“Can you make it go fast?” Walsh asked.
Ty laughed. “It’ll go pretty fast, but I think we’ll keep it nice and slow.”
They puttered around the field for a few minutes until Ty saw Betsy on the back steps of the house. She sat down and stretched her legs out in front of her, then leaned her head back against the screen door.
Something had changed in Betsy this week. Like something tight inside her had loosened. Smiles came easier and she’d been laughing more. The change was nice, even though part of him still felt like he was walking on ice around her, afraid a wrong step would send him sinking into the chill underneath.
Ty took his cap off his head and pushed his hair back from his forehead. They were going slow, but the light breeze was better than the hot, still air he’d worked in all day. He set the hat back on his head and pointed the Gator toward the house. As they approached, Betsy lifted her head and smiled. Ty jumped down and opened the back gate and drove the Gator right up to the steps.
“Your carriage, ma’am.”
The girls giggled.
“Come on, Aunt Betsy, before it turns into a pumpkin.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Ty patted the seat next to him. “We’ll find out when we get there.”
She climbed onto the seat and sat down. Her dark hair was pulled up at the back of her head with wisps falling around her face, and she wore a white T-shirt and cutoff blue-jean shorts. He laid his hand on her knee. She covered his hand with hers and squeezed, then stretched her arm across the seat behind him.
A few hundred yards from their driveway, a small creek flowed under the highway. Ty pulled under a tree and stepped on the brake, then reached around and lifted the girls out of the back.
“I’ll show you what I used to do when I was a kid and spent the night with my grandparents here at the farm,” he said to them. Betsy sat on the concrete wall overlooking one side of the creek.
Ty took Addie and Walsh to the other side of the road and reached down and picked up a couple of small sticks. “Watch this.” He dropped the sticks into the flowing water, then took the girls’ hands and hurried them back across the empty road to where Betsy sat. He leaned over the wall and pointed down. “Wait just a second . . . There they are.” His sticks floated downstream.
“Can I do it?”
“Sure.”
Back and forth they went, dropping in sticks, flowers, and leaves on one side, then running across to see them reappear on the other side. They had to pause a couple times for cars, but at this time of evening, they had the road mostly to themselves. The sun was low in the sky, but sharp rays sneaked between the pines, turning the girls’ faces pink.
Ty sat next to Betsy while the girls searched for more items to throw. He kept one hand on Walsh’s back to keep her from launching herself over the wall, and he wrapped his other arm around Betsy’s waist. Her fingers nimbly tied clover flowers together into small bunches.
At one point in her search for perfect objects to toss, Addie jumped up and ran to Betsy, stopping in front of her with her hand outstretched. “This is for you.” In her hand was a small heart-shaped rock. It was dirty, little clods of dust and dirt crumbling into Betsy’s hand, but the lopsided heart shape was there.
Betsy curled her fingers around it. “I love it. Thank you.”
Addie nodded and ran back to Walsh. Betsy slipped the rock into her pocket.
When it was time for dinner, Ty loaded the girls back into the Gator and pulled it up to the side of the road. He waited for an old pickup to rumble past. The man in the driver’s seat stuck his arm out the window and waved. Ty tipped his cap and pulled the Gator out onto the road behind him.
“Wow,” the girls breathed when they saw the load of watermelons in the back of the truck.
A little down the road, the driver slowed and pulled over to the side. He motioned for Ty to do the same. When they stopped, the old man pushed open his creaky door and lumbered to the bed of his truck. He thumped a few melons, then chose one off the top and carried it back to the Gator.
“For your family.” He handed it to Ty.
The man walked back to his truck, then paused. “Sun-warmed, straight outta the ground. Best way to eat ’em. Maybe a little salt sprinkled on top, if that’s your thing.”
Back at the farm, Ty spread newspaper across the picnic table under the big oak and split the watermelon open. Inside, the deep-red flesh was flecked with seeds, and sweet juice dripped onto the table. Betsy brought out a bowl of cold pasta salad and a pitcher of lemonade on a tray with two tall glasses and two small plastic cups. She bustled around the table, setting everything out, making sure they had everything they needed. Ty took her hand and eased her onto the wooden bench next to him.
“We’re good,” he said. “Let’s eat.”
The girls ignored the pasta but ate slice after slice of watermelon.
“Ah well,” Betsy said. “Watermelon has vitamins, right?”
Ty smiled. “There’s gotta be something good in there.”
When their mouths and cheeks were bright red, Ty taught them how to spit the seeds. Addie couldn’t quite get the hang of it, but Walsh hit the fence post on her first try. Betsy took Addie over to the swing and pushed her under the thick canopy of dark-green leaves. Addie tipped her head back and let
