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The flight had been uneventful, to say the least. I had just enough money for a direct flight, which suited me more than a ten-hour plane trip with two stops or having to fill up my rusty car seventeen times because it guzzled gas more than I guzzled coffee. I packed up all my clothes into suitcases and took them with me. I packed a few books I knew would keep me company. I even packed up my laptop and my toiletries. Really, the only things I’d left behind were the rest of my books and the few pieces of furniture I had. And Lydia was insistent I come back for those things later.
She was really having a hard time letting me go.
I stood there, waiting for the three suitcases I had checked to come rolling off the plane. And when I tracked all of them down, I walked outside to find my grandfather picking me up in his old pickup truck. I couldn’t believe he still had the thing. I smiled when I saw him get out of the truck. I ran and hugged him, tears springing to my eyes as I sniffed the scent I had always associated with him.
Tobacco and my grandmother’s blackberry iced tea.
“Come on, Petal. Let’s get you loaded up,” he said.
He patted my back, then proceeded to toss my suitcases into the trunk like bales of hay. No matter how old he got, I knew he’d be able to toss things around like that until the day he died. I hugged him one last time before we slipped into his truck, and away we went, back to the farm on the outskirts of Big Timber, Montana.
I rolled down the window, even though it was freezing cold. This state had two seasons: cold, and not cold. The “not cold” happened about four months out of the year. And the rest of the time was varying degrees of cold. From “I could weather this with a jacket” cold to “your skin will be frostbitten in ten minutes” cold. I breathed in the soothing air, taking in the lingering smell of manure. Cows mooed off in the distance, and the rise of the mountains on the horizon beckoned me home.
I felt more relaxed riding in that truck than I had in years.
The empty fields and the silence was jarring after New York City. I heard the sounds of animals instead of people cursing. I heard the sounds of tires rolling over gravel instead of the sound of horns honking in traffic. It was so refreshing and so exhilarating that I started wondering why I had ever left in the first place.
Your dream, Violet. Don’t forget to dream.
That was the only issue with Big Timber. The silence was so alluring and the mountains were so beautiful that sometimes I could stop dreaming altogether. It was all too easy to slide into the slow pace of life around here. The cheap prices at the grocery store. The meat I could practically steal from the butcher shop in the middle of town. It would be nothing to move here, take out a small loan for a house with a few acres, and live the rest of my days working at the local grocer or taking over the animals on my grandparents’ farm.
This type of life was easy to lose myself to.
It was weird to be back, but I knew it would only take me a couple days to adjust. It never took me long, especially with the beauty that surrounded me. I rolled the window up and felt my grandfather take my hand. I looked over at him, finding him smiling at me as we sat at the only stoplight that separated downtown from the outskirts.
“It’s good to see you, Petal,” he said.
I brought his hand to my lips to kiss. It only took us five blocks to get out of downtown, and that made me giggle. Such a different landscape from the city, and I felt more at ease and more at home in it than I had since I left in the first place. We came to the stretch of land where my grandparents lived, and I saw their house in the distance. I saw the insulated dairy house where my grandmother kept her dairy cows, and the beef cattle roamed around on the fifty acres my grandparents owned.
My grandfather turned down the gravel driveway, making his way down the almost half-mile stretch to their beautiful plantation-style home.
“Petal! You’re home!”
My grandmother busted out of the front door and came wobbling down the steps. I threw the truck door open and ran to her, ignoring the cold that pierced through my exposed skin. I wrapped her up in my arms as my grandfather started lugging my things inside, and the two of us stood there hugging, crying, kissing, laughing, and just holding each other.
“How I missed you so,” she whispered.
She kissed the side of my face before she ushered me inside. Somehow, my grandfather had already gotten everything into the house, so I helped him lug it up to my room. Irving was in his cat carrier, welcomed as always like the two dogs and other two cats my parents had. He was a little worse for wear, but the second I let him out of his crate, he scurried off to find food.
“We made sure to have something ready for him as well,” my grandmother said.
“It is so good to be here. Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me come stay for a while,” I said.
“This is your home. You’ve missed many summers with us, but we won’t hold it against you. Just think of this as time made up,” my grandfather said.
He tossed me a wink before he tugged my last suitcase into the room.
“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” I said.
“We could redecorate your room, if you want,” my grandmother said.
I looked around at the whitewashed walls and hunter-green crown molding and relished the feel of the matching plush green carpet underneath my feet. I ran my hands along the real wooden bedside table and the frame of the queen-size bed. I sat down on the mattress, already feeling at home as I looked up at my grandparents.
“It’s perfect. Don’t change a thing,” I said, smiling.
Dinner was quiet. My grandfather made good on his word to make lasagna, and I hurt myself trying to finish my plate. There was garlic bread and salad and endless blackberry tea. So many memories came back from eating that dinner, but with a full stomach came drooping eyes.
“We can catch up tomorrow, Petal. Go get some rest,” my grandmother said.
