Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter, Chapter 9

May 22, 2020May 24, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

We are on Chapter 9 already of The Farmer’s Daughter and I will tell you I’m not sure what’s coming after Chapter 11 because I haven’t hit a writer’s block but I have hit a challenge of where I want to put certain chapters or events and how I want to write a couple of them. I also worry about the chapters I share on the blog being too long, but well, if they are too long for you, just don’t read them. *wink*

Let me know in the comments if you’re falling in love with the characters as much as I am and what direction you hope to see the story take.

If you’re interested in other fiction pieces I’ve written you can find them here on the blog (links at the top of the page), or on Amazon and B&N.

If you want to follow the rest of The Farmer’s Daughter, from the beginning, click HERE.

Alex cracked open a soda and leaned back against the porch railing of the old farmhouse, looking out over the recently harvested fields and breathing in deep the smell of freshly cut hay. He missed his normal beer, but alcohol had become too much of a crutch for him these last few years. He was doing his best to drink less beer and more water and soda.

He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin and jawline, pondering if he should shave it off before he headed back to the barn after lunch. He’d been clean shaven when he first arrived at the Tanner’s farm, five years ago. He couldn’t even believe that next week would make it five years exactly. So much had changed for him since that day.

“Hey, Dad, this is Alex. He needs a job,” Jason had said a few moments after they had walked in the Tanner’s farmhouse, two years after their college graduation. He was grinning while Alex’s face flushed red with embarrassment. He felt like a loser whose friend had to find a job for him because he was too inept to find one himself.

Robert, sitting at the kitchen table, peered around the newspaper he was reading and looked Alex up and down, a somber look on his face.

“Know anything about farming?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Alex said honestly, shoving his hands down in his jean pockets nervously. “But I’m willing to learn.”

Robert laid the paper down, leaned back in his chair and frowned. He tapped his fingers on the table and then a smile slowly tilted his mouth upward.

“It’s a good thing Jason already mentioned you might be coming home with him. We need a hired hand to help around the farm. My wife’s parents’ home will be able to move into by the end of the week since they’re moving to a condo in town.”

Robert stood and reached his hand out toward Alex. Alex took it, shaking it firmly.

“Glad to have you on board,” Robert said.

In the next year, Alex worked hard, wanting to please the man he saw care for his family, day in and day out, rarely taking a break, on constant call with farm work, first with his father and brother and then when the elder Tanner passed away, his brother and son. He’d watched Robert try hard to help his fellow farmers, buying their land when they could no longer farm, offering them jobs on his farm or at the family’s farm store. He’d been there when Robert’s father had disappeared further into dementia, then passed away, and he’d watched the family’s farm store expand from selling organic meats and dairy, eggs and vegetables to now offering flowers, plants, and even farming and gardening equipment.

Over those years, Robert had become like a father to Alex, teaching him how to work hard, how to run a business, and more importantly, how to care for a family. So far, though, Alex wasn’t anywhere near starting a family, or ready to care for one on his own. There were days he wasn’t even sure this was what he wanted for his future – to work on a small family farm in the middle of nowhere.

But there were other days, when he looked back on a day filled with accomplishments, when he could sit back and smell the freshly harvested field, that he could imagine himself living his whole life growing food in the soil, caring for the cows that gave the nation its’ dairy, and helping a family support themselves through the work of their hands.

Annie had become the mother he’d never had in his own – caring, nurturing, and understanding. After six months of living in the home Annie had grown up in and working for her husband, he’d found himself sick with a cold and alternating between shivering and burning up as he cleaned out the stalls.

“Alex, you need to come inside and let me make you some tea and honey,” Annie said, standing in the barn doorway, dressed in brown overalls and a thick winter coat.

“I’m okay, Mrs. Tanner, but th – “

“Don’t argue, young man,” Annie said. “You’ll be no good to anyone if that junk gets into your lungs. Get on in here. Robert can do without you for a few hours. You’ll have some tea and lay down in the spare room. No use arguing.”

She turned quickly and began walking toward the house.

Robert stood up from where he’d been inspecting the underside of a cow and jerked his head toward his retreating wife.

“You’d better listen to her. When she gets something into her head, she won’t let it go. Besides, Henry is coming in at 10 and I know he can help us while you rest.”

Inside the house, Annie set a cup of steaming hot tea in front of him at the table.

“Try leaning over that and breathing it in. It will help your nose loosen up.”

Alex nodded and did as he was told.

“Did your mom do this to you when you were young? I bet she did. All my bossing around is probably making you feel like a little boy again.”

Alex stared at the steam swirling up toward him and thought about his mom, how she’d almost never been maternal, though he was sure she had loved him and his brother. When he and Sam were sick, she had sent them to their rooms and set toast and juice in front of them and turned on a cartoon. She never felt foreheads or took temperatures, but sometimes took them to the doctor if the illness hit them hard enough.

“My mom wasn’t really – uh- maternal,” he said with a shrug. “She loved me and Sam. She just didn’t know how to be . . . comforting, I guess you would say.”

Annie turned from the stove and looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. “I’m sorry to hear that. That must have been hard for you and your brother.”

Alex shrugged again. “In some ways. But we turned out okay. I always considered us lucky. We were well fed, had whatever we wanted, except the attention of our parents, of course. They didn’t beat us, so there’s that at least.”

Annie sighed and held her hand against Alex’s forehead.

“But a little love shown shouldn’t have been too much to ask. You’re burning up. I’ll get that spare room set up for you. I want you to sip that tea and then I’ll give you a dose of elderberry syrup and pull out the Vapo rub and put it by the bed. I’ll make chicken soup for lunch.”

Alex shook his head as she walked toward the stairs, amazed at her kindness, especially toward someone who wasn’t even a member of her family. It wasn’t long, though, that Alex began to feel like a member of the family. Jason had already been like another brother. Robert became his surrogate father, Annie his surrogate mother. Even Franny and Ned treated him like he was one of their own, or at least Ned did before he forgot who almost everyone was.

And then there was Molly.

Beautiful, sweet Molly.

He let out a deep breath, clutched at his hair and lowered his head into his hands, trying to shake the image of her shapely figure backlit by the setting sun, standing across from him in the barn. He remembered clearly the day he’d first noticed how beautiful she’d become, how grown up she was looking. It had been three years ago and they had been talking about their favorite music, where they saw themselves in ten years, and what the future held for small family farms, a topic Alex never imagined he’d be concerned with.

“I guess I figured I would be writing for a major magazine or newspaper by now,” Molly said, leaning back against a hay bale, sliding her arms behind her head. “Maybe that’s just not what God has planned for me or maybe I messed up his plans by not finishing my degree. I don’t know. Do you think we can mess up God’s plans?”

Alex felt uneasy but tried not to show it.

“Not sure,” he said casually, leaning on the rake handle. “I’ve never thought much about God, let alone if He, She, or They, has ever directed my path in life. If a higher power is up there, it would have been nicer if he’d directed my life in a few different directions over the years.”

The sunlight pouring in from the window high in the top of the barn hit Molly’s hair and highlighted her red-blond curls. Her skin was smooth, her eyes bright, her shirt pulled tightly against her full, shapely figure. His pulse quickened and he quickly looked away from the curve of her throat, knowing his gaze would keep slipping lower if he let it. He mentally scolded himself, feeling like a dirty old man until he remembered they were still both in their 20s at the time, him only four years older. It wasn’t as if he was old enough to be her father.

Molly looked over at him, moving her arms from behind her head and leaning on her elbow against the hay bale.

He saw compassion in her eyes as she spoke. “But, don’t you think that one of the greatest gifts God could have given us is our own free will? We make our own decisions and sometimes we make the wrong ones because we don’t listen to what God is telling us so maybe it isn’t that he didn’t direct our life but we didn’t follow his directions.”

Alex laughed and shook his head. “I’m not the one you want to have a deep theological discussion with.” He tapped his temple with his finger. “There’s nothing deep in here.”

Molly smiled and his stomach quivered in a way he’d never felt before. “I highly doubt that, Alex Stone. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than you let on.”

She tossed a handful of straw at him and skipped past him on the way to the house. He’d watched her walk away, his eyes lingering on her retreating figure before he took a deep breath and softly exhaled a curse word.

“Dang, Molly Tanner, how’d you get so beautiful?” he’d asked himself out loud, maybe a bit too loud. He’d looked around quickly to make sure Jason or Robert weren’t somewhere behind him.

For two years now he had tried to ignore the way she was starting to affect him – the pounding heart, the rush of excitement that rumbled through his veins when he heard her voice or saw her walking across the yard toward the barn.

Why couldn’t he just make a move on her already? He’d never felt afraid to tell, even show a girl how he’d felt – until he met Molly. Molly was different, but he couldn’t really explain how. Maybe it was because he’d developed a friendship with Molly before he’d started feeling a strong attraction to her. Before meeting Molly, he’d always acted on instinct, moving into a physical relationship even if he hadn’t spent time getting to know the woman.

He knew it wasn’t only a fear of rejection stopping him from telling Molly how he felt. He worried how Robert, Annie and Jason would react. Would they see him as someone who had taken advantage of their kindness simply to get close to their beautiful daughter and sister? He couldn’t imagine losing their respect and love, yet he also couldn’t imagine his future without telling Molly how he felt.

Rejection and fear of the reactions of others, including Molly’s, wasn’t Alex’s only concern, though. He’d had a fear of attempting longtime commitment for years, always afraid he’d end up like his parents – in a loveless marriage of convenience. What if he told Molly how he felt, only to pull away from her in fear, refusing to open himself up to her fully and hurting her in the process? Could he even open himself to her? He couldn’t deny he was afraid to try. He’d never been able to do open himself up with any other woman. When they’d tried to go deeper than surface level, he’d broken it off and walked away from them, ignoring their calls or visits.

At one point he’d even considered leaving the farm, going back to Maryland, looking for work in computers, so he didn’t have to face his feelings for Molly. His attraction to her had always been stronger than the fear, though, and he’d stayed on, happy simply to be near her.

Now, though, he wanted to be more than near her, more than simply a co-worker. He wanted to be her confidant and her to be his. And he wanted to hold her, to show her he felt a tenderness for her he’d never felt for anyone else. More than simply wanting a relationship with her, he somehow felt he needed it.

***

Mavis Porter was already busy giving orders in the church basement when Molly arrived with the Tanner’s contributions of chocolate and carrot cakes two days before the sale.

“We’ll need someone to man the purse and the shoe areas,” Mavis said, clipboard in hand, her blue-gray hair piled on her head in a tight bun, her face long and mouth pursed together.

“I’m available,” Dixie West said, though Molly noticed the reluctance in her voice.

Mavis scribbled on the clipboard.

“Dixie in purses and shoes,” she said, focused on the clipboard. “Perfect.” She spoke to Molly without even looking up.

“Molly, are those the cakes from you and your mom?”

Molly opened her mouth to answer.

“Good,” Mavis said before Molly could answer, her eyes still focused on the clipboard. “Put them over in the kitchen with the others. I have you down to watch the table from 8:30 to noon on Saturday. Will that do?”

Molly opened her mouth to answer.

“Good,” Mavis said, again before Molly could answer. “Make sure you’re on time this year, please.”

Mavis swung around and marched across the basement floor, never looking up from her precious clipboard.

Molly sighed and carried the box with the cakes to the kitchen. One day she was going to find a way to stand up to Mavis Porter, but today was apparently not that day.

“On bake sale duty again?” Maddie Simpson asked, unloading her own cakes onto the counter in the kitchen.

“Of course,” Molly said. “At least she only put me on for four hours this time, unlike last year when I had to sit there all day.”

“I’m on kids clothes again this year,” Maddie said with an eye roll. “I have the morning shift.”

Molly winced. “That might be worse than the baked goods table.”

“All those moms ripping apart the table, looking for the cutest clothes in the just the right sizes,” Maddie said, shaking her head. “And then the pushing and the shoving when two moms grab the same outfit. Last year I thought we were going to have to call Reggie to break them apart.”

Molly laughed, thinking of Chief Reggie Stanton pushing his way between two battling moms, his large belly a barrier between them. Reggie led a small police force of five police officers, including himself. The small town of Spencer was lucky not to have a high crime rate, but the Spencer Police Department was there to break up fist fights, respond to car accidents and fires, and answer the call if someone locked themselves out of their car or a cat got stuck up a tree.

The chief was there to oversee it all and sometimes he even managed to do something. It wasn’t unusual to see Reggie standing to one side shouting orders to one of his officers.

“That’s right, Sgt. McGee. Get him down and you can cuff him while I read him his rights.”

“Don’t be afraid to stand up to, ‘im, Billy. He’s not that much bigger than you.”

“If you keep running that mouth of yours, I’ll have Officer Wilson here take you outside and read you your rights, you understand?”

Reggie even managed to yell orders for the driver to stop when Officer John Vanfleet was dragged down Route 220 at 25 mph while trying to open the car door of a suspected drunk driver.

“Stop! If you don’t stop, I’ll have you up on charges of attempted murder!” he yelled, not even bothering to try to chase the car.

It took two other officers to jump into the passenger side window and rip the car into neutral, finally stopping it.

For all his moments of laziness, though, Reggie was still the glue that held the force together, always willing to go to bat for his officers at the borough council meeting, asking for better healthcare or raises or even new uniforms or equipment.

Alice Bouse walked into the kitchen and sat a box of pies on the counter.

“What duty did you get this year?” she asked Molly.

“Manning the bake sale, like every year,” Molly said

“She’s nothing if not predictable,” Alice said with a heavy sigh. “I’m stuck on the register for the first half of the morning. I hate that job. That’s where people try to haggle us down in our prices. Every year I have to remind people ‘this is for charity.’ It really gets old after a while.”

“We’re all old,” Helen Maynard said slinging her box onto the counter and pulling out bags of homemade cookies, already labeled for sale.

“No, I said, the price haggling gets old,” Alice said.

“That too,” Helen said.

Emily Fields, Pastor Joe’s wife entered the kitchen with a box of pies.

“Is this where I should put the baked goods?” she asked softly.

“This is the place,” Molly said with a smile and a lavish gesture toward the counter.

“So glad you are contributing, Mrs. Fields,” Helen said. “Your pies are fantastic. That blueberry one you made for the potluck supper for the graduates at church was outstanding.”

