All I Want (A Farmers' Market Story) (14 page)

Meg didn’t have anything to say to that. How could she have
anything
to say?

“You know the best thing you can give that child of yours?”

“The knowledge I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe and happy?”

“It’s the mistake we make, thinking parenthood is all about the kids. All about giving them what we didn’t have. I think when we do that, when we bend over and over doing that, we twist something in them. I only had one, I guess I don’t know, but I’ve spent a whole lot of time thinking about where I went wrong.”

“Elsie—”

“Don’t interrupt my wisdom, child. The best thing you can do as a mother is to believe you are doing your best. The belief that
you
are worthy of being considered a good parent. You’re as good as anybody. Nobody gets to tell you you’re not, sweetheart. And you shouldn’t be the one telling yourself that either. You tell yourself that, you try to be perfect
for
that child, you’re hurting both of you.”

Sweetheart.
Charlie had said that to her this morning.
What’s wrong, sweetheart?
She hadn’t had the words for how hearing the word
grocery
come off his lips had shattered everything inside her.

It was truly amazing how certain words could turn to poison.

“He knows my father,” she whispered, because wasn’t that really what this was all about? She could transfer those feelings into nerves over meeting people who were important to him, but the real thing, the heart of the matter and the freak-out was that.

“Charlie knows your father?”

Meg nodded and swallowed, the panic from this morning building again. “He worked with him. Maybe not directly. But close. He said he sold to grocery stores and...”

The silence that grew had Meg closing her eyes, bracing for the impact. She knew what came next.

“Oh, sweet Lord, girl. You’re
that
Carmichael?”

How often had someone asked her that? It was a common enough name, but the stores were everywhere. Everyone who lived in the St. Louis area had been to a Carmichael Grocery. It was a tradition, an institution, and so was her family. People were always asking or wondering.
Are you
that
Carmichael?

“No offense, Meg, but you don’t dress like a woman with that kind of money.”

“I don’t have
that
kind of money. My parents do. And they made sure they kept me from just about all of it when I started my...rebellious phase.”

“You know, I used to wonder if Dan and I made more, had more, if we could have kept Hannah clean.”

“That, Elsie, I can almost guarantee you, isn’t true. My parents paid for a few fancy treatment places, but it never mattered. You know why?”

Elsie shook her head, eyes shiny with tears.

“Because they didn’t love me and they made sure I knew it. Because I knew even if I got clean, I’d never be more than a failure in their eyes. Every mistake I ever made they took as a personal insult, and I took that as a slap. A bruise. Which isn’t even their fault. They were...just raised that way, to see only what was on the outside. So, whatever is keeping your daughter on that path, it isn’t you and it isn’t money. It’s something in her, and until she sees it...”

“What got you to see it?” Elsie asked, her voice almost a whisper, and it was like they’d traded places, wisdom for wisdom.

“I guess I realized—no, accepted—they weren’t ever going to love me. But my grandma did, and I was hurting her by doing this to myself. She wanted more for me. She loved me even when I made mistakes, even when I looked strange or said the wrong thing. No matter what, she held my hand and pulled me through. She got me out of it, away from it—which did have to do with money, I’ll grant you—but she helped me get somewhere I could really get my head on straight and heal.”

There was a long, weighted silence.

“But then she died,” Meg whispered, knowing there was some lesson she needed to learn here, but not being able to see it. Not yet. “And I fell off the wagon a little. So...maybe I wasn’t healed.”

Which meant there was still a lot of healing to go.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“M
EG
? A
RE
YOU
READY
?
I told Mom we’d be there at six.” Charlie paced the kitchen, Meg’s tendency for not being ready when they had to leave wasn’t so much annoying as it was... Okay, it was annoying.

Instead of snapping or making snide comments, as he might have in the past, and probably would’ve now if she wasn’t carrying his child, he tried to find ways to
manage
his irritation.

It wasn’t working tonight, probably because he’d rather feel irritated than nervous. Nerves were not something he dealt with well. Because this was all outside his control.

He really didn’t like that.

She finally stepped out of her room, smoothing her palms down the front of her shirt. “How do I look?” she asked, nervousness emanating from every last inch of her.

“Beautiful, always, but I think you’re going to be awfully hot in that. We’re going to be outside barbecuing.”

She fiddled with the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt. “I just thought I probably shouldn’t show off my tattoos.”

He raised an eyebrow, because not once in the past few weeks had she been self-conscious about her appearance. He wasn’t sure what reaction his parents would have to her, though his siblings would be
endlessly
amused she was who he’d brought home. Tattoos and goats and farmers’ markets.

“Let’s just go, huh?” she said, gesturing toward the door.

“You’ll boil to death. I don’t think that’s good for the baby.”

“But otherwise you
would
encourage me to cover up my tattoos?”

He took a deep breath in, let it out, tried to remember how he’d dealt with frustrating customers. “You can stop
picking
at me anytime, Meg.”

“I told you I didn’t want to do this. But you set it up anyway.”

