Page 72 of Grounded
Annie checked on Nutmeg when she got home. She put her arms around her neck, drinking in the smell and letting it calm her. Horses had a distinct scent unlike any other animal she had known. It was a rich, musky relaxant, better than a glass of wine. While she brushed Nutmeg, she went over the lunch with Camille, replaying the conversation.
Was Camille so used to getting her way that she thought this New York opportunity would change Jake’s mind? Did she really think money bought people? New York would make even weekend farming impossible. But that was probably what Camille wanted—to get him away from the farm.
“You don’t know Jake Wilder,” she said out loud. Nutmeg turned her head in question at Annie’s voice. “Not you.”
Annie tossed the brush back in the tack room and patted Nutmeg on a hindquarter.
In the house, she picked up her cell phone to call Lindy and mull over the strange lunch. She was distracted by the sight of a voice mail and checked it first.
“Annie, Bob Vichy. Call me.”
She sighed. What would she do if he said she had to leave on Monday with so many things up in the air? She dialed the number, her stomach tense, waiting for the punch.
“It’s Annie. What did you find out?”
“Two weeks from Monday or you lose your job. That was the best I could do, and I was lucky to get it.”
She let out her breath, relief washing over her like an ocean wave. “Great! I really appreciate it, Bob.”
Two weeks. It wasn’t enough time, but it was better than having to leave on Monday.
With a deep sigh, she said, “Thank you, God.” It was an answer to her prayer.
“Grandma, you all right?” she called, wanting her grandmother’s company. Annie realized her accent was creeping back into her speech. Her “I” was sliding to the right a bit, as if it were lazy and having trouble standing up straight.
When she didn’t answer, Annie poked her head into her grandmother’s downstairs bedroom. Beulah was asleep in the recliner, with a book lying open and facedown on her lap.
Annie left her and went back to the kitchen, the heart and soul of the house. She sat down and mulled over the reprieve. Two weeks. There was still the problem of where to live. She could bunk with Prema and the girls, but it was already crowded with four people. Janice had no room to spare with a mother-in-law even though she said she could stay there. “Don’t worry,” Janice had said this morning. “It’s on the bulletin board in the crew lounge. Something will open up.”
What if … no, it was crazy. It was the only work she had known, her only security. A good paycheck and benefits, a retirement account, several days off at one time, and the ability to hop flights to anywhere in the world if seats were available. If she didn’t show up two weeks from Monday, all that would be gone. If she ever wanted to go back, she would have to start all over with no seniority, taking whatever flights the other attendants didn’t want.
Wouldn’t it be odd, she thought, if she ended up coming back here while Camille tried to convince Jake to move to New York? Should she talk to Jake about his girlfriend’s manipulations? Jake couldn’t possibly want to spend the rest of his life with someone like that, would he?
The many questions swirling around in her brain made her tired. She took the stairs up to her bedroom, and stretched across her bed, falling sound asleep.
Chapter Thirty-One
Beulah opened theFarmer’s Almanacand checked the dates for when Annie planted most of the garden. It was best for the moon to be waxing for the above ground vegetables, but it wasn’t always possible. Beulah didn’t go in for all that astrology business that predicted the future. She knew for certain it was straight from the Devil. But there was something to the moon’s effect on things, and she’d seen too much evidence of it herself to believe differently. When Fred was alive, he castrated his steers by the moon’s placement in the sky. It made a difference in how much they bled and how quickly they healed. He weaned his calves by it, and when most people suffered three days of cows mooing and lowing in the fields for their lost babies, a day passed and all was quiet. Jo Anne was weaned by the moon and had done real well.
Beulah grabbed her walker and used it to lift herself up from the recliner. It was high time she walked by herself to the garden. Annie took her out last week after she had weeded it and seeing that rich black dirt turn made her want to get her hands in it. There would be none of that right now, not yet. All she could do was sit in a chair and admire it.
The doctor thought she was healing up fine, or so he said during her appointment yesterday in Rutherford. “A little more walking won’t hurt a thing. It’ll be good for you,” he had said. He gave her some new exercises to do to help her get her movement back. It was a slow progress. She hadn’t been upstairs since the surgery, but the doctor recommended she take it slow and use the stairs. In a month, she should be able to move back to her bedroom. It was something to work toward. Beulah took small, slow steps around the smokehouse and to the garden beyond. Annie was out in the paddock, brushing down Nutmeg. It seemed to be one of her favorite things to do. Nearly every day, she went out to tend to that horse.
The garden was as pretty as Beulah had ever seen it. There were nice straight rows, and the last plantings showed little curls of bean sprouts pushing above the surface. Delicate leaves of corn waved in the breeze, looking like a row of tiny flags. Easing down in the chair, she watched as Annie took the halter off Nutmeg and patted the horse on the rump. Her granddaughter disappeared into the barn and returned without the halter. She called out, “How did I do?”
“Prettiest garden west of the Alleghenies. You tilled it up nice. I couldn’t have done any better.” Beulah meant it. “By the way, Jeb Harris called. He’ll be here before noon.”
“Good. I hope he can find something out with the license plate. Maybe we’re making a big deal out of nothing.” Annie sat down on the grass beside her. “But Joe’s phone call this morning makes me think even more that she is up to something,” Annie said, twisting a blade of grass.
Indeed, Beulah thought. Joe had spotted the woman with the flyaway hair out in the middle of the creek, twice this week before daybreak, pouring something out of a five-gallon bucket. With his cows drinking out of that creek, they couldn’t afford some poisonous ingredient from her drug making being tossed into the water, if that was what she was up to.
“Let’s hope it is nothing. And if so, then no harm’s been done.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the birds sing. Annie reached out and picked a dandelion.
“Grandma, what would you do if you thought someone you loved was making a mistake? Would you tell that person?”
Beulah thought for a minute before she answered. “Proverbs says a wise man seeks counsel.”