Emily’s straight auburn hair pushed back off her face with a dark blue head band, highlighted her pale skin and bright green eyes.

She laughed and her cheeks flushed red, making her skin even more iridescent. “Oh, thank you. Pies seem to be the only thing I can bake. I have the innate talent of ruining even boxed cakes and burning all cookies. And please call me Emily. Mrs. Fields makes me feel so old.”

“You’re definitely not old,” Maddie laughed. “You’re one of the youngest pastor’s wives we’ve had at this church since I first started attending as a child.”

Alice started stacking Emily’s pies next to hers. “But you know who is old? Millie Baker. Did you all hear about what she did?”

Molly and the others shook their head.

“Well, she thought she was hitting the brake in her car this morning outside the Dollar General but instead she hit the accelerator and drove right into the side of the building.”

“No!” Maddie said. “Is she okay?”

“Yep, but the store isn’t,” Helen said. “Lew Derry was behind the counter and Lanny Wheeler said it was the fastest he’d ever seen him move, considering he’s usually high on that weed he smokes.”

“My goodness,” Alice said, shaking her head. “Someone is going to have to tell Millie she can’t drive anymore. She’s not safe on the road. That Dollar Store could have been the playground and that brick wall could have been a child.”

Helen shook her head. “Well, I’m not telling her. She’ll probably hit me with that cane of hers. Make her daughter do it.”

Molly laughed. “I should have my Aunt Hannah do it. She’s the one who told my grandmother she shouldn’t be driving anymore when she drove into the back of that garbage truck.”

“How did she take it?” Maddie asked.

“Not well,” Molly said. “We caught her behind the wheel last week.”

“So maybe Hannah isn’t the best person to talk to Millie,” Alice laughed.

“It’s not Aunt Hannah’s fault. Grandma is terribly stubborn.”

Helen took a chocolate chip cookie out of one of her bags and bit into it.

“How’s your grandma been doing anyhow?” she asked. “Besides driving into the back of garbage trucks. Since your grandpa passed, I mean.”

Molly took out the last of her cakes and sighed. “She’s struggling, to be honest, but she wouldn’t want me to share that with anyone else so I probably shouldn’t be. . .”

Emily laid her hand against Molly’s arm. “We’ll be praying for her.”

“Thank you,” Molly said. “I’d appreciate that. Losing Grandpa was hard enough but now having to admit she doesn’t see as well as she used to — it’s just been hard on her.”

Joe huffed into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box filled to the top with pies.

“Are those more of Emily’s pies?” Alice asked.

“Sure are,” Joe said. “Best blueberry pie around.”

“Oh wow!” Maddie said. “You must have been baking for days! These look great. I am definitely going to be picking up one.”

Across the room Mavis gestured, showing Jeffrey Staples where to move the tables and chairs for the sale.

Pastor Joe glanced through the open window as he unloaded the pies. “So, I see Mavis’ organization skills come in handy for this rummage sale. What a blessing to have someone with that gift in our church.”

“I didn’t realize that being bossy was a God-given gift,” Maddie said with a snort.

Pastor Joe laughed. “Well, I think maybe it can be. Even if we don’t always see it that way. Those with that gift often keep us on track.”

Molly smiled as she helped the pastor stack the pies. “They also keep us closer to God while we pray for him to give us strength to deal with them.”

The other ladies laughed and nodded their heads in agreement while Pastor Joe just smiled and shook his head, deciding he would keep his comments to himself.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 8

May 15, 2020May 16, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

Catch up on Molly’s story HERE. As always, this is a story in progress and there very well could be some typos, plot holes and errors.

An update on A New Beginning that I put up on Kindle this week. I have temporarily removed it to fix some errors and issues and hope to have it back up for sale on Monday. A Story to Tell, the first story about Blanche is currently available on Kindle Unlimited (free for members of Kindle Unlimited on Amazon) and will be on sale for $.99 next week for those who don’t have Kindle Unlimited.

“Hey, Molly, guess who I saw in town this morning.”

“No idea.”

“Ben Oliver.”

Molly’s muscles tensed at the name.

It was a name she didn’t like hearing and had hoped she’d never hear again.

She kneeled next to Daisy the cow and prepped her for a milking session. “Oh yeah? Where did you see him?”

“At the gym.”

“Ah. I see.”

Molly hoped Jason would drop the subject. She didn’t want to think about Ben, let alone talk about him, especially in front of Alex.

“Who’s Ben Oliver?” Alex asked, preparing another cow in the stall across from her.

Molly inwardly groaned. Shut up, Alex.

“Molly’s old boyfriend.”

Shut up, Jason.

Alex’s head popped up over the back of a cow. “Boyfriend? Oh yeah?” He grinned. “Do share.”

Jason leaned against a beam, arms folded across his chest, grinning.

“Yep. They were pretty hot and heavy before he left for college in Boston or somewhere.”

Molly’s heart pounded faster. She was furious at Jason for teasing her about Ben, but how would Jason know how much Ben had hurt her the night he’d broke it off with her? Molly had a feeling if he had known not only would he not have been teasing her, but he probably would have punched Ben in the face.

She didn’t know if she would call anything about her and Ben’s relationship ‘hot and heavy.’ They’d only dated a couple of years as two young, inexperienced high school students. He’d been her first major crush, her first kiss and then her first heartbreak.

They’d broken things off when Ben had left for college. Actually, no. Ben had broken things off but if he hadn’t, Molly would have. Especially after what he’d said to his friends when he thought she wasn’t listening.

“He’s a lawyer now,” Jason told Alex. “I don’t know why he’s back here. He can’t be thinking of opening a law office here. There’s definitely less money here than in a big city.”

Alex shrugged. “You never know. There’s probably more legal possibilities in a small town like this than most of us realize. Real estate transactions, divorces, custody battles —”

“Maybe he can represent all those drunk drivers we read about in the Spencer Chronicle,” Jason said with a snort.

Jason stepped away from the beam and reached for a pitchfork. “I still say he’d make more money in a bigger city.”

Alex adjusted the milking machine on one of the cows. “Who knows, though. Maybe he didn’t come back for money.”

He looked at Molly and winked. She saw the wink out of the corner of her eye and ignored it. “Maybe he came back so he can win Molly back.”

Jason shoved the pitchfork into a pile of hay, lifted it and tossed some inside one of the cow’s stalls.

“Hear that, Molly?” he asked. “Maybe you’ll be the wife of a rich lawyer one day.”

Molly inwardly cringed. She finished hooking up the last of the cows and walked back toward the feed room. “Hey, Alex, keep an eye on the girls. I’m going to get some feed. I’ll be back.”

Alex sipped from a bottle of water as Molly walked past him, noticing the tension in her face. He tried to read the expression, wondering if it was anger, longing, or something else. He vaguely remembered hearing about this Ben guy before. That had been a couple of years ago. From what he’d gathered, Ben had been a high school boyfriend of Molly’s, but their relationship hadn’t been serious. Now he wondered what had happened between the two to make Molly so uncomfortable at the mention of his name.

“So, were they serious?” Alex asked when Molly was out of earshot as he grabbed another rag to wipe the next cow’s udder.

Jason tossed more hay into the stalls. “Who?”

Alex looked over the top of the cow. “What do you mean who? Molly and this Ben guy.”

Jason shrugged and stooped to lift another pitchfork full of hay. “Yeah. I think so. For a while anyhow. I can’t really remember why they stopped dating. I guess because Ben went so far away for college. I always felt bad they broke up. I thought they were a good fit, you know?”

Alex’s eyes narrowed as he looked toward the back of the barn. “Yeah. Uh-huh. I guess.”

He wondered how Molly and this Ben were a good fit. What made anyone a good fit anyhow? If they liked the same things, maybe. Had the same interests. Shared the same faith.

Did Ben and Molly share the same faith? Did Molly miss Ben and if she did then why had her expression been so vague and not more joyful at the mention of his name?

He mentally scolded himself for all the questions he was asking himself. He’d never asked so many questions in his life. Alex Stone, what are you doing right now? This is none of your business. You have no claim on Molly because you can’t even tell Molly how you feel about her, you coward.

Alex finished hooking up the cows in his row to the milking machine and stretched his arms out to the side, yawning.

“Out late again last night?” Jason asked. “I didn’t see you when I got back from Ellie’s.”

“Actually, no. I couldn’t sleep. Took a drive, sat and looked at the moon for a while and came home.”

Alex wasn’t about to tell Jason he’d sat and looked at the moon and thought about Molly part of that time. He’d also thought about his past, stupid decisions he’d made over the years, what his future might hold, and wondered what his dad was up to since he barely heard from him anymore.

He unhooked the machine from the first cow in his row, changing the topic. “So, when are you going to ask Ellie to marry you anyhow?

Jason rolled his eyes. “You sound like my mom.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know. I like how it is now. Things are good.”

“Yeah, but don’t you Christians believe in waiting until marriage?”

Jason looked at Alex and laughed. “Not all of our lives revolve around that, dude.”

Alex grinned. “Yeah, but still. Don’t you want to —”

“Hey,” Jason said, holding his hand up toward Alex. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so uptight sometimes. Maybe you would be less stressed if you and Ellie —”

Jason gently shoved Alex in the arm. “I said I’m not talking about that with you, got it?” He smiled and propped the pitchfork against a wall. “Seriously, though, I have considered proposing to Ellie. And not just for that reason. I really . . .”

Alex wanted to laugh at the red flushing along Jason’s cheeks but with Jason being twice his size he was afraid of ending up with a broken nose.

“I can see myself growing old with her.” Jason finished his sentence after he cleared his throat and looked away, clearly embarrassed by the tenderness he’d just revealed.

Alex patted him on the shoulder. “Then you’re going to have to pull that trigger soon, buddy. Ellie’s not going to wait forever, you know.”

Jason unhooked some more of the cows. “What about you?”

Alex frowned. “What about me?”

“You think you’ll ever settle down?”

Now it was Alex’s turn to flush red. He turned his face quickly away from his friend, bending down to unhook the milking equipment from Daisy, his favorite Jersey. “Eh, who knows. Not something I think about too much.”

Alex wasn’t lying. He really hadn’t thought about settling down. Not in the same way Jason was thinking about it anyhow. What Alex had been thinking about lately was how much he’d fallen in love with farming, with waking up each morning knowing he would be doing something that mattered; something that would provide food for families across the country. He rubbed Daisy’s ears and let her nuzzle his hand.

He’d fallen in love with the smell of fresh cut hay, of cows mooing in the distance, with barn cats, and even with the sweet smell of manure when it was spread in the spring.

As for finding a woman to marry, Alex wasn’t sure yet. He’d never thought about himself married but if he did ever marry he knew he wanted to marry someone just like Molly Tanner, the girl who wasn’t afraid to compete with him in a burping competition or make a hilarious fart joke like one of the guys. Molly was real and if he ever did marry that was what he wanted in a wife – authenticity, kindness and devotion. He had a good feeling he would find all those things in Molly because he already saw them in her.

He chuckled softly. What was he doing even thinking about Molly and marriage in the same vein? Alex Stone and marriage were two things that didn’t go together.

“What’s so funny?” Jason asked.

“Nothing,” Alex said quickly. “Nothing at all.”

***

Molly slammed the lever to the feed machine up hard and kicked a metal bucket across the barn floor. Why did Jason have to bring up Ben anyhow?

She still remembered well the night Ben broke up with her. They’d gone to the movies, had lunch at a café in town and he had driven her home and walked her to her front porch. She’d expected a kiss before he headed home to finish packing for college, but instead he’d motioned toward the porch swing.

“Hey, Mols, can I talk to you for a minute?”

There was a cool breeze blowing, golden sunlight was pouring across the fields, and a heifer mooed softly in the barn. One of the barn cats rubbed against her shin and she reached down and stroked its head and back.

“Sure.”

They sat next to each other, but Molly noticed Ben sat back slightly away from her, instead of pulling her close like he usually did. When he sighed, turning toward her, taking her hands in his, she knew something was wrong.

“This isn’t an easy thing for me to talk to you about, Mols,” he said softly. “But I’m — I mean, it’s just. . .”

He paused, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The rest of what he had to say came out quickly and abruptly.

“You know I’ve been working a lot with Angie at the ice cream shop on the weekends?”

Of course, she knew he’d been working with Angie. Angie Phillippi. Skinny. Blond. Long legs. Perfect. All the things Molly wasn’t.

She was starting to feel uneasy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, so, yeah. We — Angie and I — we’ve grown close this summer and, the thing is, I think we’ve fallen for each other.”

“Oh.”

Molly swallowed hard, a heavy lump forming in the center of her chest.

“Molly you know how much I care about you, but,” Ben shifted nervously on the swing. “I feel different when I am with Angie. I feel — I don’t know. I feel like she really gets me. We’re into the same things. We laugh at each other’s jokes. . .”

I laugh at your jokes, Molly thought.

“She’s . . . I don’t know. She’s someone I can’t imagine not being in my life and it’s not fair to you to keep stringing you along when I know I want to be with Angie.”

I can’t imagine you not being in my life, Molly thought.

Molly nodded slowly, pulling her hands from Ben’s grip. “Oh.”

She wished she could say more than “Oh,” but she seemed to be at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry, Molly. I really am.”

Molly forced a smile.

“It’s okay,” she finally managed to say, pushing the buzzing feeling in her chest – the one that signaled her emotions were about to override her brain – deep down because she was not, no, she was not going to cry in front of Ben Oliver, her first ever crush and boyfriend. “You can’t help how you feel.”

Her voice sounded far away, like someone else’s. What was she even saying? She didn’t believe any of the words flying out of her mouth, but she had to say them to hurry this conservation along, to end it quickly before she sobbed in Ben’s face and made a fool of herself.

Ben sat back slightly, his shoulders relaxing. “I am so relieved you understand. I never wanted to hurt you. I just knew I had to be honest with you, though, and with myself.”

He leaned forward and took her hands in his again. His dark brown eyes focused on hers. “I will always remember our time together, okay? And you’ll always be special to me.”

Molly suddenly felt like a first grader being talked to by their teacher.

“If I’m so special, then why are you breaking up with me?” she wanted to ask, but she didn’t, because she didn’t really want to hear the reason again.

