Spring
Bridger
A lot can happen in eight months.
Most of it really good.
All of it is part of one good life.
After the leases on our separate places lapsed, Loren and I moved into her childhood home. Temporarily. At the time, I told her I’d be happy to make the place ours, and her father agreed, if that’s what Loren wanted. The truth is, I’d do anything to make Loren Elise Cane Adams happy. And if there’s anyone else on this earth who wants her happiness as much as I do, it’s Harlan Cane.
But Loren listened to her heart, which told her we should renovate the house and sell it to a new young family. She’d already made her memories there. She figured it was time forsomeone else to have that joy. We did some of the reno ourselves. She played a lot of Indigo Girls while we painted walls and tore up carpet. We learned how to lay tile and how to put up a backsplash.
In the end, the place was lovely.
For someone else.
Now, if you’re dreaming about a fairytale ending where some distant relative unexpectedly leaves us the castle-mansion-estate in their will, I’m sorry to disappoint. This is real life, not a Hallmark movie. And Loren and I had to hire realtors and deal with mortgages and interest rates just like everybody else.
Luckily, neither of us really wanted to live in a house that big anyway. Way too many dust bunnies under the beds.
Terrible to heat and cool, depending on the season.
Instead, when a three-bed, two-and-a-half bath rancher came up for sale down the street from Sayla and Dex’s, we snapped it right up. Moved our stuff in. Made it home.
Our combined credit score is excellent these days, so we scored a low interest rate on a fixed thirty-year loan. If that makes me sound old and settled, well, then perfect. I’m living the life I always aspired to. Settled with my wife in a sprawling house with a spacious yard and a white picket fence. We’ll grow old here together, rocking on the porch side by side.
The future is looking bright.
As it turns out, somebody—or two somebodies, I speculate—visited the Harvest Hollow Central Bank and paid off all the Cane family’s medical debts. One lump sum. An anonymous donor, if you will. Our bets are on Hadley and Lincoln James finally making the rumors about them from last year true after all.
Oh.
And we finally adopted that cat. And another cat too.They’re bonded littermates. Between them, they’ve got eight white paws, which we call boots. Their fur is light gray with dark gray striping. Loren says their coloring reminds her of the ombre shading of my irises.
Poetic, huh?
Being married to an English teacher comes with plenty of unexpected perks.
One cat’s a female, and one’s a male. We named them Gali and Leo. Not Garfield. They sleep curled up together, lumped into a heart shape on the window seat. On lazy mornings, they stretch and purr and remind us of last summer, and the ridiculousness of our hasty wedding plans.
We love them so much it’s silly.
As for my mother, we sent her a formal letter apprising her of our intention to remain married. Blah blah blah. Legal stuff, legal stuff, legal stuff. At Loren’s insistence, we wished her a long life—we’re not monsters, after all. We also said we were sorry that same long life would be without her son, her wonderful daughter-in-law, and any grandchildren that may be forthcoming.
About the fiftieth time she called, I finally picked up.
She didn’t apologize, exactly. And as far as we can tell, she still has that ridiculous Fig & Apple napkin. But also? We couldn’t care less.
Toward the end of the call, she promised to put everything she owns in a trust for our kids, if we just agreed to coopera?—
I hung up.
Two months later, she shocked us all by marrying Lyle Winthrop. Guess she decided to cut out the middle man in the merger of their empires. But when it comes to them, we limit the talk of mergers for obvious reasons.
Rosalind’s my stepsister now.
Weird. But also kind of cool.