with the methodical precision that meant I’d done it a thousand times before.
By noon, the brothers were gone—back to the main ranch for lunch, probably, or to whatever other job Rawley had them doing that day. The property was quiet around me—just the soft tick of the greenhouse heaters and the sound of my own breathing.
Three weeks. Twenty-one days. I stood at the kitchen window with my second cup of coffee going cold between my palms and watched the valley go from morning to full day.
The baby moved again—another roll, the heel-or-elbow tracking the same path across my ribs with what felt like deliberate attention. I pressed my palm flat against my side and held still, waiting for whatever came next.
In the afternoon, I walked past the phone in the kitchen hallway and called my mother before I’d made a consciousdecision to do it. My hand was already on the receiver when I registered what I was doing—reaching, dialing, listening to the ring with a choice I hadn’t fully processed making.
She answered on the third ring, her voice carrying the careful neutrality she used when she wasn’t sure what kind of conversation we were having.
“Jackson,” she said.. “I’ve been hoping you’d call.”
“I have a minute,” I said, the words coming out more clipped than I’d intended. “Just checking in.”
The conversation opened careful on both sides—the kind of careful of two people who said hard things recently and haven’t yet figured out what the new shape of things looks like. My mother’s voice was measured, asking about the farm, about the weather, circling.
“The greenhouse drainage is finally working,” I said, leaning against the wall with the phone pressed to my ear. “Had to replace the whole system along the east wall. Cruz helped me seal it properly with epoxy instead of the hardware store stuff.”
The name landed between us—not quite physical, but present enough that I could feel my mother recalibrating on the other end of the line.
“That’s good,” she said finally, her voice carefully neutral. “Your grandfather always said the east wall was the problem spot. The way the ground slopes there, water just runs straight down that hill.”
“He was right,” I said. “Took three tries to get the angle right on the drain channel. Cruz figured it out with a level and some string.”
My mother was quiet for a beat—the kind of silence that meant she was thinking hard, weighing risks against benefits, deciding exactly how much of herself to put on the line.
“How is he?” she asked finally, her voice giving away nothing. “Your—Cruz.”
“He left this morning,” I said, the words coming out level despite the pressure behind my sternum. “Sterling needed him for something. He’ll be back in three weeks, probably.”
Another pause, longer this time. Then: “And how are you?” The question came out small and careful, like she wasn’t sure she had the right to ask it, like she was expecting the door that had just opened to close again immediately.
“I’m good,” I said. “Greenhouses are producing. The rootstock is taking. Weather’s been holding.”
It wasn’t an answer to the question she’d actually asked, and we both knew it. The moment stretched between us—mother and son on a phone call that had already cost more than either of us had expected when we’d picked up.
Then my mother asked about the baby, and her voice shifted into something tentative and warm—the same quality it had had that day in the greenhouse.
I answered what I could.
My mother was quiet for a moment after that. Then she said, “I wish I were closer.”
Five words. Not “I’m sorry” or “I should have done better” or any of the statements that would have made the next conversation simpler. Just “I wish I were closer,” delivered from a woman who measured her promises in fractions rather than wholes.
My grip on the phone tightened slightly. “You can visit when the baby comes,” I said. “If you want to do it right. No conditions, no rewriting history, no pretending any of this is something it isn’t. Just you, as you are, meeting this child exactly where they are.”
Something shifted on the other end of the line—the sound of breath catching, of a calculation being made and discarded in real time.
“I do,” my mother said immediately. “I want that. I want to do it right.”
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. “Okay,” I said, and meant it enough to let it stand without adding anything else.