Instead, she told him that she was okay, that she was happy for him, that this was for the best. She was glad he had told her now, instead of waiting until after he left for college, she assured him.

Of course, they’d still be friends.

Of course, she’d write him at college.

Of course, she’d always remember the good times.

Yes. Good luck at college.

She reassured him again she’d be fine and then he’d left with a gentle, brief kiss on her cheek. After he’d left, and she walked into the house, she answered her parents concerned expressions by telling them she and Ben were taking a break while he went to college and that was fine with her. Then she lied again, telling them she was relieved because she had felt herself drifting away from Ben for a few months now. He’d be away at college, going to law school, and she’d be at the community college, pursuing a degree in English, or writing, or something similar. There hadn’t been a future for them anyhow, right?

She hadn’t told Jason because he’d been away at college, hanging out with Alex and earning a degree he’d use when he came back to the farm.

Her parents had said they understood, asked if she was going to be okay, and each gave her hugs.

“Yep. I’m good.”

She had smiled broadly and walked up the stairs to her room. Behind the closed door she blasted Garth Brooks from her stereo, sat at on her bed, laid there on her side for a few moments starring at the blank wall of her bedroom and then cried until her throat and chest burned.

As if Ben’s breaking up with her to date Angie hadn’t been enough, Molly was in the convenience store a week later when she heard Ben’s voice from another aisle.

“Yeah, I know it is weird,” he was saying. “But it was time. Molly’s a nice girl, but Angie. Dang. Angie. She’s hot. She’s got legs that go for miles. And she’s so slender she just fits against me perfectly, you know?”

One of Ben’s friends laughed a laugh Molly could only think to describe as a dirty laugh. “Fits against you? Dude, how far have things gone with Angie?”

Ben joined the laughter. “That’s personal, man. All I can say is she has way more experience than Molly Tanner ever did or ever will.”

Molly’s sob had caught in her throat as she sat the soda and chips she’d been holding onto the counter and darted outside. Tears streaked her face all the way back to the farm, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel of her grandfather’s old pickup. At church the pastor always acted like God cared more about what a person looked like inside, but Molly knew that wasn’t what Ben cared about. Somehow, it seemed to matter more at that moment what Ben cared about.

As she drove, she vowed to never again let herself fall for someone like she had fallen for Ben. She’d never let those walls down again, let any man see the deepest parts of her. She was going to keep her distance from men from now on, keep herself from feeling the pain she felt now.

She vowed that one day she’d lose weight and make Ben Oliver regret he’d walked away from her all those years ago. Watching the feed fill the wheelbarrow, Molly felt self-focused anger rage through her. Ben wasn’t going to regret he’d left her if he saw her now. She’d never lost that weight and had maybe gained more. What she hadn’t gained was more experience at whatever she should have had experience at, at whatever experience Angie had had. She was still the same, fat Molly and there was no way Ben would ever regret he had broken up with her

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 7

May 8, 2020May 7, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

Catch up with the rest of The Farmer’s Daughter, a continuing story, at the link at the top of the page or HERE. You can also read my short romance story Quarantined about Liam and Maddie Grant, an estranged couple who get caught in quarantine together.

“I had to explain to the woman that CBD oil is not pot and she will not get high off of it,” Liz said, sliding her shoes off and sliding her legs under her on the couch. “I mean, what did she think, we were selling pot plants in the store? So, she said she’d think about buying the oil the next time she’s in. I don’t know, at least the conversation with this lady was way tamer than the one with that guy with the rash . . .”

Liz shuddered at the memory.

“I did not need that much detail about how fast his rash had spread, or where it had spread to.”

Molly handed Liz a glass of iced tea and sat next to her.

“You certainly have some interesting stories from that health food store,” Molly said, shaking her head. “I’m afraid my stories aren’t that exciting – unless you want to hear about the udder infection one of our cows had and how I had to apply udder cream on her every morning for two months.”

Liz’s face scrunched up in disgust.

“That’s right up there with the rash dude,” she said, grimacing.

“So, Liz, tell me – what’s up with you and Matt?”

Liz shrugged. “We’ve gone out twice now. He’s nice, I guess. Even if he is a friend of your dorky brother.”

“He is a little older than you and I’d hate to see you rush into anything,” Molly said. “It’s only been a couple of months since you —”

“I know,” Liz interrupted. “Since I told Gabe to get lost. Matt and I have just gone to a couple of movies and bowling. We’ve talked, hung out, but neither of us is really interested in anything serious.”

Molly sipped her tea, sitting next to Liz. “I don’t mean to be nagging, or too motherly. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“Oh, Molly, don’t worry about it. I know you are just trying to protect me. That’s what friends do.”

Gabe and Liz had dated since their senior year of high school. They’d taken a break while Liz attended a two-year business course at the local community college and Gabe had decided to attend a four-year college four hours away. The relationship picked up, gaining intensity when Gabe graduated and opened a physical therapy office in town. The relationship was tumultuous at its best, chaotic at its worst.

The day Liz called Molly, sobbing into the phone, Molly knew it was over. Liz had finally had enough of Gabe flirting with other women and was certain he had cheated on her after she’d agreed to move in with him.

“It’s not my bra,” she’d told Molly. “It’s someone else’s bra, in our apartment. How could I have been so dumb?”

“You’re not dumb, Liz,” Molly told her. “You may have ignored your intuition but you’re not dumb.”

Molly helped Liz move out of the apartment, back to her parents and had also helped her resist picking up her cell when Gabe tried to reach her. Liz had sunk into a deep depression for three weeks after the break-up, feeling as if she’d walked away from everything her parents had taught her and she’d learned at church when she moved in with Gabe. Molly reminded her there was forgiveness and healing from any shame she felt.

“You know, I don’t know how I would have made it without you,” Liz said, sitting her glass down on the end table by the couch. “I’d probably still be in that apartment listening to Gabe tell me that it would never happen again – for the twentieth time.”

“Not necessarily,” Molly said. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You would have finally had enough and cut him off, even without me.”

Liz placed her hands together on her lap and focused on Molly.

“Enough about me. It’s time to talk about you, Molly. It’s time to get you out and about a little bit. The annual summer benefit dance for the fire company is coming up in a few weeks. Let’s find you a date and go together. Maybe I’ll take Matt.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “You know I don’t go to dances.”

Liz laughed. “No one dances at that thing. Not really. It’s mainly for eating, talking and, for some people, an excuse to get drunk.”

Molly scooped her hair up in her hand and wrapped a scrunchy around it.

“I don’t even know who I’d go with. But I don’t mind tagging along with you for fun. Even if I do hate socializing with – well, anyone.”

Liz and Molly both laughed.

Liz’s eyebrows raised and Molly knew that meant Liz thought she had a brilliant idea. “Molly, why don’t you ask Alex to go with you?”

“Liz, no.” Molly shook her head, holding up her hands in front of her as if to stop that suggestion right in its tracks.

“Why not?”

“It’s just – I don’t know – he’s my brother’s friend and we work together and —”

“And that’s enough excuses,” Liz interrupted. “He’s good looking. He’s funny. It’s not like you’re asking him to get married. You’re just asking if he wants to go to the banquet with you.”

“He’s also older than me.”

“By like five or six years, not twenty,” Liz said. “You should just ask him.”

Molly drank the rest of her iced tea and walked toward the kitchen.

“I’ll think about it, but I don’t think so. He won’t want to take me. He hates dances as much as I do.”

Liz sat back against the arm of the couch and slid her feet up on the cushions, sighing.

“What we really need to talk about is what you brought up the other day at sewing club. About how you’re thinking of spreading your wings and branching out from the farm. What about asking Liam Finley at the Journal about some freelance work or writing a column? Or you could start a blog. That could be a way of branching out without making a drastic change.”

Molly’s face scrunched up in disgust at the mention of Liam Finley. In some ways, he was the stereotypical small-town newspaper editor – sleazy, unshaven, frequently intoxicated and a womanizer. He was not, however, balding, or fat. She also didn’t necessarily see the Spencer Journal as the highest form of journalistic integrity, but then again, it was better than some in an age of declining integrity overall for journalism.

“I never even finished my degree,” Molly said.

Liz shrugged. “I doubt Liam would care and you could raise the quality of that paper if you submitted a column.”

Molly didn’t like the idea of writing for the small newspaper in the town neighboring hers. She’d always imagined writing for larger publications, but everyone had to start somewhere she supposed.

“How do you know Liam anyhow?” Molly asked.

Liz rolled her eyes. “He was a friend of Gabe’s.”

Molly grimaced. “That doesn’t make me feel any better about submitting any of my writing to him then.”

Liz shrugged again. “Eh. He’s okay. A little messed up but he’s more level headed than I’d expected. He and Gabe mainly went out drinking a lot together. And he only made a pass at me once. He’s good at what he does, though, and seems to be able to separate the personal from the professional.”

“Well, I’ll think about it,” Molly said. “Who knows. Maybe doing something different means leaving Spencer.”

Liz leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Molly Tanner. You are not seriously considering leaving me alone in this God-forsaken dump of a town, are you? Don’t you dare.”

Molly sighed and tipped her head back against the couch. “I don’t know, Liz. All I know is I feel so . . . stuck. So stagnant. So . . . I don’t even know what.”

Molly didn’t like the smirk on her friend’s face.

“Maybe you need a little excitement,” Liz said, raising her eyebrows. “And asking Alex to that dance certainly would be exciting.”

Molly playfully tossed a pillow at Liz, laughing. “Liz, stop it! Why don’t we just change the subject? Are you going to go with the ladies group with Tuesday?”

“You can change the subject, lady, but I’m going to keep on you until you ask Alex to take you to the banquet,” Liz said, sipping her tea. “And yeah, I think I’ll go this week. Jane cut the hours for the store back on the weekends now, so I don’t have to be there late anymore.”

“Good! It will be nice to have you there,” Molly said. “I’m not sure what we’re discussing this week, but it will be a good time for fellowship with other women.”

Liz grinned. “Molly, you sound so ‘holy’ anymore. Listen to you. ‘Fellowship with other women.’ Why don’t you just say, ‘We’re going to hang out with some other women.’?”

Molly laughed. “Yeah, I guess I am starting to use a lot of,” she made quote marks with her fingers. “Christianese these days. I’ll try not to do that anymore.”

“It’s okay,” Liz said. “As long as you don’t try to pray a demon out of me.”

Molly almost snorted tea out of her nose. “I don’t think there is any chance of me doing that.”

She leaned forward, reaching for the remote. “Hey, let’s take advantage of your day off and watch a movie.”

“As long as it isn’t anything with Russell Crowe, I’m fine.”

“What’s wrong with Russel Crowe?” Molly asked, looking through her brother’s old stack of DVDs.

Liz rolled her eyes. “He was Gabe’s favorite actor and we had to watch every movie he ever made. Now I can’t see a clip of Gladiator without thinking of Gabe.”

Molly slid a Harrison Ford movie in and sat back on the couch, but found herself unable to concentrate on the movie as she considered Liz’s suggestion about asking Alex to the banquet. Still struggling with how to interpret Alex’s recent change in behavior, she couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of sitting next to him at a banquet, trying to make small talk without making it obvious everyone else would think they were on an official date.

Of course, asking him to go with her to the banquet could clarify the matter and then she wouldn’t have to wonder anymore. Then again, it could also complicate the situation even further. If she was honest with herself, she was terrified to find out why Alex had been acting strange around her. What if he was simply toying with her to have a story to tell his friends at the bar? She knew he couldn’t be interested in her romantically. She definitely wasn’t his type. Her hips were three times the size of the women he usually dated. Molly glanced at her chest. Well, her chest might be about the same size. She shook her head, trying to focus on the movie again.

Maybe Alex wasn’t acting differently at all. Maybe her restlessness was distorting everything around her, including her friendship with Alex.

She pushed her thoughts of Alex away, forcing herself to figure out what Harrison Ford was telling his female costar. She needed to worry more about what direction her life was taking, or wasn’t taking, than Alex Stone. It would all work out eventually — when she figured out what direction she needed to take to help her feel less . . . Less what? Trapped? Yes. Trapped. That’s how she felt. Trapped in her stagnant, boring life.

So, trapped that she was starting to hallucinate and see things that weren’t even there – like a change in the way Alex looked at her and a change in the way she was seeing him. It must be stress causing her to notice his smile more, the way his eyes sparkled in the sunlight, his long fingers and strong hands, the way his jeans fit . . . She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, trying to stop her thoughts from spiraling out of control. What other explanation of her confused thoughts and feelings was there than stress? She couldn’t actually have feelings for goofy, obnoxious Alex.

“Harrison Ford still looks amazing for his age, doesn’t he?”

Liz’s comments broke into her thoughts.

“He certainly does,” Molly agreed. “I never thought I’d think a man in his 70s was attractive, but he has proven me wrong.”

With a small laugh to herself, she pushed the thoughts about Alex aside and instead joined Liz in commenting on the movie and admiring Harrison Ford. She could figure out how she felt about Alex and her life on the farm later.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 5

May 1, 2020May 2, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek of today’s chapter of The Farmer’s Daughter, but as I was getting the post ready for today, I realized that sneak peek was actually for Saturday’s special fiction post. Whoops! Well, anyhow, it’s been one of those weeks!
To catch up on The Farmer’s Daughter’s previous chapters, find the link at the top of the page or click HERE.

The sun was bright, the breeze gentle Saturday morning when Molly packed blueberry muffins, fresh milk and cheese, and apple slices into a picnic basket, preparing for the drive up the hill to her grandparent’s home. Her grandmother lived alone there now with her cat Macy and a dozen or so chickens out back.

The four years Molly cared for her grandfather as he battled Alzheimers and heart failure had made Molly question God’s existence more than she liked to admit. It had been torture to watch her grandfather fade from sharp and full of life to a confused, weak, shell of his former self.

Almost as hard as watching her grandfather fade away was watching her grandmother’s grief gradually manifest itself into bitterness and anger over the last year. Molly wished she could walk into her grandmother’s house again and see the grandmother she’d known growing up – sweet, caring and excited about life.

Molly caught sight of Alex standing outside the barn, leaning back against the front of a tractor as she walked into the bright sunshine with the basket. One leg was crossed over the other and Molly’s breath caught when she saw him. Good grief, was it just her or he had suddenly become even more handsome over night?