I didn’t have to be told twice.
The next few days were a blur. I got myself set up in my room and moved into the bathroom across the hallway. I helped my grandmother make biscuits every morning before my grandfather drowned them in butter and honey. I went out and helped my grandfather every morning with the cows, hooking them up to the milkers and making sure we had a head count on all the beef cattle that roamed on their expansive plot of land.
“So, I don’t know if your grandfather’s told you, but we’re starting talks on leasing the back plots of land out to other farmers,” my grandmother said.
“Oh? Why’s that?” I asked.
“Well, Jeremiah and myself aren’t as spry as we used to be. We’re in our seventies now.”
“Beulah,” I warned, using her name when I meant business.
“Don’t take that tone with me. It’s not the entire plot. Just the ten acres on either side. The cows hardly go over there anyway, even though it’s been cleared out. It would be easy to put up a boundary and make a little more money leasing that property out to other farmers around us who have been complaining about needing extra space.”
“What does PaPa think about all this?” I asked.
“He’s all for it. I mean, with our retirement savings and the leases we’d be comfortable. We’re comfortable right now, but not comfortable enough to stop raising the cattle. If we could get regular leases going and get some contracts signed, I’m pretty sure I could talk your grandfather into selling off some of our cattle. You know, his back’s been bothering him lately.”
“Yeah, I saw him wincing the other morning while we were hooking up the dairies to the milkers,” I said.
“And think of it this way, with less time out in the fields, we could spend more time with you. With the people in our community.”
“You mean all one thousand people that live in Big Timber,” I said coyly.
“And the four thousand cattle,” she said, giggling.
A pause fell over our conversation before she asked the lingering question.
“How’s the event planning going?”
And the waterworks ensued again.
I spilled everything to her. What happened on the island? With Ray. With Vivien. The blacklisting that took place and how I couldn’t find a job. How I’d been fired from a job I did get because of Vivien’s mouth. My grandmother listened patiently as I blabbered on through my tears, spilling my heart out to her and putting words to the pain I’d been feeling for weeks.
After I was done pouring my heart about Ray, she wrapped me up in a hug.
“It’ll be all right, Petal. You know you’re a catch. And if his family can’t see that, then it sounds like a personal issue,” she said.
“I broke up with him when I knew he was willing to give us a chance through all that,” I said, sniffling.
“You made a decision, and I think you made the right one. You can’t stand between a man and his family, nor can you ask him to choose. I know it hurts, Petal, but you made the right call. Even though you don’t think you did now. Okay? You deserve a man who will choose you, above all else.”
But that was the issue.
I really did believe that had I given Ray the chance, he would have.
“Thanks,” I said breathlessly.
She kissed the top of my head. “Anytime, Petal. You know you can talk to me anytime.”
My grandmother released me, and we got back to cooking. We were preparing meals for the entire week so all of us could have some time to rest and catch up. We marinated meats and chopped up vegetables before vacuum-sealing them closed. My Grandma Beulah wrote down the meal plans on a white-erase board on the fridge before starting in on her infamous blackberry tea.
And all the while, Irving made himself at home. He transitioned well into a farm cat with the other two cats running around, and I frequently had to hunt him down when it was time to eat.
After finishing up with my grandmother, I went in search of my cat. I walked around the house calling for him, and when I was sure he wasn’t around, I took to looking outside. I dipped under the porch and went down to the dairy cow house. I walked the massive perimeter of the plot of land my grandparents owned and even approached the beef cattle groupings to see if he was running beneath their feet.
I finally approached the old barn that hadn’t been used in years, and I finally heard Irving meowing.
“Irving, come on now. This place is abandoned,” I said.
I struggled to open the massive double doors of the barn. But once I did, it took my breath away. It was cold as ice, but the foundation and the bones of it were still strong. The slats on the roof were just far enough apart to peek up and see the sky. Which was probably wonderful for stargazing at night. I saw the bales of hay my Grandpa Jeremiah still stored in the rafters, and it was there I saw Irving’s reflective eyes peeking out at me.
“Food?” I asked.
He jumped from the damn rafters and straight into my arms before he curled into my chest.
I took a second to look around the barn, at the vaulted ceiling and sturdy floor that was still underneath the straggling pieces of hay. It reminded me a lot of some of the halls I had rented for events over the years. Maybe a little run-down, but it still had that atmosphere, that rustic beauty.
Ideas bombarded my mind as I looked out through the slats in the roof.
“Come on, let’s get back inside,” I said.
Irving hopped out of my arms and went dashing out of the barn. I saw him racing back toward the house, jumping over rocks and leaping over patching of grass. I shook my head and snickered as I closed the barn doors, but not before my heart leapt back to life.
For the first time since I’d arrived back in Montana five days ago, I had more ideas for parties than I could have ever imagined.
Maybe my career wasn’t dead after all.
Maybe, just maybe, I was only in transition.
