Betsy’s heart ached as if Walsh were her own child and she’d missed her growing up. She reached over to Walsh clinging to Jenna’s shoulder. Walsh tucked her chin and hid her face in Jenna’s neck. Betsy tickled Walsh’s cheek with the tip her fingernail, just enough to see the girl’s cheeks stretch into a grin.
“There it is,” Betsy said. “I knew a smile was in there somewhere.” Walsh giggled and Betsy turned to Jenna. “Y’all come on in.”
Addie ran ahead of them into the house. Inside, her eyes darted here and there to take it all in. “Wow,” she breathed.
Addie’s reaction was similar to how Betsy felt when Ty brought her to the farm when they were dating. The house wasn’t grand or huge, but it was comfortable. Broken in. Even with his grandmother’s collection of ancient weaver’s looms standing in the corners and orange-and-yellow afghans covering every piece of furniture, it had felt like a place of welcome.
Now, deep slipcovered couches had replaced the looms, and fabrics in a mix of ticking stripes and faded flowers had replaced the afghans, but it still felt like a haven, a place for rest.
Walsh squirmed and Jenna set her down. “Be careful.” Jenna ruffled Walsh’s hair. “Don’t mess anything up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Betsy said. “We don’t have anything they can mess up. If they could, Ty would have already dropped something on it or broken it.”
The girls scrambled into the window seat and stared out at the fields and the faded red barn in the distance.
Jenna breathed in deep. “It’s so peaceful.” She stretched her fingers out, then squeezed them closed. Was Jenna itching for her camera? There’d been a time—years ago in high school—when Jenna rarely went anywhere without it. She’d had a talent, somehow always able to capture just the right angle or shadow to make the viewer see her subject—whether a child at play or a leafless tree in winter—in a different light. She’d even carried that talent for artistry to Wyoming where she took photos and served as a yoga instructor at a remote artists’ colony. Thankfully, that was before Addie and Walsh.
Betsy took two glasses from the cupboard and filled them with ice. “I’m excited about your retreat.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly. Just an extension of the truth.
Jenna sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. “Thanks. I am too. I think.”
“What do you mean?” Betsy poured iced tea into the glasses and passed one to Jenna.
“I don’t know. It was all so quick. Two days ago, I was making the schedule for work, penciling myself in for a full week, and now I’m leaving the girls with you and headed to who-knows-what.”
Betsy nodded. Two days ago, she was planning a month of field trips, some marketing for the farm, and a meeting with a farmer’s market in Foley. Now she was wondering what she’d do with two young kids for half a month.
“But impulsive decisions are my trademark, right?” Jenna smiled, but it was halfhearted.
Betsy tightened her hands around her glass. “Do you think if you’d taken more time to think about it, you would’ve decided not to go?”
Jenna shrugged. “I probably would’ve talked myself out of it, but . . .”
“But what?”
Jenna kept her eyes down and swirled her tea in her glass. “Things like this don’t come my way very often. Or ever. If I’d said no, who knows when I’d have a chance to get away and do something like this again?”
Etta zipped through the kitchen then, the girls following just behind her.
Betsy finished her tea, then set the glass in the sink. “Hey, you two,” she called. “How about those cows? Want to go see them?” She looked at Jenna. “Is that okay?”
“Of course. They’ll love it. As long as Ty’s okay with it.” She bent down to help the girls with their shoes.
“He’s in the middle of the second milking, but we can see the cows already out in the pasture.” She turned to Addie and Walsh. “Maybe later on he’ll let you try milking one of them.”
Addie’s eyes widened. “Does it hurt them?”
Betsy laughed. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but no, it doesn’t hurt them. It’ll hurt them if we don’t milk them.” She ushered them out onto the back porch and down the steps. The openness of the yard was too much to contain Walsh’s excitement. She wriggled out of Jenna’s arms and burst into a run. Addie ran a couple of steps, then stopped and looked back at Jenna.
“I’ll stay with you, Mommy.”
“It’s okay, baby. Go ahead and run.”
Addie waited another second, then took off. “Walsh,” she hollered. When they reached the wooden fence, they peered through the slats and pointed at the cows in the distance.
“That’s some love,” Betsy said as she and Jenna picked their way across the prickly grass that had grown inches since Ty last cut it.
“Sometimes I don’t even know how it happened. I look at them and think, Where did you little girls come from? I know that sounds crazy.”
“Not too crazy. But they seem happy. Look at them.”
Addie held Walsh around the middle from behind, Walsh’s legs kicking and reaching for the bottom rung of the fence. As soon as her feet connected with the rung, she grabbed onto the top of the fence to get a better view of the cows beyond. Addie supported her little sister from behind.
“You must be doing something right,” Betsy said.
Jenna shrugged. “I think they’re just glad to be away from our house for a bit. This will be good for them.”
Addie and Walsh’s chatter grew quiet, and Betsy turned to see Ty walking toward them from the barn.
“Hey there,” she called to Ty. “They’re here.”
“I see that.” He unlocked the fence and pushed it open wide, then knelt in front of the girls. “Hello,” he said formally.
“Hi,” Addie said. “I like your cows.”
“Thank you. I like them
