Big Man For Christmas

* * *The next few days seem like a blur. I help with breakfast in the mornings and I take walks in the afternoon—never in the direction of the Bowman farm. Mostly I’m by myself. And that’s okay. Mom and Jessica will inevitably try to bring up Tyler and steer me toward taking him back. Rhett and the kids are friendly, but we don’t have much to talk about. And Dad is Dad, constantly moving, like always.

I’m putting away some dishes from the breakfast table on the fourth day since my night with Casey when my dad appears in the kitchen. “Want to come to the store with me, Carley? I have a few things to pick up.”

“I’m okay,” I say softly.

He smiles. “I phrased it like a question, but it wasn’t. Time for you to run the gossip gauntlet.”

I roll my eyes.

“Seriously,” he says. “Go get your coat.”

“Okay.”

My mom calls after me from the kitchen. “You can pick up some things for me. I’ll let you know what. Take your phone with you.”

I don’t answer or ask why she wouldn’t just ask dad since he’s the one going in the first place. I just get my coat and boots—and grudgingly my phone—and follow my dad out to his truck.

“Why’d you really bring me out here?”

He laughs as he starts the truck. “You don’t think I’ve seen you taking walks for hours just to avoid everyone? It was about time you got out of the house.”

I shake my head. My father is more observant than people give him credit for.

“How’s your job?”

“It’s okay. It was nice of them to give me this much time off, but I like working there.”

“What kind of arrangements do you all specialize in?”

My father grows flowers for a living, so I know this is partially professional curiosity. But it’s also his way of asking about my life without asking me about Tyler. He’s been careful not to talk about it. I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t care, but because he can see how much it hurts to talk about.

“Honestly we do a little of everything. But a lot of wedding arrangements. Funerals too. Events. The nice thing about Chicago is that there are a lot of super interesting events all the time. Some of them ask for floral sculptures or succulent planters. Nothing is ever the same.”

“That sounds fun. Do you get to work on those more? Or are you more on the gardening side?”

I think about it. “For me it’s about half and half. I do arranging, but part of the reason they hired me is because I already knew so much about plants and flowers.”

Dad smiles. It makes him happy when any of us can use the things that he taught us. “I’m glad. But I have to ask, have you ever thought about doing something else? Something from school?”

Tension springs up in my stomach. Basically the same question that Casey asked me—that I avoided entirely with a blowjob. I don’t know. The place where I used to have goals and dreams feels…flat and empty. School was a blur that was filled with Tyler. I was taken with him. Enamored by him. And I somehow graduated with an English degree. But from the moment I met him, everything was about him. Always.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” he says. “You’re a smart girl, Carley. You make good decisions, and you can figure out what you want from life—no matter what other people tell you.”

I appreciate the subtle support, but I’m still not certain. Am I able to figure it out? It only took me seven years to figure out that being with Tyler was a mistake. That doesn’t exactly give me a great track record.

My phone buzzes.Get apples. Only green ones. We’re making a pie.From my mother.

Noted.

Pulling up to the general store is entirely overwhelming. There are so many memories here. After school excursions and shopping for my favorite meals. I even spent a summer as a cashier here, so I know the store backwards and forwards.

And as soon as I walk in, I’m bombarded. The first person that sees me is someone that I don’t even know. And that’s saying something given how long my family has lived here. An older woman. “Oh my goodness, Carley Farrell. I was starting to think that we’d never see you around here again.”

I smile. “Here I am.”

“I can see that. Hoo, the things that I’ve heard about your adventures in New York? Amazing.”

“Chicago, actually.”

She waves a hand. “A city is a city. How’s that big city husband of yours.”

My lungs freeze. “I’m not married. Never have been.”

The woman laughs. “Well then, gossip has been getting around!”

My phone buzzes.Pick up some bread, we’ll need it for sandwiches.My dad puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’s good to have her back, Elain. But we’ve got to do our shopping. You know how it is.” He shrugs in his charming manner and pulls me away from her.