“You never
expressly
told me that.”

“You could have asked. Or, here’s a shocking thought, respected my choice. Trusted my judgment.”

He didn’t yell. He wouldn’t yell. He was a composed, rational person, and she was pregnant. So he
had
to be the composed, rational one.

“You should meet them. You should meet them now. And more important,” he started, evenly, calmly—or not at all calmly—digging his fingers into his palms with the effort of it, “I think you will find a group of people who could be something of an extended support network for you. Which I would think you’d want.”

“Why would I want...?” She shook her head, whatever she was going to say lost in an expression of misery. “This feels like a lot of pressure and I’m not particularly great in the face of social pressure, specifically.”

The hint of vulnerability snuck under his defenses and he crossed to her, resting his hands on her shoulders and giving her a gentle squeeze. “Don’t be nervous, they’ll love you. The only ones who might not say much to you are Wes and Mia’s father, and that isn’t personal. They’re just quiet. My sister is probably going to
descend
upon you.”

“I just...” She blinked up at him. “I wouldn’t want you to regret introducing us. Or feel strange. I know I probably don’t look anything like anyone you might’ve taken home in the past. And that doesn’t matter to me, but it might matter to them.”

“I think that’s crap.”

“Huh?”

“I think it obviously matters to you or you wouldn’t be acting like this meek version of yourself. You aren’t meek, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

She blew out a breath, and it clutched something hard in his chest to see that underneath all those irritating questions, she just looked terrified.

He didn’t want that. He didn’t want his choices to
scare
anyone. He wanted to move forward, to put things into motion, to make
sense
of what the future held.

She pushed a palm to her stomach. “What if someone notices?”

“Meg, no one can tell simply by looking at you.”

“What if pregnant people can recognize each other?”

“I highly doubt it.”

“You’re not planning on telling anyone, right? Actually I’ve changed my mind. Go ahead without me. I’m staying with my goats and never leaving again.” She tried to bolt, but his hands clamped harder on her shoulders.

“Are you always this dramatic?”

“When facing something I don’t want to do? More often than not.”

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“There’s so much...” Again she didn’t finish, she merely blew out a breath and looked miserable.

“You know, you might feel better if you actually talked to me. Whatever it is that’s been bothering you lately. I don’t think it’s just hormones.”

“I don’t make good first impressions,” she mumbled, looking away. “I’m forever saying the wrong thing, making the wrong joke. Especially when the people are important. When I know I need to impress someone, it’s always the last thing I do.”

“You don’t need to impress anyone, Meg.”

She rolled her eyes. “Your parents’ families must have gotten along.”

“Well, I suppose they did.”

“It’s something else entirely when they hate each other—most especially when one of the grandparents hates the mother of the child. It’s like poison.”

“My mother would never hate you. I don’t think my mother hates
anyone
, but she certainly wouldn’t hate you. There’s nothing to hate.”

“Aside from being the one-night stand you knocked up. And from looking like this. And...and...”

He wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted to rip out his hair more, and he’d dealt with a lot of frustrating people in his life. But he focused on the fact that she
was
the woman he’d “knocked up” irresponsibly, then forced himself—over and over again—to not lose his cool.

“I’m thirty-five,” he said, trying to sound calm, affable. There was no way he pulled affable off, considering he had to grit the words out between clenched teeth. “Beyond the very fact that I’m an adult and have been handling my life for well over a decade, my parents are reasonable, sensible people. Like me. We don’t judge by appearance alone, Meg.”

She didn’t say anything to that, just stood there looking at the floor, and he wanted to shake her until she saw some sense. Instead he did the last thing he wanted to do, but the thing that seemed imperative to do.

He told her the bone-deep, soul-illuminating truth. “My family is very important to me. I will very much want them to be a part of our child’s life. I promise that isn’t a threat to you, as my family will treat you with nothing but respect. But even if you don’t believe that promise, the only way you’re ever going to find out for sure is if you come and meet them.”

“I don’t know a whole lot of families who aren’t dysfunctional.”

“I never claimed we’re not a little dysfunctional. Families are littered with their own problems and issues. We’re not perfect—at all, but we love each other.” He loosened his grip on her shoulder and moved a hand to her abdomen.

That never failed to fill him with awe, with pride, with fear. It was the combination of feelings that had his daily search for a permanent job relegated to some dim corner of his brain.

“More important,” he said, somehow feeling both freed by the feelings he was sharing with her and scared to death of how easy it was to tell her things, “they will love this baby. No matter what. Which means they would never treat you poorly, because no child deserves to see his mother treated poorly.”

She stood motionless for a few ticking seconds, her blue eyes searching his as if she was hoping the truth was somewhere in their depths. Finally she placed her hand over his.

“All right. I’m sorry.” She rubbed her hand over his over her stomach. “Families are hard for me.”

“We’re going to have to sit down at some point and discuss that in detail. You know that, right?”

Her smile was fake. “Yeah, sure.”

For the first time he wondered—even if he enacted every plan, maneuvered her into marriage, even love—would he ever really know or understand the mother of his child?