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Where you headed off to?”

“Taking some goodies to Grandma,” Molly said, opening the door to the old farm truck her dad had fixed up for her.

“Where’s your little red hood?”

Molly laughed as she slid behind the steering wheel. “The wolf stole it.”

Alex walked to the truck and pushed the door closed behind Molly. The window was already rolled down, and he leaned on the edge of it, a whiff of his aftershave drifting toward Molly and sending a surge of unexpected pleasure coursing through her.

“Drive safe, Molly Bell,” he drawled in a fake Southern accent.

Molly tipped her head to one side, amused, but also bewildered by his behavior. “My middle name is Anne. And it’s just up the road, so I’m sure I’ll be fine, Alex.”

“Oh, is it?” Alex pushed his hand back through his hair, leaving it disheveled but somehow still attractive. “Well, then, drive safe, Molly Anne.”

Molly wasn’t sure what to make of Alex’s recent increased attention to her, but the way he said her name made her heartbeat faster. She watched him walk away, admiring how his jeans fit perfectly and his white T-shirt did nothing to hide the muscles underneath.

Molly had once thought of Alex as another brother and she was sure he had thought of her as a sister. The two of them had been joking and teasing each other since he started working on the farm five years ago, but recently the tone of their teasing had changed; exactly how Molly couldn’t explain, other than to say it was less childish and more edgy with flirting overtones.

How she viewed Alex was starting to change too. Her heart pounded faster when she was near him, her eyes lingered longer on his retreating form or his tanned biceps when he lifted hay into the cows’ trough, and the sound of his voice sent a buzz of excitement skittering through her limbs. If his hand grazed her skin while handing her something, she immediately felt a weakness in her knees that made her flush warm with embarrassment.

She shifted the truck into gear and shook her head, trying to shake the thoughts of Alex from her mind. She had other things to think about today. Alex Stone would have to wait.

Her grandmother’s house was a mile from her parents, nestled in between a grove of trees at the edge of the family’s farm, where her great-grandfather had built it almost 102 years ago, farming the land around it, That first farm, 150 acres large, had expanded over the years until it became the 400-acres the Tanners now farmed on. Molly drove past the sign designating the farm as a Century Farm in the state of Pennsylvania and turned into the dirt driveway, pulling the car up in front of the garage.

Behind the house was the barn where the Tanners now stored much of their equipment and some of their feed, a chicken coup, which Franny Tanner still visited each morning to collect eggs for her breakfast, a large oak tree with a swing hanging from one of its large branches, and further beyond the yard was the corn fields her father and uncle now harvested each year.

Molly’s grandmother, sitting on the front porch, rocked slowly in one of the rocking chairs her grandfather had built when he’d finally handed over the reins of the farm to his sons, not fully retiring, but finally relenting to working less and rocking more.

Franny looked up to watch Molly pull into the driveway, her heart softening at her second born grandchild. Her grandchildren were the highlights of her day, even on the days she resented their overuse of digital devices. Molly was different than her younger cousins, though. She wasn’t interested in cellphones or notepads or whatever they were called. She worked hard, cared for her family and took on the bulk of the responsibility at the family’s farm store. Franny was proud of her and she wished she could say it without feeling like she might completely fall apart emotionally.

Molly carried a basket with her and bent to kiss Franny on the cheek. “Hey, gran. I brought you some muffins I baked the other day.”

“Thank you, hon’. That’ll be a nice treat. Why don’t you make us a plate and we can sit out here and chat a bit? There’s some lemonade in the fridge.”

Molly set the basket down in the kitchen, poured the lemonade into two glasses she pulled out, and placed two muffins on plates.

Back outside, carrying the tray, she noticed her grandmother’s furrowed eyebrows and thin-lipped mouth, a clear sign something was bothering her.

“You okay, gran?” Molly asked, placing the tray down on the small table between the two rocking chairs.

Her grandmother’s familiar smile quickly returned but Molly could tell it was forced.

“Of course, honey.”

Her answer was curt, and Molly knew she’d been thinking about something that made her sad.

“So, how is it going on the farm?” Franny asked.

“Good. Dad and Alex are working on the tractor. It broke down, but they think they can fix it. We’re baking the rest of the cakes for the rummage sale. Hopefully, they will be fresh enough for Mavis –“

Franny snorted.

“That Mavis. Always worried about things being fresh. I guess that’s why she’s been married three times.”

Molly tried not to laugh.

“Grandma, that’s not nice.”

“But it’s true.”

Franny looked Molly up and down as Molly stood and leaned against the porch railing. Molly’s curves were still there, but she had definitely been gaining weight over the years. Franny had been in such a fog after Ned died, she was only now starting to notice changes in those around her.

“What happened to you anyhow?” Franny said disapprovingly before she even thought about her words. “You used to be so skinny.”

Molly looked at the ground quickly. Franny saw the pain in her granddaughter’s face and felt immediate guilt. Why did she keep blurting awful things at people? It was as if her brain and mouth had become disconnected and she didn’t know how to reconnect it. She remembered thinking as a teenager and young adult that old people could be so rude. Her mother had told her it wasn’t that they were rude, they just weren’t afraid to say what they thought anymore.

Was that it? Did she really think her precious granddaughter who had done so much to help her and Ned when he was sick needed to be reminded that she’d gained weight? Did she really not care that she had just hurt her granddaughter’s feelings? She knew that wasn’t true. A sharp twinge of remorse twisted deep inside her.

“Well, life happens, Grandma,” Molly said with a shrug. “Some people just gain weight.”

Franny looked at a butterfly on the bush in front of the house, shame overwhelming her. She swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean that to come out like that – I just wasn’t thinking about . . . about how it sounded.”

Franny realized she sounded like that upstart pastor who had visited her the other day now. He had stuttered and fallen over his words like a drunk man walking home from the bar and now she was doing the same thing.

Molly sighed. “It’s okay, Gram. You’re right. I have gained weight. I need to work on it and lose it again. I’ve joined the new gym in town. Liz asked me to join with her. I thought I’d see if I can get back into shape.”

Franny knew it wasn’t okay. Her granddaughter was too nice to say so. She wished she hadn’t said anything.

“Well, that will be nice,” she said, even though she didn’t think Molly really need to join a gym.

She was just going through a phase. The weight would come off eventually. Franny was sure of it.

Molly walked toward the front door, smiling again, but Franny knew she was still hurt, and the smile was an attempt to cover it.

“Hey, how about I get the paper and we read the funny pages?” Molly asked.

Franny reached out and touched Molly’s hand, trying to say again how sorry she was for the hurtful question. She smiled. “I’d enjoy that, yes. Make sure to read me Beetle Bailey. He’s my favorite.”

Franny felt like crying when Molly went into the house for the newspaper, but she couldn’t let herself cry. If she did, she might never stop. She simply had to be better about letting her thoughts fly free and she had to learn how to be nice again.

***

Molly carried the tray from the front porch to the kitchen, her eyes wandering to the stairwell, her mind wandering to memories of when she’d come here every day to help care for her grandfather when the dementia had become worse.

“Hannah? Is that you?” he had asked two years ago as she straightened his blankets and pulled them around him in his chair in his room.

“No, Grandpa. It’s Molly.”

Her grandfather was silent as he slid his fingers across the edge of the blanket, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Do I know a Molly?” he asked looking up at her, his blue eyes clouded in confusion.

“Yes, you do,” Molly said, telling him for the third time that day. “I’m your granddaughter. Your son Robert’s daughter.”

“Oh, I see.” Her grandfather still looked confused but forced a smile.

“I bought you some lunch, Grandpa,” she said, turning to the tray she had carried in.

“I don’t want lunch.”

“It’s your favorite. Baked beans and ham.”

“I don’t like baked beans.”

“You actually do.”

“I don’t like it and I don’t want it!” he shouted.

Molly sighed and sat on the chair across from him. She glanced at the CD player on the dresser next to the bed.

“How about some music?” she asked, remembering how music had calmed him in the past.

Pushing play, she began to sing when the words began after a short musical interlude.

“When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say

It is well, it is well, with my soul”

She watched her grandfather’s face, as she sang. At first, he stared at her as he often did. His eyes looking at her, yet through her. Then slowly he began to repeat the words, his expression fading from confusion to peace.

“It is well

With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul”

Molly sang with him.

“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul

It is well

With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul”

“I like that song,” he said with a smile as the song ended. “I used to sing that song with my granddaughter.”

“You still sing that song with her, Grandpa.”

He looked at her, a slight smile tugging at his mouth.

“Oh, Molly,” he said softly, tears in his eyes as he patted her hand. “Is that you?”

Molly clasped her hand over his, watching tears spill down his cheeks. “It is, Grandpa.”

“I love you, Molly girl,” he whispered, leaning up to kiss her cheek.

Molly fought back the tears and returned the kiss.

“I love you too, Grandpa.”

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 4

April 24, 2020April 24, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

To catch up with the other chapters click the link at the top of the page or HERE. I shared Chapter 3 of Fully Alive on Thursday Fiction, yesterday.

“Alex Stone sounds like the name of some guy from a romance novel,” Matt McGee said, punching Alex in the shoulder and handing him a beer. “Did you ever realize that?”

When Alex had moved to Pennsylvania, he soon realized watching the Steelers every Sunday was a requirement, whether he liked it or not. He and Jason and their friend Matt had laid out a spread of subs, chips, and sodas, kicked off their shoes and flopped onto couches and chairs, ready for a Saturday football binge.

“How would you know about the names of characters in romance novels?” Jason asked with a smirk.

“Hey, I had sisters growing up,” Matt answered. “They all liked those romance garbage novels. You know, the romances with the cookie-cutter plots.”

“Yeah, just like the movies that are based on them,” Alex offered, cracking open the beer. He took a sip. “Girl with big career comes back to her small hometown for a visit, down on her luck.”

“Girl runs into an old boyfriend,” Jason said.

“Old boyfriend brings back hard memories, but then old boyfriend tries to apologize for all he’s done,” Alex finished with a mock crying face.

“Girl falls for old boyfriend again,” Alex said.

Alex grabbed a handful of peanuts from the bowl and shoved them in his mouth. “Old boyfriend screws up again and girl goes back to big city,” he said around a mouthful of peanuts.

Jason rolled his eyes. “But old boyfriend realizes he’s a screwup and that he really loves her and follows her to the city.”

“He tells her he’s always loved her,” Alex continued. “a d she tells him she’s always loved him. And everyone lives happily ever after.”

He choked out a gagging noise. The three men looked at each other, wiping pretend tears from their cheeks.

“Exactly,” Matt said. “Cookie-cutter plots full of clichés. And you, Alex, are one of those clichés. Alex Stone. The handsome cowboy, ex-boyfriend with the six-pack who comes to steal the girl away from the boring, uptight rich guy in the city.”

Alex lifted his shirt and looked at his flat, but slightly paunchy stomach. He pushed at the soft flesh and sighed. “I’d love to have a six-pack, but I think I would need to work out a little more.”

“Or just work a little more period,” Jason said opening a bag of chips and reaching for the remote.

“Oh, geez, thanks, bud,” Alex said, elbowing Jason in the ribs.

Jason and Alex had been roommates in college and were roommates again, now living in an old farmhouse two miles from the Tanner farm. Jason invited Alex home several times during their four-year stint at Penn State University and when they had graduated Alex followed Jason home and had worked on the Tanner farm since.

Matt, Jason’s friend since elementary school, had fit in nicely with the pair since all three were interested in football, farming, beer, and women, not necessarily in that order.

“What do you think we’d be doing if we’d actually used our degrees?” Alex asked, leaning back on the couch.

“Hey, I am using mine, remember?” Jason said. “Agriculture science and economics. It’s what I do every day. You’re the one who didn’t use your degree in – what was it again? Computer games or something?”

Alex tossed a pillow at Jason’s head. Jason blocked it and laughed.

“Computer programming and graphic art.,” Alex said.

Matt shrugged. “You two should have been like me and gone straight into the Army after school and then right into a career. Then you wouldn’t have all those college bills to pay off.”

“Alex is lucky,” Jason said with a wink. “His parents paid for his college, so he can live high on the hog.”

Alex shook his head. Jason liked to affectionately rib him about his rich upbringing, but Jason had no idea how poor Alex’s family had really been over the years. Poor in relationships, in love, caring – in all the things that really mattered in life. Alex didn’t like to talk about it and had rarely mentioned his pain-filled past. Jason knew a little about how hard it had been, even if he didn’t know the full story.

They were both in their sophomore year when Alex had taken Jason home to upstate New York with him on spring break, knowing his parents would be traveling to Italy or London or Paris like they did every spring. Only this year his parents weren’t traveling.

Alex tossed his bag on the floor inside the door, starring with a furrowed brow at his mom standing by the fireplace in the front room. “Mom. Hey. What are you doing here?”

His mom, dressed in dress pants and a white blouse, turned, mascara smeared under her eyes, her face wet with tears. She was pale, her face gaunt, her slim fingers trembling as she clutched her hands together.

“I thought you’d be in Italy or something,” Alex said.

“There won’t be any more trips to Europe for your father and me.” His mother’s voice was cold. “Not together anyhow. He’s left me Alex. He’s left us. He ran off with his secretary – finally – after cheating on me with her for the last three years. He finally did it.”

Alex’s cheeks flushed warm with embarrassment at his family’s skeletons being yanked from their closets in front of Jason, the kid with the fairytale home life. He’d already told Jason about his own shady past, how he’d become involved in drugs and petty crimes in high school, trying anything he could to gain attention from his parents – even negative attention. The drug use had been brief and mild compared to what it could have been but their use, coupled with the pranks and shoplifting had almost kept him from graduating high school. Luckily Alex’s grandfather had stepped in and set Alex straight before he ruined his entire life.

Alex glanced at Jason, saw him nervously scratch the back of his head, trying not to make eye contact with Alex or his mom.

“So, um, maybe this is a bad weekend for me to hang out,” Jason whispered to him.

“No. It’s fine,” Alex’s mom said quickly, overhearing him. “You boys can have the house for the weekend. The pool company came this morning to clean that out, there is plenty of food in the fridge and the hot tub is ready to go too.”

She wiped the tears from her face and tried to smile.

