“We likely won’t be so lucky later in the summer,” the forecasters thundered, striking terror into the hearts of all those living near the coast, including those in Betsy’s small town of Elinore, fifteen miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. “The most active hurricane forecast in two decades,” NOAA predicted with eager excitement.
El Niño this, La Niña that, everyone had a handy explanation for the coming tide of heat and storms that promised to pummel south Alabama and surrounding coastal areas, but Betsy had her own ideas. This summer she’d turn thirty. Not as big a milestone as forty, but it was a milestone nonetheless. The idea of thirty had always felt maternal, heavy with maturity and substance. While everyone else was talking about the fanfare of an active season—every word punctuated by an exclamation point!—all she felt was a slow hiss of air. It leaked gradually, lazily, not so quickly that anyone else would notice, but she felt it. Like a slow but steady lightening.
Downstairs, the toe of Ty’s boot beat out a rhythm on the kitchen floor as he waited for the coffee to finish dripping. She heard his jumbo-size metal coffee mug scrape across the shelf and thunk down on the counter. The coffee pouring into the mug, the carafe sliding back into place on the hot pad. She imagined Ty’s face, prickly with the night’s passage. His hands, big and warm, knuckles sticking out from his long, sturdy fingers. His brushed-silver wedding ring.
When the screen door thudded closed, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She grabbed a clip from her nightstand and twisted her long brown waves up into a bun, then pulled her light cotton robe around her shoulders and padded into the kitchen. At the window over the sink, she brushed aside the curtain to peek into the backyard. Ty made his way across the dewy grass to the barn. Only the curves of his shoulders were visible in the moonlight.
The coffee was good and hot, scorching her throat on the way down. After pulling her breakfast casserole out of the fridge and popping it in the oven, she opened the back door. Damp morning air met her face with a whisper. On the porch Etta was curled up in a tight ball in her favorite spot on the couch. Betsy couldn’t stand the layer of fur Etta always left behind, but the cat was too cuddly to stay mad at for long.
She reached down and scratched Etta’s chin and behind her ears. When she pushed open the screen door, Etta jumped down from the couch and slid between Betsy’s feet. By the time Betsy reached the bottom of the porch steps, the cat was already halfway to the barn to check for spilled milk.
Crossing the yard, she inhaled the aroma of damp grass, earthy hay, and fresh sawdust coming from the henhouse. It was the same henhouse generations of Ty’s family had used on this property. She and Ty had repaired as necessary and added extra space a few times to accommodate more hens, but the house was basically the same. Not a typical box made of wood and screen. It had a shingled roof, weathered wood siding, even a screened porch. A trumpet vine covered in long red flowers climbed one corner post, and a gravel walkway snaked around the side. Some mornings, when dewy fog hung heavy over the farm and everything was blurry and half erased, Betsy imagined the henhouse as a home for fairies or hobbits.
The hens got anxious if she robbed them of their eggs too early in the morning, so she crept in quietly, eased the door closed behind her, and locked it to keep the determined hens from making a quick escape. The interior was full of quiet clucking. The hens were mostly content, but Betsy knew from experience that exasperation at her intrusion wasn’t far off.
“Good morning, little mamas,” she murmured as she pulled out eight brown eggs, lightly speckled, two yellow, and one as blue as a robin’s egg. “Worked hard this morning, didn’t you?”
She placed the eggs in the basket hanging by the door, then scattered a few scoops of feed across the ground. The hens fluttered down from their perches to dine, all indignities forgiven.
With the henhouse door locked tight behind her, she paused before turning back to the house. It often stopped her, the beauty—almost perfection—of their little space on this earth. Franklin Dairy Farm, the land Ty had worked and shaped and brought to life. The sky was now streaked with bold purples and blues, bright pinks and yellows. Oaks and hickories—tall, thick, and majestic—dotted their five hundred acres. She could hear the steady whoosh whoosh of the milking machines even out here in the yard. Faint strains of Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” floated out of the speakers Ty and Walker had jiggered up in the nooks and crannies of the barn.
Through the steadily increasing light, she could just make out Ty’s outline as he stooped over a cow hooked up to a machine. Ty was thick but not overweight. Just solid, as if he could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and not buckle or even protest. She’d liked that about him when they first started dating, and it hadn’t changed.
She thought about going out to the barn and kissing him good morning. It would surprise him, delight him. She closed her eyes and could feel his lips, warm and soft, faint prickles at the edges. He’d still smell like sleep, but also like