He had a sinking feeling the answer was not if she could help it.

* * *

M
EG
COULD
HAVE
SWORN
she was in a movie. Or a sitcom. Yes, this was an elaborate ruse and she was really in the middle of a family sitcom taping.

It wasn’t that the Wainwrights and the Pruitts were perfect. There were arguments, frustrations, a two-year-old’s temper tantrum when she was told she couldn’t ride one of the eight dogs that ran around outside in the expanse of the Wainwright yard. No one looked perfectly coiffed—in fact, everyone was invariably mussed from some aspect of their day or another.

It was just that everything Charlie had said was true. She was treated with nothing but respect—even with his family not knowing she was pregnant. Kenzie, the little sister, was a little overzealous in her, as Charlie called it, interrogation.

But all the teasing, all the yelling, all the
things
were what she’d started to believe was a fairy tale when it came to families. Love. She’d come to the conclusion that love, aside from small doses like Grandma’s, didn’t exist.

Not for her.

Great. Now she was teary again. Seriously there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t grasp or untangle all these emotions. They swept up and over her like a wave—which only made her feel pathetic, which only made the emotions worse.

Ugh.

Charlie was in some deep, involved conversation with his brother about baseball, so Meg snuck away. The food was starting to make her a little queasy anyway, and she could certainly stand a trip to the restroom.

Just for some silence. Just to get her head back on straight. Just to breathe through the fact that her child was going to have this.

This.

Damn it, she really was going to cry.

She hurried into the Wainwright farmhouse, which was thankfully empty. Charlie’s mother had kindly shown her where everything was earlier, and complimented her on her soaps.

There had been nothing to be nervous about. The Wainwrights were exceedingly pleasant and kind.

She didn’t belong.

She closed the bathroom door and leaned her head against it. They were nothing but lovely and she was
still
having an emotional breakdown.

Maybe it was just she couldn’t fight the insecurities as well as she usually did because so much of her body’s energy was taken up with growing a child. If her body was doing that, giving all that energy to Seedling, then she would deal with seven more months of tears and freak-outs. She just
would
.

Determined, Meg washed herself up and left the bathroom, hands on her stomach. She would be strong because this wasn’t sad or scary; this was wonderful. Her baby was going to have a real, supportive family.

“Are you feeling all right?”

She should have known Charlie would notice her absence immediately. Would he ever give her the space to shore up all her insecurities and fears before he bulldozed his way in to make sure she was all right?

She knew she should be comforted or pleased by it, but she needed those defenses. She needed him to stay far away from the truth of her past. That she’d always be an insecure addict underneath it all.

God, Meg, really. Get it together. You’re clean. You’re going to be a mother. You can’t let yourself believe that you haven’t gotten better.

“Meg?”

She blinked at Charlie, and she so desperately wanted to tell him. To lay all the fears, all her mistakes and failures at his feet. She wanted to reveal every inch of herself, so he could reject it and she could go back to being alone.

She had no doubt he’d reject who she really was. Not after seeing this—this family and love. He would never understand the way she’d punished herself. The way she’d reached for drugs again and again because it was better than the bitter disapproval of her parents.

How would he ever be able to understand that?

His fingers brushed her cheek. “Meg, sweetheart, you have to tell me what’s wrong.”

That was exactly what she could never do. Not and give Seedling everything he or she deserved. “I’m just overwhelmed,” she forced herself to say.

“By what?” he asked gently, an arm going around her shoulders, pulling her next to him.

She relaxed into that gesture, tried to gather some strength from his. “They’re all so wonderful. It’s very disorienting.”

Charlie kissed her temple, an easy, casual touch he’d probably never understand how much it meant to her. Casual, caring gestures had never been a part of her life, and he offered them without thinking.

“Do you believe me now, that they’d never judge you?”

She didn’t. She understood what Charlie meant, that they didn’t judge by appearances, but she also knew that if they knew everything she’d done, they’d disdain her as much as her parents did. People not knowing she’d been an addict was how she’d built this new life for herself. The more she met good, kind people like the Wainwrights and Pruitts, the more she understood that she needed people like this in her life.

And she very much needed them not to know that underneath it all, she was nothing but a conglomeration of mistakes.

But she couldn’t explain that to Charlie. Not in a way he’d ever understand. They were too different. It was best to act as though her life had begun with the knowledge she was pregnant. Everything that came before was...dark. Nothing.

That would be what was best for everyone.

“I see now what you mean,” she said carefully. As much as she was trying to hide her former addiction, she didn’t want to
lie
to him. Not when they could be building a future.

“We should tell them,” he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t like pretending this isn’t happening, and I think it’d be a good time.”

She tried to back away, but he grasped both her shoulders. “No. No, I’m not ready, Charlie.”

“I’m not sure you’ll ever be ready, Meg.” He started leading her toward the door. “But it’s here, and I think we have to tell them. I promise, it’ll be fine. Whatever you’re worried about, it isn’t important.”