“Invite some more friends over, hon’,” she told Alex. “My credit card is in the top desk drawer in your dad’s office. You might as well use it while we can – before he runs it up on the tramp. Buy some more food, rent a DJ, whatever you want to do. I’m going to go to Leslie’s for the weekend. I need some shopping therapy. You’ll have the run of the house.”

She kissed his cheek, smiled weakly at Jason and walked past them toward the winding staircase in the middle of the house.

Alex didn’t throw the party, instead choosing a quite weekend with Jason, watching movies and shooting hoops in the driveway.

Alex’s parents’ divorce was final a few months later. His mother was given the house in the settlement and Alex saw his dad only at Christmas for the next two years.

Alex thought often how he’d trade all the money his parents had thrown at him and his brother Sam over the years for a stable family life, loving parents, and a father he could actually look up to. He’d found more parental support in Jason’s parents than he ever had in his own.

His mom fell apart for two years after the divorce, shopping and drinking in excess to drown her sorrows, living off the alimony until she met David Stanton, the heir to an oil family’s fortune. David wooed her with exotic trips and sparkling jewelry, eventually marrying her in a quiet ceremony on the beach with Alex and Sam standing next to his mom, doing their best to support her.

“Hey, you okay?” Jason asked, pulling Alex out of his memories.

“Yeah. All good.”

Jason looked concerned. “You sure? You need to talk about anything?”

Alex grinned. “You mean do I want to share my feelings over a cup of tea and some crumpets?” he asked. He punched Jason in the arm. “Holy crud, dude. I think that church stuff is rubbing off on you and making you all girly. No. I do not need to talk about anything.”

Jason laughed and shook his head. “Hey, that ‘church stuff’ as you call it, makes me care about people. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Alex sipped his beer and looked at the TV.

“Nope,” he said. “Nothing wrong with it – unless you start asking me to paint your toenails while you tell me how much you loved Steel Magnolias.”

Jason punched him the arm. “Shut up, dude and turn on the game. Plus, I liked Beaches better.”

Alex clicked on the game and laughed.

Since moving in with Jason, Alex had started to feel like he was part of a family, something he’d never really felt before. Jason’s father was more of a father to him than his own had ever been. Jason’s mother, Annie, treated him like one of her own children, even scolding him when she didn’t think he’d drank enough water on a hot day or bringing him chicken soup if he came down with a cold.

Over the years Alex’s feelings about Jason’s sister, Molly, had evolved to the point he knew he was attracted to her but was determined to deny it. For the most part, Alex saw Molly as another member of the family, but after she dropped out of classes at the small community college an hour away to take care of her grandfather, he’d begun to see her more often and in a new light.

He tried to remember Molly was Jason’s younger sister, but as each day passed and they worked closely during milking and cleaning stalls, he found his feelings toward her becoming more confusing. He enjoyed their early morning talks and their late evening joke sessions.

While he’d once overlooked her as simply being a child, a year ago he had caught himself watching her in the field, noticing the curves of her full figure, the way her reddish-brown curls fell down her back and how she flipped those curls over her shoulder when she laughed. She’d developed from a timid young girl into a beautiful woman in front of him in what felt like overnight and he was having a hard time not being overwhelmed by a new awareness of the changes in her.

More than once Alex had mentally scolded himself for being distracted by Molly’s smile, the smell of her shampoo or the feel of her hand grazing his when she passed him the milking hose.

Not only was Alex afraid of what Jason might think of him for having feelings for his sister but he was worried that the man who had become a father figure to him would also disapprove. Even more than how her family would react, Alex wondered how Molly would respond to his budding feelings if he ever gathered enough courage to tell her.

For now, he planned to keep his feelings to himself and hoped he would recognize the right time to tell her how he felt – if that time ever came.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 3

April 17, 2020April 23, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

You may have noticed yesterday that I didn’t have a Fiction Thursday. There are many reasons for this but one of the main reasons is that I looked at the next chapter and realized it wasn’t finished. Since we just moved into our new house this week after a lot of drama, I didn’t have the energy to finish the chapter. I did have Chapter 3 for The Farmer’s Daughter done, however, so I can share a new Fiction Friday. As always, this is a work in progress, which means there could be typos, left out words, and plot holes.

Find the links to the other chapters HERE.

The dirt broke easily in Robert’s hands and filtered through his fingers. It might look dry now, but he knew underneath there was mud from the heavy rains the week before. When weather was this wet it made planting difficult, if not almost impossible. If the corn couldn’t be planted it would mean little to no feed for the cows over the winter, unless more feed was bought from elsewhere, which would add more to the bottom line.

Robert had been working on his family’s farm for more than 45 years, starting at the ripe age of 3. In the last 10 years, the farm had expanded to include farmland once owned by neighbors who had sold family businesses after the decline in milk prices had devastated them financially. Robert, his brother, and his father had offered area farmer’s a fair price and in some cases had even given them jobs in Tanner Enterprises. The farmers were able to keep their homes and remain in the area, with the Tanners taking over their planting, harvesting, and milking. Robert’s son Jason helped Robert work the main farm and five years ago they’d added Jason’s college roommate Alex on as a farmhand. Then there were more employee additions, cashiers and shelf stockers at the farm store they’d opened three years ago. Now the company employed 30, hard-working, well-trained people, all local residents with families to support.

He stood and stretched, felt a hard pull between his shoulder blades and winced. Farming had been hard on him, there was no denying it. He was 49 but there were days he felt 85. There were no days off for farmers. No downtime, no chance to rest aching muscles. He was on call sun-up to sun-down. If a cow calved in the middle of the night, he was usually there, though sometimes his brother drove down from his own farm to take the night shifts. If one of the pigs went into labor in the middle of the night, he made his bed in the small room by the pig pens, waking up every couple of hours to check on her.

Robert’s elbow cracked as he straightened it and pain shot up through his arm. He wondered if Walter, five years his junior, felt this old too. He must. He had been working as hard and as long as Robert had, both of them growing up on their parents’ farm. Their childhood had been a good one, full of hard work, time together as a family and eating the food they’d grown themselves. They had both learned about what it meant to work for what they wanted and needed in life.

Robert thought about how so much had changed since he and Walt had grown up on the farm, how costs had gone up as profits had gone down.

He had never doubted he’d raise his children the same way he and his brother and sister had been raised and that one day they’d work this same land, instill the same values in their own children. He’d never doubted, until the last few years, that was

As big farms started to take over the market, pushing out the small farms, Robert and Walter had felt the noose tightening. They’d both started to wonder if they would have to let go of their vision of their own children taking over the farming business. Robert couldn’t imagine what he would do with himself if he had to sell out like many of his neighbors had.

“So, Walt, we have to talk about it,” he told his brother one foggy morning before the sun was even fully up.

Walt shoved a wad of chewing tobacco against his gum and lower lip and turned toward his older brother. “About how I have to stop chewing?”

“Well, yeah, that, but we can have that talk later. For now, we need to talk about what the future of this farm is. How much longer can we do this? With barely making a profit, barely staying afloat? How much longer can we support our families?”

Walt spit chew at the barn floor and hooked his thumbs in the belt loops on his jeans.

“I don’t know, big brother,” he said. “I truly don’t. But what are we doing to do if we don’t do this?”

Robert shrugged. He hadn’t known then, and he didn’t know now. He couldn’t imagine working a job where he couldn’t pour his heart and soul into it like he had with farming.

He loved being able to provide food for not only for his family but other families, knowing where that food was coming from and how it was being produced. He worried about the impersonal aspects of corporate farming, the decrease in food quality with the pressure to produce food at a high volume and the possibility of a loss of stewardship of the soil.

Dropping the rest of the dirt to the ground, Robert kicked at the ground with his boot, slid his hands into his jean pockets and looked out over the field. He fought back emotion, trying to ignore mental images of a future that included this land being barren, starving of nutrition and void of hands willing to work it. He closed his eyes against the vision, opened them again, and focused on the sun reflecting off the water pooling around tips of corn that should have been as high as his knee by now.

He wasn’t ready to give in yet, to throw away all that he’d built. He was determined to keep fighting, to keep his family’s small farming business alive as long as he could, to keep food on the table of his employees. He’d keep planting, keep harvesting, keep milking until he absolutely couldn’t anymore. If he pushed through the challenges, helped the land and the family business prosper, maybe it would encourage other farmers to do the same and maybe he’d have a business to pass down to his son.

“I swear, if one more person tells me they drink almond milk I’ll scream,” Jason had said one day, climbing down from the tractor and slamming the door to the cab closed. “It’s not milk. You can’t milk an almond. Milk comes from mammals. It’s false advertising. They should call it almond juice. Plus, who knows what’s in that stuff – it isn’t only almonds, that’s for sure.”

If it hadn’t been for Jason’s passion for farming, along with the brothers’ efforts to keep the business sustainable, Tanner Enterprises would have gone under a few years earlier when the family patriarch, Robert and Walter’s father Ned, had retired and then been struck with a list of health issues. Jason’s decision to bring his friend Alex home and convince Robert to offer Alex a job had been an integral part of the business’ success, as well. Alex’s first year at the farm had been rough; he was often late for milking, distracted on the job and hungover too many mornings. Hard work had been a remedy for much of what ailed Alex Stone, maturing him in a way Robert hadn’t expected. Now Robert considered Alex part of the family and the backbone of the entire farming operation. Without him and Jason to help pull the weight, Robert felt certain he would have had a heart attack years ago, or maybe even given up last year when his father had died.

Robert was proud of how he and Walter had been able to grow the family business his grandfather had started almost 100 years ago with the help of their family and staff, but he was also tired. It hadn’t been easy to keep a small farm running in the black. Now, with an even bigger farming enterprise and so many employees under his care he felt the pressure even more with each year that passed. Diversifying what the farm produced and adding a farm store had increased profits enough to keep food on his, and his employees’, tables, but there were some days Robert wondered when the other shoe was going to drop and his dream of being a farmer would die.

***

No one wanted to be nice anymore and everyone was always staring down at their phones.

That’s how Franny Tanner felt about the world these days and she wasn’t afraid to say it.

When she was young people actually talked to each other, face to face. No, they didn’t always say nice things and they didn’t always get along, but they were a lot more alert and a lot less like braindead zombies; that much she knew.

The feet of the rocker hit the porch hard as Franny pushed her feet down. She felt turned up inside and angry at the world. She knew it wasn’t right but darn it, she was tired of being visited only if the battery on one of those cellphones died and her grandchildren were bored.

“Oh, Mom, there is nothing wrong with them being on their devices from time to time.” Her daughter Hannah had been in a lecturing mood as she unpacked the groceries earlier that day. “They aren’t hurting anyone and some of their games are educational. Just because you didn’t have technology like this when you were younger doesn’t make it bad.”

Hannah closed the refrigerator door.

“Now, I got you that bread you like and some more of that ham you can slice up for your dinner,” she said. “Robert will be over later with some dessert and to fix the buzzing sound in the TV. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Anything else she could do? Why? So she wouldn’t feel guilty for rarely visiting her own mother and always being too busy to stop and talk awhile?

“No, thank you.”

Franny’s top lip had disappeared against the bottom as Hannah leaned down and kissed her cheek and walked toward the front door.

“Call if you need anything,” Hannah said casually, closing the front door.

“Always nice to be talked at and not to,” Franny mumbled to herself as she rocked.

Franny knew she shouldn’t be so uptight and disgusted with everyone and everything but lately the frustration simply seemed to spill over. It was spilling over even more as she thought about her daughter’s condescending tone. She increased the speed of her rocking.

“Hello, there, Miss Franny.”

The voice of Joe Fields, the new pastor of the local Methodist church startled her. She didn’t like being startled and she jerked her head around and leveled a furious glare at the smiling, red-faced balding man standing on her porch.

“Well, good grief,” she snapped. “I thought you Southerners were supposed to be polite. No one taught you not to scare an old lady?”

If the pastor was surprised by her snappy response, he didn’t show it.

“I’m sorry Miss Franny,” he said cheerfully. “I have been told I have a quiet way about me, and I guess that didn’t work out as a good thing this time.”

He laughed easily. Franny didn’t.

He stopped laughing and cleared his throat.

“Did my daughter send you here to talk me into coming back to church?” Franny snapped.

Joe found himself clearing his throat again. Suddenly he felt like he was 10-years old.

“Well, no, I mean, yes, but that wasn’t exactly what she said – I mean..”

The chair creaked loud as it rocked.

“Or did she send you here to tell me she’s sending me to a nursing home?”

“Oh. I-no-“ the pastor laughed nervously. “That wasn’t something she – I mean, she didn’t ask me about – or that is to say that I don’t know of any such plan –“

“Not sure I’d ever want to go to church with a preacher who can’t seem to figure out how to finish a sentence ,” Franny said tersely.

Joe wasn’t sure if he should laugh or run back to his car and drive away.

“Well, yes – um — anyhow, Miss Franny, I just stopped to tell you that anytime you want to come to church, I’d be glad to send someone to pick you up.”

He spoke quickly before she struck him down with her tongue again.

“I’ll keep you updated,” she said dryly, looking away from him to watch the neighbor’s pick up pass by the house. Henry Sickler waved and Franny lifted her hand in a quick movement and then laid it back on the rocker arm.

“Well, that would be –“

“But don’t hold your breath,” she quipped, still not looking at the young pastor.

Joe cleared his throat again and nodded.

“Well, okay then. Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Franny?”

“Stop calling me Miss Franny for one. He may be dead but I’m still a Mrs., thank you very much.”

“Of course. I’m so sorry. I meant no disrespect, ma’am. Down South, we just use the term ‘Miss” as a sign of affection or respect.”

Franny felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe she really was being too hard on the young man. He was just trying to be nice, to do what he felt was his calling, or whatever. She decided to throw him a line and hoped he wouldn’t strangle himself with it.

“That’s fine. I’m sure you didn’t mean to be rude.”

She focused her eyes on a bird on the bush next to the porch instead of looking at him.

“If you ever need to talk – you know – about your loss . . .”

Franny snorted and rolled her eyes. Good God he’d just hung himself from the nearest tree with the line she’d thrown.

“I don’t talk about loss,” she snapped. “There is no sense in talking about such things. If that’s all, it’s time for my afternoon nap. You probably have a nursing home or two in town to visit so don’t let me stop you.”

Joe stood slowly.

