Sometimes he wondered if maybe Betsy would’ve been better off marrying one of those fraternity boys at Auburn. She could have had anyone, and she picked Ty. He still didn’t understand it. He told her when they started dating that he’d do anything for her. He meant it then, when they’d known each other for all of five minutes, and he still meant it now. But what if the one thing he longed to give her, he couldn’t? It went against the core of who he was—this not being able to give her what she wanted.
Instead of disturbing her that morning, he’d just let her sleep, praying she was in the middle of a good dream—something soft and warm and easy. But seeing her up by the henhouse, staring at the swing he used to play on when he was a kid, he wished he’d taken the two seconds to kiss her. To remind her that he loved her, that they’d be okay.
She talked so breezily about how she was looking forward to the summer, making day trips to Orange Beach, maybe booking them a night somewhere nice. But her armor wasn’t strong enough to fool him. Sometimes he wondered if his was strong enough to fool her.
five
Betsy
When the rush of the morning milking was over, the men came to the house and ate her breakfast and drank her coffee like it was the last oasis before a cross-desert journey.
Betsy pulled up a kitchen chair and sat with her knees tucked under her chin, her arms around her legs. She loved to hear Ty in the midst of friends, joking and poking fun as only a group of men-boys could.
“Mrs. Franklin, have you heard anything from Quincy’s?” Walker asked.
“Still working on it. I talked to the owner’s wife again yesterday. She says they’re getting close to a decision.”
Quincy’s was a market up in Dadeville that had been hemming and hawing for months over whether they wanted to stock Franklin milk. As the one responsible for all the marketing and publicity for the farm, Betsy had long been working on the deal. Quincy’s had spread from Dadeville to six different towns, all in areas without major chain grocery stores.
“It’d be a big step, getting Franklin milk on those shelves,” Ty said.
“If you need me to, I can make the drive up there one afternoon,” Carlos said. “See if I can’t convince them in person.”
“And how would you do that?” Ty asked. “Nothing but your charm?”
“Hey, I’m great with little old ladies.”
On the counter by the coffeepot, Betsy’s cell phone dinged, alerting her to a new e-mail from Bankston Detention Facility. The director said the group of twenty boys, aged twelve to sixteen, would arrive at ten for their tour of the milking barn.
Another e-mail had slipped in unnoticed. This one was from Valerie, the head of the children’s program at Elinore Methodist. For years, Betsy had been a regular face on the rotating schedule of nursery volunteers, but last fall she quietly took her name off the list.
Betsy typed out a quick reply to Valerie’s request for more help. “Sorry I can’t be there this Sunday.” With any luck Valerie would take the hint and stop asking.
When the guys finished eating, they lined up at the sink to rinse off their plates and place them in the dishwasher like dutiful schoolchildren. Betsy stood to help, but Ty put a hand on her shoulder.
“Let them do it.” Betsy smiled and sat back down. He stood next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“Oh, I’m meeting Anna Beth for lunch today,” she said. “Leftovers from dinner last night are in the fridge if you want them for lunch.”
“What’s all this?” Carlos asked. “Grown man and your wife has to make your lunch?”
“No, I’m a man who’s lucky enough that his wife thinks of him and leaves lunch for him. Not that you’d know about that.”
Betsy shushed Ty, but Carlos laughed. “Ay, mi hombre. You just wait. Gloria will come around. Latino women don’t like their men to get soft.” He jabbed Ty’s stomach.
Ty laughed and slapped his hand away. “I’m not soft, man. You ready to go?”
Carlos hopped off the stool. “Ready, Boss.”
The phone rang before the guys made it out the door. Ty backpedaled and picked up the receiver from the kitchen wall. After a moment, his face changed and he looked over at her. He held out the phone. Your sister, he mouthed.
She took the phone. “Jenna?”
“Hey, Bets. How are you?”
“I’m good. Everything okay there?”
“Yeah, everything’s great.”
After a last glance over his shoulder, Ty followed the men toward the barn. Betsy sat back down. “Really?” she asked. Jenna’s voice was a notch too chipper, a glaring sign that something might not actually be that great.
“Really. Things are good.”
“Addie and Walsh?”
“They’re into everything, driving me crazy half the time.” Jenna laughed. “But they’re fine.”
It had been almost a year since Betsy had seen Jenna’s daughters. Addie would turn six in December and Walsh, the baby, was three. Betsy had only seen Walsh a few times in her short life, the most recent being last summer when Betsy drove to Nashville—seven hours in Ty’s truck with a busted AC—for a visit. What she’d hoped would be a bonding weekend with her sister had turned into an unexpected babysitting gig while Jenna took on extra shifts at the coffee shop.
“I actually . . . ,” Jenna began. “I need a favor. Do you have a minute?”
Twenty minutes later, Betsy replaced the phone in its cradle. Two weeks with Addie and Walsh. She should have checked with Ty first, but when it came down to it, Betsy could never say no to Jenna. She thought of long-ago days, lying under the bed with her little sister, eating pudding with plastic spoons and trying to keep her from crying.
