Jenna sighed. “I know it seems like a spontaneous, flaky thing to do, but trust me when I say I’ve put a lot of thought into this. I’ve worked hard to take care of my girls, and there’s no way I’d leave a steady job if I didn’t think what’s happening here could put me in the position to make a better life for them. For us.”
“You’re putting a lot of stock in this place. Are you sure it’s going to be able to give you what you want?”
“Am I sure? No, I’m not. But I’ve been given a shot—maybe my only shot—at providing something good, something meaningful for me and the girls. For them to see me pursuing a dream for myself. Shouldn’t I take it?”
The haze of anger and frustration that had clouded Betsy’s brain since the Sunday-morning phone call cleared for a minute, providing space to breathe and think. On the surface, giving up her job seemed crazy, staying at this artists’ retreat all summer seemed crazy, but knowing Jenna and her fierce determination to forge her own path, it made a strange sort of sense.
“Gregory—he’s my mentor—he’s helping me with contacts and building up my portfolio of work so I can use it as a résumé. Lots of artists leave this place and land jobs because of their time here. It could happen for me too.”
Betsy nodded slowly. “So August 15th. That’s, what, a little over a month away?”
“It could be less than that, but I don’t want to leave until I’ve squeezed everything out of this place that I can.”
“I hope you get what you want. I really do. I . . . can’t say I totally agree with all this, but I know you, and I know you put your heart into whatever you’re doing. If anyone could squeeze something meaningful and life-changing out of all this, it’d probably be you.”
Jenna exhaled. “Thanks.”
Betsy glanced in the rearview mirror. Addie was watching her. “Addie wants to talk to you. I’m going to hand the phone over. Check in again soon, okay?” She reached behind her seat and passed the phone into Addie’s waiting hands.
Addie wasted no time when she put the phone to her ear. “Mommy? When are you coming home?” After a pause, she gave a small, “Okay.” Betsy waited for the tears, the pleas for her mother to come back, but instead, Addie smiled. It was small, but it was there. Then she launched into an explanation of the new hen Linda Daily had brought by for them.
Betsy rested her elbow on the window ledge and ran her hand through her hair. How was it that Jenna was allowed to slide her responsibilities onto Betsy—again, as Ty had reminded her—yet Betsy was the one feeling like she’d done something wrong?
“Her feathers are all different colors and we named her Rainbow Shine. Do you like that name? She’s going to lay some eggs soon. Maybe you can meet her when you come back.”
At Target the girls spotted a red shopping cart the size of a small bus and scrambled up into it. Betsy was used to seeing women pushing these carts through the store, expertly angling them around displays and racks without incident, even with children crawling in, around, and all over the carts. Today, Betsy learned that kind of maneuvering took skills she didn’t possess.
She wheeled between racks of kids’ clothes, bumping here and there, drawing raised eyebrows and sighs from other shoppers until she finally abandoned the cart behind a wall of Disney princess pajamas. She was pulling Walsh out of the seat when she heard a deep rumble of laughter behind her.
“I don’t envy you, having to push that thing through the store,” a man said.
Betsy set Walsh down and turned. Mr. Burgess, the new principal, smiled back at her. His gently lined face and kind eyes soothed a bit of the tension in her shoulders. She kept a hand on Walsh while Addie looked through a rack of Little Mermaid bathing suits. She smiled back at him. “That was a first for me, and I don’t plan to try it again.”
He laughed. “I’m Duncan Burgess.” He reached out his hand. “And you’re Mrs. Franklin, right?”
“I am, but it’s just Betsy.”
Walsh pulled out of Betsy’s grip and raced to where Addie stood in front of a floor-length mirror trying on sun hats.
“I’ve been hoping I’d run into you, actually. You do the field trips, right? To your farm?”
Betsy nodded. “Fewer in the summer, but we still have them.”
“I think it’s a great program and I want to try to send a few more classes this next school year. I’d love your input on how to coordinate the trips with lessons on healthy eating, maybe community support. You can probably give the teachers some pointers for lessons that’ll tie in well.”
“I can try to help, although your teachers will know more than me. I can adjust the regular talk I give to the kids if they want me to focus more on a certain aspect of the process. Make it more science-based or more health-oriented. Whatever they want.”
Mr. Burgess was nodding. “Wonderful. I figured you’d have some good ideas. Once we get a little closer to the start of the year, maybe we can sit down and talk through the details.”
Over his shoulder, Betsy spotted Addie and Walsh between the racks. They’d left the mirror and now ventured toward the toy section. “Sorry, I’d better . . .” She gestured toward the girls.
“Right. Go grab ’em. You’ll be in here all day if they make it to the toys. They’re adorable. Your older one—she’s about six?”
“That’s a pretty good guess. She’ll be six in December.”
He held his hands up. “I’ve been a principal for thirty years. Comes with the job.”
“I guess so. Well, they’re my nieces.”
“Ah, babysitting. I have three grandkids, so I do quite a bit of that myself. And I suppose