“Well, yes, uh, I should be going. You’re right.”

He tried to smile, to ignore the internal feeling of disappointment that he wasn’t able to hit a home run on one of his first home visits as the new pastor.

“You have a good day, Miss — I mean Mrs. Tanner,” he said softly and at the risk of being yelled at again he added: “I meant what I said about being here if you ever need to talk.”

Franny nodded curtly without looking at him. She listened to him step off the porch, walk down the sidewalk and to his car.

When the sound of his car faded she tightened her jaw and fought the tears. She would not cry. She’d cried enough tears in the last year since Ned had died. She didn’t need to be reminded of all she had lost that day and she didn’t need to be reminded Ned wasn’t there anymore. Not by her family and certainly not by some upstart pastor from the South.

She picked up her rocking again, sliding her hands along the smooth, curved arm of the chair Ned had built for her. He’d built two chairs; one for him and one for Franny.

“We’ll just rock the rest of our lives away,” he said, the night he’d presented them to her, two nights after he’d told her he wanted to back off farming as often, passing the bulk of the farm operations to his sons.

For a few years they’d been able to do just that. He would come home when he wished, eat lunch and even dose in one of the rocking chairs in the cool breeze of the summer afternoon or inside in the recliner if it was cooler out.

After he passed away last year, it was months before Franny started to sit in her rocking chair again. When alone, she looked at her husband’s empty chair and remembered the warm nights with cold iced tea, the cool nights with hot cocoa and the laughter.

Most of all she remembered the laughter.

She tried her best not to remember the confusion, the days he couldn’t remember what they had laughed about the day before. She pushed the memory of the day he asked her who she was and why he was sitting on the porch with her far to the back of her mind, closing her eyes against tears when it surfaced against her will.

The last three years had been like a very bad dream she couldn’t wake up from. First, the weakness and exhaustion had struck Ned, then a diagnosis of Congestive Heart Failure, and within six months after that diagnosis the confusion settled in. In the beginning, they thought the confusion was from the medication, but she remembered well the day Dr. Lester told her Ned’s medication wasn’t the cause. It was Alzheimer’s and there was no cure, he’d said.

“But, with patience and the right therapy, we can delay the progression,” Dr. Lester said, his hand on hers, trying to reassure her.

The progression hadn’t been delayed, though. The confusion had spread faster than Dr. Lester had expected and combined with a weakened heart, it was more than Ned’s body could bear.

At a time when they should have been enjoying time with their grandchildren, traveling together or simply spending time together rocking on the front porch, Franny was navigating her golden years alone. She wasn’t navigating them well, either. She was floundering; angry and bitter most days, pushing the people who loved her the most away.

And worst of all, she had pushed God away, angry at him for taking Ned before she was ready. She’d believed in and trusted God her whole life, never doubting his love for her, even when she’d had a miscarriage between her first and second son and even on the toughest days at the farm. But this? This cruel loss of her husband not only mentally but then physically too? In some ways Franny felt like this was truly the end of her rope, her naïve belief in a God who loved her. In other ways, though, she wasn’t ready to let go of the trust she had held on to for all these years. More than anything she wanted answers. She wanted God to show her some reason for her pain, for Ned’s suffering.

“You owe me that much, Lord,” she said softly as she rocked.

After all her years of service, all her years of blindly following the teachings of the Christian faith, God her owed her some explanations and he owed them to her soon.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 2

April 10, 2020April 16, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

Life has been crazy in my neck of the woods, but revising Chapter 2 to share here this week helped distract me a little. Hopefully, it will actually post because my parents’ house (where we are staying for a while) has some pretty awful WiFi. That has been both a blessing and a curse. I’ve been frustrated at times being unable to access things online I’d like to but it’s also been a blessing because I am cut off in many ways from the negative news of the world. I can’t scroll Facebook or even access news sites at certain points in the day and I’m actually liking that.

If you missed Chapter 1, you can find the link HERE.

The Spencer Valley Community Center was the gathering place on Thursday nights for half the town of Spencer, population 3,000. In one conference room, the Spencer Valley Historical Society was meeting to discuss the upcoming history fair and fundraiser. In another room, there was a painting class, ages teen to 90s.

At the end of the hall a dance class was being held in the main gathering area and in a small conference room behind the kitchen, the Spencer Sewing and Knitting Club was holding its weekly gathering for amateurs and experts alike.

Molly was an amateur, which was clear from how she was sucking her index finger after stabbing it the third time in ten minutes while trying to learn to cross-stitch. She wasn’t even sure why she was at the sewing club. She’d never been interested in creating anything with thread and needle. She was usually at the community center for painting or sketching classes. When her friend Liz had invited her to the sewing club meeting she’d agreed, simply to break up the monotony of her evenings at the milking barn.

Molly laid her project down on her lap and rubbed her eyes.

“I haven’t been able to sleep all week,” she said through a yawn. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Liz Cranmer, Molly’s friend since seventh grade sat across from her in a cushioned wooden chair, her red-blond hair tied back in a neat ponytail.

“It’s all that worrying you do,” Liz said, matter-of-factly. “You have too much cortisol in your system.”

Oh, here we go again, Molly thought, fighting the strong urge to roll her eyes.

Liz was a self-proclaimed natural health expert. She was also a well-known hypochondriac. A half-filled water bottle with ice and freshly cut lemons sat next to her chair, which she sipped throughout the meeting.

“I don’t even know what cortisol is,” Molly said. She immediately regretted admitting her lack of knowledge.

Liz laid her project on her lap and looked up. “That’s what your adrenals make when you’re stressed. It’s a hormone that is produced by your body to try to help you —”

“My what?”

“Adrenals. They’re glands that sit on top of your kidneys.”

“Do they help me pee? Because I’m peeing fine.”

The other women, sitting on couches or chairs in a semi-circle, were starting to giggle.

“Oh boy. Here we go again,” Mildred McGee said with a shake of her head.

“No, they don’t help you pee,” Liz said. “They help regulate your flight or fight response.”

“By making me pee?” Molly asked.

“They aren’t related to peeing,” Liz said impatiently, rolling her eyes. “Anyhow, you need to buy some supplements to regulate your adrenals. Are you tired all day and wide awake at night?”

Molly sipped coffee from a thermos next to her and shook her head. If Liz wasn’t diagnosing herself with unusual ailments she read about in some magazine or online, then she was diagnosing her friends.

Ginny Jefferies, the town’s 50-year-old librarian, sighed. “Oh, Liz. You’ve been reading too many medical sites again. You know you’re a hypochondriac.”

“Well, I didn’t say I had it,” Liz pointed out. “I said Molly did.”

Louise McGroarty smiled and looked over her bifocals at Liz and Molly in amusement as she looped another piece of yarn around her needle.

“I don’t have adrenal issues,” Molly sighed. “I’ve just been thinking too much lately.”

“What have you been thinking about?” Liz asked.

“I don’t know. Life in general, I guess. Like what I want to do with mine besides working on the farm.”

“Molly, honey, you only live once and if you want to see what life is like beyond this town then you should finish that degree you started all those years ago and see where it takes you,” Louise said as she tied off a piece of thread. “You’re almost 30, kid. It’s beyond time to figure out what you want in life and get on with it.”

“I’m 26, not almost 30,” Molly said.

“26 is the new almost 30,” Jessie Newberry, the mayor’s secretary, said with a grin.

Molly sighed. She had been sighing a lot lately.

“Really though, I like living on the farm,” Molly said. “It’s what I’m used to.”

“What you’re used to isn’t always what is best for you, honey,” Ginny said, pushing a needle through her project.

“Exactly. Besides helping your family, and maybe us wonderful ladies,” Lydia Walmsley smiled as she gestured around the room. “What else is keeping you in this town?

As if on cue, the side door to the community room opened and a quiet hush fell over the women as they looked up from their projects. Molly followed their gazes and watched Alex walking toward her wearing a dirty pair of jeans and a stained white t-shirt. The expressions on the women’s faces made it seem like he was strutting down a catwalk on fashion week in Paris instead of into the community room in his farm clothes.

“Hey,” he said, stopping and standing in front of her, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. “Your mom wants to know if you can stop by the store on the way home and pick up some more flour and sugar for the rest of the cakes.”

She furrowed her eyebrows and smiled slightly. “You don’t know how to buy flour and sugar?”

“You know I always buy the wrong thing,” Alex said with a grin, pushing his fingers back through his ruffled brown hair.

Molly noticed that almost all the women were watching her and Alex, or more accurately Alex as if Alex was standing shirtless under a waterfall.

“I can pick it up,” she told him. “Now get out of here and go be productive somewhere.”

Alex offered a mock salute. “Sure thing, drill sergeant,” Alex said. He turned to walk away and then looked over his shoulder and smirked. “Have fun sewing and knitting, ladies.”

Liz looked at Molly with one eyebrow raised, her back to Alex.

“We sure will, Alex,” she said. “You have a good day now.”

Alex walked through the doorway, his back to the women. “Oh, I plan to.”

As the door closed firmly behind Alex, Liz smirked.

“And that, my dear ladies, is what is really keeping Molly Tanner in Spencer Valley,” she said as warmth rushed into Molly’s cheeks.

“Ooooh…” several of the women cooed together as Molly rolled her eyes.

“That could not be further from the truth,” she said.

“He’d keep me here,” Maddie Simpson said with a smile. “I’d just follow him around anywhere like I was a lost puppy dog.” The other women laughed in agreement.

Hannah Barks fanned her chest with her hand. “Same here. Oh my, Molly, where have you been hiding him?”

“I haven’t. He’s been working at our farm for the last five years. Of course, unless you live at the local bars or attend a rodeo you’ve probably never met him.”

“Sounds like someone is trying to pretend she’s not interested,” Allie Jenkins said with a smirk.

Molly started to fold her project as she shook her head.

“I’m going to go get those baking supplies for mom to avoid the wrath of Mavis.”

“No matter what you do, you’ll never avoid the wrath of Mavis,” Ginny said with a snort.

The other women laughed and nodded in agreement.

“Isn’t that the truth?” Allie said. “That woman is never happy.”

Liz shoved her project into her bag quickly. “I’ll follow you,” she told Molly.

Outside in the parking lot, the sun was just starting to set. Golden light poured across the small town of Spencer, making it look almost picturesque. Molly always thought that if it hadn’t been for several dilapidated, abandoned buildings along Main Street and the empty shoe factory on the edge of town, her hometown could be mistaken for one of those quaint villages in a Hallmark movie.

Many of the homes were well maintained, fairly new siding, matching shutters, the stereotypical white picket fence surrounding the neatly mowed front and back yards. The homes that were less maintained were where every book and movie always placed them – on the other side of the train tracks and well out of view of most visitors, who usually looked for the small, unique shops on Main Street instead.

The tracks were mainly used to transport cars to and from the railcar repair station. The repair center was the last remnant of the railroad company that once employed the majority of the town, helping to facilitate its growth more than 100 years ago, along with farming and the local medical center. When train transportation became less prominent, its demise was part of what started the town down the slippery slope of its economic decline.

Across from the community center was St. Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church; one of many churches in town. Molly looked up at the building, a tall cross illuminated from behind and adhered to the front of the stone structure, near the middle of the bell tower. In front of it was a statue of Mary and in front of Mary were a bouquet of fresh flowers that someone must have placed there earlier in the day.

The small farming community was host to a variety of small churches, representing a variety of the main Christian denominations. While Molly had always admired the stunning architecture and stained-glass windows of the Catholic Church, her idea of how to approach her faith had led her to what was called a “non-denominational church” thirty minutes away, in the neighboring town of Millsburg. The church hadn’t hitched itself to any one denomination and this was a concept that appealed to Molly.

“So, are you really thinking of leaving the farm?” Liz asked after she had finished chatting with the ladies and met Molly in the parking lot.

“I don’t know,” Molly admitted. “I like helping dad and mom with the farm. I like helping with the cows and at the farm, working at the farm store, and I even like collecting the eggs from those cranky hens. On some days I can’t really see myself doing anything else, but on other days – I don’t know. I just want something different.”

Liz flipped a strand of hair off her shoulder. “I hear you. Change is good. Why do you think I left my job at the school district? I needed something more exciting than answering phones and scheduling the superintendent’s meetings.”

“You work at a health food store,” Molly said with a laugh. “Is that really more exciting?”

Liz tilted her head and laughed. “Sometimes it is actually. Yes. Last week a woman came in and asked if the crystals we have would help her to realign her shakra. I don’t even know what a shakra is. I just told her it was possible and left off that I had no idea.”

Reaching their cars, Liz unlocked hers and tossed her bag into the passenger seat. She leaned back against the closed door.

“But enough about me, back to you. You’ll have to think about what you want to do beyond the farm, but I know one thing you can do now: come to the gym with me and get in shape and snag that sexy Alex.”

Molly unlocked her own car and shook her head at her friend. “Liz, no. Alex is — well, Alex. And he wouldn’t be interested in me at all anyhow.”

“I highly doubt that’s true and besides, are you interested in him?”

Molly raised her arm and looked at an imaginary watch. “Oh, my. Look at the time. Don’t you have a cat to get home and feed, Liz?”

Liz sighed as she turned to slid into the front seat. “Go ahead, Molly Tanner. Chase away your best friend who is only trying to help you lose your —”

Molly waved over her shoulder at her friend. “Bye, Liz. Will I see you at the ladies’ group Tuesday?

“I don’t know.” Liz shrugged. “I might have to work. Jane has been out sick this week.”

Jane Wilcox was Liz’s boss and the owner of Nature’s Best Health Food Store. Molly thought that for someone who touted healthy living and eating she sure was sick a lot.

“Well, I hope you can come. We’re studying Esther this week.”

“Again? Oh my gosh, I get it,” Liz said with an eye roll. “Esther was wonderful and we should all be like Esther.”

“There are a lot of good lessons in her story, but, no, we can’t all be like her,” Molly said. “I’m sure she wasn’t perfect. We’re only hearing one story of her life.”

Liz laughed. “I know, like how Facebook and Instagram only show the highlights of someone’s life. I’ll see what I can do. Drive home safe, lady. And for Godsake, don’t let Mavis rope you into manning that bake sale table again.”

