Farm Girl

Her expression turned serious, and she leaned forward. "Or is it that you don't want a baby?"

"Kate," he faltered, "the only thing I want more than a child of my own is you to love and raise it with. I just can't quite believe it's all coming true. Why?"

She scowled. "Told you last night. I love you."

"I guess," he said slowly, "that's the part I still don't get. How am I...how did I earn that?"

Her smile returned. "By being who you are. By opening your home to me, giving me everything you have, and telling me it's mine to use as I please. By looking after me and treating me like your beloved long before you even knew what I'm good for." Her brow wrinkled. "What I don't get is my good luck. Why hasn't some other woman snapped you up?"

"At my age?"

"Seems like you're doing okay to me. You're a classic. You haven't rusted or weathered. You're still state of the art. They don't make 'em like you any more. Like Nellie. How old are you, fifty or so?"

"Fifty-two. Kate, that's another thing. You're what, twenty-two or twenty-three?"

"Twenty-three in October." She grinned. "Lots of farm kids are born in October."

"Uh, yeah. So I've got thirty years on you. Just how long do you think I'm going to last? You could be alone again before you hit fifty."

She peered at him in disbelief. "I'm supposed to toss away the man I love because I can't have the whole of his adult life for my own? Okay, so I got here late. My bad. But what you have left is priceless, and I want to share it with you, and with your children born from my body. If you'll let me."

He fell silent.

Presently she squeezed his hands, rose and went to peer out the window at the field she labored over.

"I can't abide waste, Allan. Farm people are like that." She gestured at her tillings. "When you first showed me that field, and all the stuff in your barn, I knew I had to make use of it. You could have tried to send me down the road, but I think I'd have fought you even that very first day. And after you showed me yourself, I wasn't about to let you go to waste either."

He shook his head. "So what have you been doing these past six weeks? Working up the nerve?"

She chuckled. "Plus a little agriculture. Actually," she said, "I wanted to give you the right of the first move. After yesterday morning, I couldn't make myself wait any more." She returned to her seat and took his hands again. "Your turn."

"Hm?"

"Time to tell me how you feel about it -- about me."

He was slow to answer.

"I was...dead," he said. "Marie -- my wife -- left me a long while ago. It was harder on me than I realized at first. I lost interest in my work, and I became uncomfortable around others, and pretty soon I was alone. I tried to tell myself that I preferred it that way, but I was alone whether I liked it or not. I had money, so I took advantage of the opportunity to retire and get away. I landed here. Lots of space, no neighbors to speak of, no pressure of any kind. As long as I could get groceries and get to Mass on Sunday, I thought I had what I needed."

"And then?"

"Then there was you. The embodiment of life. Life on the hoof! What I'd needed but hadn't had the sense to look for or pursue, delivered right onto my porch on a breezy April day. From that very first moment, you brought me life in such abundance that I knew I couldn't stay dead. Want to know how I knew?"

She nodded.

"Because I couldn't look at you without shaking inside from the fear that you might get away."

Her eyes brimmed over. She rose and pulled him out of his seat.

"Come on," she said. "Let's get moving."

"Hm?"

"First," she said, "we shower. Then some toast or eggs or something. Then we go see Father Ray."

"Why?"

"Banns and a date, dummy! You do want our firstborn to be legitimate, don't you?" She tugged him down the hallway toward the master bathroom.

"Oh. Right. Kate?"

"Hm?"

"Could I help with the farm? I don't know much about growing things, but...?"

That stopped her. She turned and searched his face. "It's dirty, tiring work, Allan."

"That's okay," he said, "if I can do it with you."

She smiled and pulled him close. "That you can."