Pulling the door closed Molly thought about how Liz felt she needed to change her looks to get the attention of a man. She was probably right, still it was weird thinking about the need to become someone you weren’t simply to be paid attention to by the opposite sex. What happened when the man found out Molly wasn’t who he had thought she was? That would certainly be an awkward transition unless the woman simply pretended to be someone else the rest of her life.

Molly shuddered as she drove, thinking about a woman she had known who was doing exactly that and was probably miserable because of it. Dana Priester always had her hair styled perfectly, her make up just so, her clothes always the latest design, and a smile always plastered on her face. How awful it must be for her to always have to be “on” and never be allowed to let down her hair and simply be herself. Then again, Molly thought with a shrug, maybe stuck up and fake was who Dana really was.

Just as awkward as Liz’s suggestion that she get in shape to catch a man was the man Liz had mentioned. Molly had definitely found her mind wandering more than once to Alex’s handsome appearance but she had never thought about trying to “win him over” or “catch him.” Alex was — well, Alex. He was simply there. Her brother’s best friend, her dad and uncle’s employee, her co-worker, for lack of a better word.

He was attractive, easy to talk to and fun to be around but Molly knew he would never be anything more than those things to her. He was too attractive, too charming, and maybe even too fun for her. There was no way he would ever be interested in someone like her; someone who weighed more than she should, didn’t pay much attention to her feminine side and who he most likely merely thought of as his best friend’s little sister who he worked with at the barn.

Passing the town limits and relaxing as the comforting sight of fields of hay rose up around her, Molly shifted her thoughts from Alex to the ladies’ group and how it had been helping her study the Bible more. She still had a long way to go before she felt as “spiritual” as some of the women in the group, who seemed to trust God in every step of their lives, but she felt more equipped to handle life than she had five years ago when her grandfather was first diagnosed and she had started caring for him.

She knew she should have been praying more about what God wanted for her life too, but she’d prayed she had prayed a lot when her Grandfather’s health had taken a turn for the worse and never heard an answer. Why would God now give her an answer about what steps she should take in her life? And even if he did give her answers, how would he give her answers?

She knew answers from God weren’t like an audible voice from the clouds, but she had been seeking answers about her next step in life for seven years and, yet, here she was, almost 26, and feeling stuck in a deep, boring, frustrating rut. She didn’t know if leaving the farm was what she needed to get out of it, but she knew she needed some kind of change and she needed to make that change sooner rather than later.

Fiction Friday: The Farmer’s Daughter Chapter 1

April 3, 2020April 16, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

I have shared a little of this story in the past, but have been working on it over time and will be working on it again as it goes on. As with other stories, this is mainly unedited so typos and left out words are definitely a possibility.

To find more of this story click HERE.

I also shared part of a novella I am working on yesterday.

A New Beginning will be accessible for a little longer on the blog since I don’t know when I’ll have reliable internet to upload it to Kindle. Quarantined, the short story I wrote, is also available in full at the top of the page.

Chapter 1

“You have got to be kidding me!”

Molly Tanner’s life was stuck in proverbial cow poop in the same way she was standing knee-deep in literal cow poop.

She had imagined so much more for her life but here she was pulling hard on a rope connected to the harness of a Jersey cow, trying to convince the animal to move the 300 yards from the cow pasture to the barn, when she could have been traveling the world or exploring all life had to offer while working an exciting job somewhere exotic.

This battle of the wills, which so far the cow named Cinnamon was winning, had been going on for fifteen minutes and Molly had had enough.

She lowered her head and looked Cinnamon directly in the cow’s right eye. “Listen here, girl, it’s time to get in that barn. I’m tired. It’s been a long day of milking and cleaning out all that mess you and your friends make. And I’m not done yet. I still have to help Mom bake cakes for the church rummage sale next week. You know how much I hate that bake sale, so come on, give me a break, okay?”

Across the field, at the top of the hill, Alex Stone, the Tanner’s farmhand, casually leaned back against the door of the barn, chewing on a piece of sweet grass and watching Molly struggle.

“Whatdya think she’s doing down there?” he asked, nodding in Molly’s direction, arms folded across his chest.

Molly’s brother Jason spoke from inside the barn. “Looks like she’s arguing with Cinnamon again.” He poured a bucket full of slop for the pigs into their trough, then set the bucket down and walked over to stand next to Alex.

“Should we help her?” Alex asked.

“Probably.”

Jason leaned against the door next to Alex and accepted the piece of sweet grass Alex handed him. The men chewed together and continued to watch with amused expressions, neither making a move to help.

If Cinnamon felt any remorse for her actions, she wasn’t showing it. She chewed her cud and turned her head toward the empty field behind her, then swished a fly off her backside with a flick of her tail. Molly groaned and tightened her grip on the rope.

“You are going into that barn for milking,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “I will not be defeated.”

In the same moment Molly pulled, Cinnamon jerked her head back and with that movement ripped the rope from Molly’s hands, sending her staggering, off-balance, to one side before she tripped over a pile of manure and fell, face down in the cow pasture. A scream of frustration gurgled out of Molly as she pushed herself to her hands and knees and sat back in the mud, glaring at the cow.

Well, if this isn’t apropos of where my life has ended up in the last few years, I don’t know what is, she thought bitterly.

Jason shook his head. “Good grief,” he said, tossing the sweet grass to the ground and turning to walk back into the barn. “She’s a mess. You’d better go rescue her.”

Alex grinned, his gaze drifting over the mud clinging to Molly’s figure, glad Jason didn’t know he was admiring the view. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. She is pretty pathetic right now.”

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey!” he shouted. “What’s going on down there? We’re ready to start the milking! You gonna get that cow up here or what?”

Alex’s voice booming across the cow pasture brought a curse word to Molly’s mind, which she immediately felt guilty about. Though it wasn’t the worst curse word she could have said, it wasn’t in her usual verbal repertoire. She’d been used to one annoying older brother her entire life, but five years ago Jason had invited his college roommate Alex to come work on the family farm and now it was like she had two annoying older brothers, always ready to harass her.

She stood, trying to wipe the mud from her clothes, and grabbed the rope again. “If you’re so impatient then you get this stubborn cow moving!” she shouted back up the hill.

She turned and tugged on the rope again, silently pleading for Cinnamon to move.

Boots thumped heavy in the mud behind her as she pulled. Alex reached over her shoulder, taking the rope and Molly watched in disbelief as Cinnamon dutifully dropped her head and walked forward.

“Are you kidding me?! I’ve been trying to get her to move for 20 minutes! What did you do differently?”

Alex looked over his shoulder and smirked. “I guess the ladies just like me.”

“You wish,” Molly grumbled loud enough for him to hear, even though she knew what Alex had said was more than true. She’d watched more than one woman in town follow him down the street like a cow looking for her feed. He certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes, but his obnoxious personality left a lot to be desired.

Mud and manure squished under Molly’s feet and slid off her clothes as she plodded toward the barn, frustration seething through her.

“Molly, why don’t you just head in and get cleaned off?” Robert Tanner said to his daughter as she stumbled through the barn doorway. “You can start helping your mom with those cakes. Alex, Jason and I can finish up the milking.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer,” Molly said. “Maybe I can even manage a shower before bed for once.”

Jason’s face scrunched in disgust as he leaned close to Molly and sniffed. “That would definitely be a good thing. You smell like the pigs.”

Molly shot a glare at her brother and turned to walk back toward the house.

“And you smell like the gas that comes out of their behinds!” she shouted over her shoulder.

“Always have to have the last word, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Whatever!”

“Whatever back at you!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Robert said. “Now the last word is mine.”

Walking back toward the house, trying to wipe dirt from her face, but instead only wiping more onto it, Molly paused to look out the fields of the farm. The green of the corn was starting to peek up from the soil and soon they’d be harvesting it, if the rain would ever stop. It would be the third year of harvesting without her grandfather, the first since he’d passed away.

Molly had been sure that by now, eight years after graduating high school, she’d be out on her own, with her own career, her own life. Instead, she was still living on her parents’ farm in rural Pennsylvania, still sleeping in her old room, her mother still cooking her meals and washing her clothes. Working on a farm was all she’d ever known and all she’d ever wanted, at least until a few months ago when she’d started to wonder what else the world might have to offer a 26-year old with no college degree and little knowledge of the world other than how to milk a cow and sell produce at her parent’s small farm store.

She walked into the chicken coop to look for eggs she knew her mom needed for the cakes.

The eggs retrieved, she paused outside the chicken coup and watched the sun begin to slip behind the hills hugging the Tanner’s 250-acre farm. The sunset, a mix of orange with a streak of pink, made the fields of the farm look almost mystical. She knew she’d never get sick of this view, of these sunsets at the end of a long day.

Her mom’s laughter startled her and she turned to see her mom standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Good grief, what happened to you?” Annie Tanner asked her daughter.

Wearing faded blue jeans anda red and white checkered button up top with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, Annie looked much younger than her actual age of 47.

Molly sighed and looked down at her own mud and manure covered clothes. “Cinnamon happened to me, I guess you would say.”

“Being stubborn again?” Annie asked.

“Of course.”

“Well, are you going to stand there all day or are you going to bring those eggs into the house and head up for a shower?”

Molly sighed. “Sorry. I was just admiring the sunset.”

“It’s beautiful,” Annie agreed. “But I need to get those cakes started. A sunset will wait. Mavis Porter won’t.”

Molly inwardly cringed at the mention of Mavis, the woman who had overseen the Spencer Valley Methodist Church rummage sale for 20-years straight. Mavis had a knack for making anyone feel less than, her thin face pursed into a permanent look of disapproval. Molly hoped she wouldn’t be roped into manning the baked goods table again this year. Mavis seemed to think it was ironic to have the fat girl guarding the cakes and cookies at the annual rummage and bake sale.

“I can’t believe there are any cakes left,” a middle school-aged boy said one year during the bake sale, looking Molly up and down from across the church basement while his friends laughed.

“There were probably even more before she came in,” another boy said, as they all snickered.

She pretended she didn’t hear them as she counted the change in the money box.

Molly handed the basket of eggs to her mother and headed into the house.

Molly wasn’t proud of the weight she’d gained over the years, but no matter what she did she couldn’t seem to get back down to her high school weight. She missed when she was in junior high school, thin and limber and not the butt of little boy’s jokes.

With long, reddish-brown curls that fell to the middle of her back and plenty of curves, she possessed a clearly feminine shape. She was not what some might call grotesquely obese. Still, she wasn’t happy with the extra cushion to her belly, backside, and thighs. She wished she’d never heard the term “saddlebags” beyond what was hooked to the actual saddle of a horse. Drying off in front of the bathroom mirror she kept her eyes downcast, hoping to avoid a full view of what her body had become over the years. She’d heard more than one sermon over the years about God loving her no matter what but there were days she struggled to love herself, at least when it came to her appearance.

Three more cakes were baked and cooling on the dining room table, ready to be added to the six other cakes Molly and Annie has baked the day before, when Molly heard her father’s truck pulling into the driveway of the house.

Her father’s red Ford needed to be replaced. The old truck was Robert Tanner’s pride and joy and a gift from his father when Robert had taken over the majority of the farm operations 20 years ago. Annie kept urging him to invest in a new one, but each time she did he responded with: “It gets me where I need to go and when it won’t no more then I’ll get a new one.”

Molly watched as her dad climbed out of the driver side, more gingerly than he had even a year ago. He’d been up since 4 a.m., overseeing the milking of the cows, the shoveling of the manure, the preparations to mow the field. She knew the last few years had been as physically rough on her dad as it had been emotionally.

Alex, the Tanner’s farmhand, slid out of the passenger side easily and walked toward the house. He wore the same style of faded blue jeans and brown work boots he did every day. A white t-shirt was dirt-stained under a blue button-up, shirt sleeve plaid shirt. His brown hair was ruffled but in a good way, as if it had been styled that way somehow. Molly couldn’t deny Alex’s rugged good looks quickened her pulse, but he was four years older than her, obnoxious and preferred the bar when she preferred solitude with her journal and Bible.

Jason pulled up in his own truck, spitting at the ground as he climbed out. Gross, Molly thought to herself. He is so gross. I don’t even know how Ellie stands him.

But Jason could also be sweet, at times, cared deeply for her and the rest of his family and was proud to work on the farm and help put food on tables across the country. He lumbered across the yard like an ox and he was as big as one too, at least around the shoulders and neck. It wasn’t all fat either. Jason lifted heavy hay bails and worked hard on the farm every day but he also spent every morning after milking at the gym for a 90-minute hour workout. Molly knew his determination to keep in shape was left over from playing football during high school and college.

His coaches urged him to pursue a professional career and two NFL teams had courted him, but Jason had never wanted a career in football. He’d wanted to come home to the farm, to his cows and his corn and to Ellie, who he’d been dating since his senior year of high school. When he’d graduated college with a degree in agriculture engineering and economics, he did just that — came home and a couple years later he convinced Alex to come with him.

When Alex had first arrived Annie would ask if he’d like to come to dinner. Now Alex came without an invitation because to the Tanners he’d become part of the family. Annie often told him she felt like she had gained another son when he’d moved with Jason into the house she’d grown up in. Her parents had moved out of the house when they had decided to retire from farming and move into a retirement community in town.

“Good day in the fields?” Annie asked after the prayers had been said and the food was on the plates.

“The John Deere finally broke down,” Robert said, breaking a piece off a chicken breast.

“Will John come and look at it?” Annie asked.

Robert nodded toward Jason. “Jason and I can take care of it in the morning after milking. It will make a late start, but I hate to spend the money if I know we can fix it here.”

Jason grinned. “Dad forgets I’m not good with the tractors, just the trucks, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“I have faith in both of you,” Annie said with a smile. She winked at Alex. “And in Alex. He’s learned a thing or two about tractors over the years.”

Alex laughed softly and shook his head. “Just enough to keep my job but not enough to give me too much work because we all know I couldn’t handle that.”

Molly knew that wasn’t true. Jason liked to rib his friend about his laziness and Alex playfully agreed, but Alex was a hard worker and knew almost as much about how to operate the farm as her dad and brother did, even if he had been born a city slicker.

Quiet settled over the dining room. The clanking of forks against plates was soon the only sound. Molly felt the tension in the air like someone wanted to say something but didn’t know how. Her dad finally cleared his throat and she felt apprehension curl in her stomach.

“We got a letter from the co-op today,” he said.

“How bad are the numbers?” Annie asked, spooning more potatoes onto Alex’s plate.

“Worse I’ve seen in five years.” Robert was somber. “It’s going to hurt a lot of farmers. Even with the organic market, I think it may even hurt us. There were also more farms that went out of business this year.”

Molly felt sick at the thought of even more of their friends being forced to sell their farms. She had attended too many auctions last year, hugged too many farmers’ wives, watched too many farm families weep as their lives were sold to the highest bidder. Thinking about driving past even more empty fields that had once been full of corn and hay left a dull ache in her chest.

“I don’t understand how the buyers can keep getting away with this,” Jason said, shaking his head. “It’s like the harder we work, the more we get punished. We make the milk, they raise the prices and barely pass anything on to us.”

Molly pushed her potatoes around her plate as silence settled over the small group. Alex coughed against his hand and took a sip of his tea. He wished he could say something to make it all better for this family who had taken him in as their own, but he knew he couldn’t.

“We just have to give this over to God,” Robert said softly. “It’s all I know how to do anymore. Keep plugging ahead somehow and pray God shows us which direction to take. We’ve got the store, we are offering organic meats and products, something many people seem interested in now. It’s all we can do.”

The small family nodded but they all felt the dread and worry hanging heavy on their shoulders. Each one knew what the other one was thinking: how much longer would they be able to live this dream of owning and running their own family business?

Jason finished his meal first, crumpled his napkin and tossed it onto the plate. “I’m going to head up for a shower. Elsie and I have tickets for a movie tonight.”

Jason had been dating Elsie for three years now. Molly wondered if her brother would ever get the nerve up to ask her to marry him. At the age of 30, neither of them were getting any younger. She could tell he loved Elsie and she knew Elsie adored Jason, though it was hard for her to understand anyone swooning over her obnoxious brother. Sometimes Molly wondered if it was the uncertainty of the farm’s future that held Jason back. Sometimes she wondered if it was that same uncertainty that had left her considering a life outside of farming.

There had to be something better than dragging herself out of bed at 4:30 every morning to milk the cows and collapsing in bed at 9 every night, so overwhelmed with exhaustion she could barely have a life off the farm. There had to be something better than putting all this hard work in and seeing little return, in so many ways, not just profit.

There simply had to be more to life. Molly sighed as she cleared her plate and carried it to the dishwasher, deep in thought, overwhelmed with a sudden determination to find out what more there was to life off the farm.

She didn’t know Alex was watching her from his seat at the table, wondering what thoughts had her so consumed that they had turned her captivating smile into a concerned frown. She also didn’t know this wasn’t the first time he had watched her and wondered what went on inside that beautiful head of hers.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 34

March 27, 2020March 26, 2020 / Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

In case you missed it, I shared Chapter 33 of A New Beginning yesterday. I will be sharing the final chapter in a special Fiction Saturday tomorrow.

In case you missed my short story series, Quarantined, you can find the first part HERE.

You can pick up the first part of Blanche’s story on Kindle for $2.99 (or free until April 10 if you have Kindle Unlimited. )

I’ve also been writing a short story called Quarantined about an estranged couple who get stuck in their house together during a “virus outbreak” without really going into what the virus is or much about the situation surrounding it.

Chapter 34

I hooked my braid up on top of my hair with a hair pin, smiling as I saw Judson’s reflection in the mirror grinning at me.

“Need any help?”

“I think I can manage,” I told him with a smile.

He sauntered toward me and placed his hands on my arms. I looked at our reflection together in the mirror, a mix of contentment and excitement rushing through me. I closed my eyes and leaned back against him as he lowered his mouth to my neck.

“Are you sure we have to go this wedding?” he asked in a husky tone, his mouth now on my ear. “We could just stay here and —”

I turned to face him, laying my finger against his lips. “You know we can’t do that. This is a big day for Marion and Stanley.”

His arms were solid around my waist, his mouth turning upward into a grin under my finger. “I know, but I can dream, can’t I?”

I took my finger away and kissed him, my hands against his chest, reveling in how I could kiss him mouth the way I had wanted to for so long.

“Gross!”

Judson and I laughed at Jackson standing in the doorway with a disgusted expression on his face.

“Come on, we’re going to be late to the wedding,” Jackson grumbled. “You can be all kissy later.”

“Okay, buddy,” Judson said, stepping away from me and ruffling Jackson’s hair.

“Hey! I just combed that!” Jackson laughed, pushing his hand away.

“See you three at Marion’s!” Mama called from her bedroom as she hooked an earring in.

“If your mother ever finishes getting ready,” Daddy whispered as we passed him in the living room.

“I heard that, Alan!” Mama called.

Sitting together inside Judson’s truck a few moments later, Jackson between us, I reflected on how close the three of us had become in the last six months since Judson and I had told each other how we felt. We saw each other almost every day either at lunch at the diner or at dinner at my parents’ house. In some ways, it was like my parents had already made him a member of the family, even without a ring on my finger.

A faint smile crossed my lips as I remembered a day a week ago when Judson had been working on the construction of a new hardware store in town. Two young women had apparently left their office for lunch and were sitting across the park from the site, chatting and watching the work being done.

“Can’t beat the view from here,” the one with her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail said with a wink.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Those construction workers are easy on the eyes,” the other one, a brunette with hair spilling across her shoulders said, popping the top off her Pepsi.

“Are they now?” I asked slyly, following their gaze to where Frankie Benjamin, Tyler Simpson, Emmy’s dad and Judson were busy on the roof.

The two women were sitting at a picnic table, facing the site as they ate.

“Which one would you pick?” the blond asked, taking a small bite from her sandwich.

“Definitely the one in the white tank top,” the brunette answered. “He’s a cutie.”

She was talking about Frankie, who I knew was single and looking.

“For me it’s the one in the blue T-shirt,” the blond said, biting her lower lip.

I watched Judson climb down the ladder from the roof, the blue T-shirt he was wearing highlighting his sculpted upper arms perfectly. His faded blue jeans weren’t looking too bad on him either.

“Which one would you like to go out with?” the blond asked me with a wink.

I smiled, my gaze still focused on Judson. “The one with the blue shirt really is something else, isn’t he?”

The brunette gently tapped her friend in the arm. “I told you,” she said. She looked back up at me. “I’ve been enjoying watching him for two days now.”

“Ah. I see.”

Judson looked up as he started to climb back up the ladder, saw me and smiled broadly before dropping his tools into the back of his truck and heading toward me.

“Oh. My. Gosh.” The brunette tapped her friend in the arm again. “He’s coming this way.”

My heart was pounding as I watched at the way he was watching me as he walked, his smile broad, his eyes intensely focused on mine. When he reached me and placed his hands on either side of my waist and pulled me gently toward him, I felt the same weakness in my knees I’d felt the night we’d kissed on his porch.

“Hey,” he said softly.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the women watching me with surprised expressions.

“Hey,” I said back.

“I missed you while you were gone. Did you have a good trip to see Miss Mazie?”

I giggled. Honestly giggled. Since when had I started doing that?

“I’ve only been gone since yesterday.”

“Yesterday was a long time ago. I’ve had to go all this time without being able to hold you or kiss you. I want to hold and kiss you now but I’m pretty sweaty and I don’t want —”

I knew it was juvenile, but I wanted to make sure those women knew who Judson belonged to, so to speak. Before he could finish his sentence, I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and pulled his head down to mine.

I let my mouth linger on his lower lip as I pulled away several seconds later, making sure I gave those gawking women a good show.

“This is certainly the best job site visit I’ve ever had,” he said with a small laugh.

“I brought you some lunch,” I told him. “I can head back to the car to grab it if you want.”

He grinned down at me and I let go of his check. “I’d like that,” he said. “Let me get it for you. We can sit on the back of the truck and eat.”

As Judson walked toward Daddy’s car I smiled sweetly at the women. “Enjoy your lunch, ladies.”

I practically skipped toward Judson’s truck, feeling both foolish and giddy, leaving the women watching me with stunned expressions.

I laughed softly at the memory as Judson drove toward Marion’s.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “Just thinking about last week with those women at your job site.”

He smirked. “You mean when you planted one very long, passionate kiss on me to show those women who I belonged to?”

I tipped my head back and laughed while Jackson squirmed.

“Ah, man. Gross. Can you two just knock it off already?”

At Marion’s, guests were already gathering in her backyard for her wedding with Stanley. They had planned a small event with a few friends and family and Pastor Frank officiating.

“I’m going to go see if Marion needs anything,” I told Judson, walking up the front steps.

Inside the front door, my stomach lurched at the sight of a man talking to Thomas and Midge in the living room. He had the same long nose, green eyes and attractive square jawline as Hank, but his features were softer, his mannerism more relaxed.

Marion stepped off the bottom step of her stairs, her hair piled on top of her head, a flowing, purple dress showing off her slender figure.

She smiled at me and touched my elbow. “Blanche, come in and say hi to Tom.”

Tom turned toward me, his smile warm and inviting.

“Blanche,” he said stepping forward with his hand outstretched. “Good to see you again.”

It seemed strange I had only met the younger brother of my ex-husband once before, but he’d left the area after high school and hadn’t returned until after his father had passed away. Even when he had returned, his visits had been brief and I often avoided Marion’s during them to make sure she had plenty of time alone with him.

I smiled and took his hand. “Hey, Tom. Looks like we have two Tom’s here today.”

Thomas grinned and winked at me. “Yeah, but I’m the better looking one, right?”

Midge nudged Thomas gently in the side with her elbow. “Oh, Thomas. You’re so silly.”

The way she looked at him, though, showed she definitely thought he was the best looking Thomas in the room.

Hank’s brother laughed good-naturedly at their banter. He looked at Jackson who had walked through the doorway and was now standing behind me.

“Hey, is this Jackson?” He held his hand out and Jackson looked at for a moment, then took it. “Nice to meet you, bud. I’m your Uncle Tom.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jackson said in the adult tone he’d been speaking in more in the last year.

I could tell he wasn’t sure what to make of the man standing before him and was trying to determine how exactly the man was his uncle, especially since he’d never met him before. It wasn’t lost on me his mental wheels had been turning more now that he was 9-years old, wondering who his biological father really was. He’d seen photos of Hank at Marion’s, knew she was his grandmother and knew most children had two sets of grandparents. More than once he’d started a conversation I thought would end up with a discussion about his father, but at the last minute he’d changed the subject. I struggled with deciding if I should press the subject with him or not.

Tom looked at me and smiled. “I can see you’ve done a great job raising him, Blanche.”

“Thank you, Tom.”

“I hope we can talk later. I’m going to go see where they need me for the ceremony. I’m walking Mama down the aisle.”

I watched him walk across the room to Marion, who was now talking to an attractive red headed woman in a red blouse and white skirt. Tom leaned over and kissed the cheek of the redhead and then smiled at his mother. I let out a long breath, not even realizing until then that I had holding it practically the whole time Tom was talking to me.

I was glad to see him here to support his mother, happy to see how happy it made her, but hoped there weren’t any other surprises in store for me.

“Hey, buddy, I’ve got us a seat in the front row,” Judson told Jackson as he walked inside the house. “It’s a great spot to watch your mom being your grandma’s maid-of-honor.”

My muscles relaxed when we were all outside in the yard, music drifting from a record player Stanley had set up. It had been silly for me to worry Hank might be here somewhere. I knew Marion would have told me. As far as she and I both knew he was in basic training in North Carolina still. We hadn’t heard from him since the night he and Judson had fought outside my shop.

For more than six months I had felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I refused to let that weight come back, especially during such a wonderful time for Marion.

I stood behind Marion as Pastor Frank led them through their vows, much like I had with Edith the day she married Jimmy. I watched Stanley watching Marion as the pastor spoke, his eyes brighter than I could ever remember them, his smile warm and only for Marion. A small tremble shuddered through Marion’s hand as he slid the ring on her finger and I knew it was anticipation of good things to come for her life.

When I realized Judson was watching me, I couldn’t read his expression. As our eyes locked a smile flitted across his lips and I desperately wanted to know what he was thinking at that moment. Jackson sat next to him, looking incredibly bored. Next to Jackson sat Lily, a small smile tugging at her mouth as she watched the exchange of the vows. She seemed enamored with the entire process. Edith held Alexander facing out on her lap and he clapped his hands, giggling as Stanley promised to “take this woman and to have and to hold her.”

My gaze slid across the rows at Mama and Daddy holding hands; at Thomas with his arm across the back of Midge’s chair, smiling broadly; at Midge watching him adoringly; at Tom and his wife sitting next to each other and his wife taking his hand in hers, gently rubbing the top of it with her thumb.

Like I had at Edith’s wedding, I felt a twinge of envy at this beautiful moment, at this time when family and friends could show their love and support of Marion and Stanley’s marriage. I’d run off with Hank, so I had never experienced that moment and longed to have a similar experience one day.

Pastor Frank’s voice pulled me from my reverie.

“And now by the power invested in me by the state of Pennsylvania, I pronounce you husband and wife.”

The reception was simple with finger foods and homemade desserts and tables set up around the yard. Lily and Jackson took turns pushing each other on the tire swing and joy rushed through me at the sight of Lily being the child she had probably never had the chance of being before.

“Hey, Blanche.”

I turned with a plate full of cut up veggies and cheese and smiled at Tom.

“It was a really nice ceremony,” I said.

“It was,” Tom agreed. “Listen. . . This is going to sound weird, but I wanted to catch you while I’m here and tell you that I’m sorry for how Hank treated you. I know I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I feel I need to apologize on behalf of my family somehow. He has a lot of anger in him. I know. I had it too. It’s why I stayed away so long.”

He leaned against the tree we were standing next to, folding his arms casually across his chest. “But that anger is like a cancer. It will eat you up inside and destroy you and everyone around you. I almost let it and would have if I hadn’t found God and Mary. I’ve been praying for my brother, hoping he will find his way out of the darkness someday before it’s too late.”

I laid my hand against his shoulder. “Thank you, Tom.”

He nodded then glanced over my shoulder toward where Judson was sitting talking to Mama and Daddy. He looked back at me again with a smile. “It looks like you found someone who will treat you right and I’m so happy for you, Blanche. This new beginning is certainly something you deserve.”

Boondock Ramblings

A little bit about a lot of things

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