21. Teddy

S o this was Christmas, and Christmas was always like this. Stressful and insane and too much, and then, when it was all over, some kind of depressive haze would descend over everything until January kicked us all back into gear. That was something I kept trying to tell Flora, now she was back to being more normal around me, which I appreciated more than I dared to tell her. Her daily routine of barging into my kitchen for her morning coffee had stopped for a while, until the morning when I'd pretty much stomped out and stood in front of her truck in my dressing gown, forcing her to come in from the cold and then told her that I expected her to be at my kitchen table at seven sharp from now on.

Which worked, since Ned got up and left around six, leaving me to get myself organised and dressed before my quiet sit-down with Flo.

Our mornings were something I needed just as much as she did. We needed this to work. We both agreed on that, which was why she was once again sitting at the kitchen table way before six the morning of Christmas Eve, exactly where she belonged, and I was jumping around on one leg trying to get my socks on.

"We survived until Christmas," she mused over her steaming cup. "The joy of getting up in the middle of the night so I can see to the sheep, next I'm carting Mum and Dad off to my auntie Johanna's for Christmas lunch, and then they need to be at church for three, and I think, by the time dinner is on the table this evening, I'll be flat out drunk. "

"You better not be," Ned shouted from somewhere in the laundry room. "We have a hot date tomorrow morning, remember? That new vet is coming to check on my preggo girls."

"You don't call them preggo, arsehole," she huffed in disgust as Ned stomped into the room.

Ned grinned at me. "What Flo meant to say is he's got a junior vet tagging along. Met them yesterday when he came over to drop off stuff for tomorrow. Hot guy, arse to die for. A little older. Beard."

"Sounds like you met Santa." She laughed.

"He's looking for a place to rent, just a room for now, he said. I gave him your number."

"The fuck?" Flora roared.

"Yeah, I mean, he's perfect. Well educated, handsome, and yes, the arse."

"NED!" she shouted. "I don't have a room to rent. What the hell?"

"Serving him up on a Christmas platter for you, darling." He blew a kiss at Flora, and she threw a spoon at him.

"I don't have a room to rent. What the hell are you playing at?"

"I'm playing at getting you to explain to him when he rings later that the weird American got it all wrong, but you'd be delighted to take him out for a bite in town. Help him find a place to rent."

"You mean get him to buy me a takeaway pizza, and we'll live happily ever after?" She was laughing. "Thank you or whatever for that."

"Well, it worked for me," he countered. "Apart from the pizza. I never got pizza. What the fuck, Teddy? You should have bought me pizza."

"I'll give you pizza if you're not careful," I groaned. "They're closed all Christmas, though. We'll just have to starve to death."

"Not helping with that one." Flora sighed. "I plan to be flat out drunk until the twenty-sixth. Apart from tomorrow morning. Fuck. Does that mean I have to look good for this vet? Aww, shit. "

She made me laugh. So did Ned, who swiftly changed the subject, like the way we lived was normal. It was, actually. It was all really normal. A normal that I loved.

"My trousers are ripped. They're only a few months old, and look at this?"

Yeah. This was work. Machinery. Nature.

"Get some new ones," Flora said. "The shop will order you some. Don't do the online thing because you'll be tempted by pretty colours and cheaper brands and still have to shell all your money on proper gear that only comes in one colour."

She was spot on there. I smoothed down my own green trousers. Waterproof. Lined. Comfortable. Warm.

"I'm destined to wear dark green for the rest of my life?" Ned complained in disgust.

"I can get you some more fluorescent orange safety gear. Might give the heifers a migraine, though." I tried being helpful, and he boxed me in the side. Then kissed me.

"Today's going to be hard, but I'm right here. Okay? Gotta go. Merry Christmas, babe. Bring me lunch later, yeah?"

"You'll be lucky. We have all the stalls here this morning. I might need a nap later."

He rolled his eyes and walked out the door, knowing full well I'd be driving up there with food this afternoon because I was a nice human being and because…

It was a year later, and today would be hard.

Which was why I couldn't settle down, pacing the room.

"Sit with me. Have more coffee," Flora demanded as I continued staring out the windows. "Now."

I nodded, surveying my tidy kitchen. Another thing that had thrown me for a loop. Ned was surprisingly tidy and full of interior design ideas, which meant my usually cat-filled ledge by the window was instead filled with Ned's delicate candle holders. Well, there had been a few more, but Fifi had been banished to the laundry room yesterday after we got in and had to sweep up broken glass off the floor .

I'd made the bed, and Flora still tutted at the sight of our little nest. Our bed. I laughed even thinking that and finally sat down, warmed my hands around the mug of coffee Flora pushed my way.

"Today is going to be hard, but Teddy, your dad told me not to dwell on things. So I won't, and you shouldn't either. He was a great man and a bit of a fool, but he made me laugh, so let's just remember him like that." She raised her coffee cup. I raised mine in return, let the soft clink of the porcelain ring in the brief silence because I couldn't add any words of my own. I wasn't ready to. Not yet.

"You don't have to say anything. I know. He would have known too. Today is what it is, and I'm just going to talk so you don't have to."

"Like you always have." I grinned. She tapped her nose.

"Ned said he's bought me speed-dating tickets. Some event in the community hall in January. Just to let you know, if he's serious about that, I will kill him. I'm not subjecting myself to that. Not that desperate."

I snorted because that's exactly what I'd said to Ned when he'd suggested it. We were a small community here, and he'd actually relented when I'd presented him with the handful of names of the single people who would be desperate enough to attend that kind of circus.

I didn't want Flora anywhere near anyone like that, and yes, that was me being overprotective and weird, but she knew that.

"Don't worry," I said. "But he was right about that. You should think about going away. Take your parents on a cruise."

"And spend my well-earned holiday being nurse and daycare twenty-four seven? No. Not for me."

"Singles cruise? You know, we looked into respite care."

"Yes. Don't like boats. I'm a tractor girl."

I banged my head against the table, but I knew. If things were the other way around, I would have been running for my life.

"I may be desperate, Teddy, but I'm not that desperate. I mean, I always used to think that I didn't want to end up like you, alone with a bunch of cats."

I whacked her on the arm. Gently. "I'm not alone with a bunch of cats. "

She rolled her eyes. I rolled mine too.

"Now…" She shrugged. "Maybe it doesn't sound too bad. I might steal a few of your cats. Take up crocheting. I hear it's very fashionable."

"Flora," I moaned into my cup.

"Don't mock me. I'm serious! I have to make plans here, otherwise I'll go mad!"

"And what about that guy Ned swiped for you?"

"Do you honestly think I'd let Ned anywhere near my phone again? He's a lovesick twink with delusions, thinking he can just swipe me a love match and I'll live happily ever after."

"A lovesick twink," I repeated.

"He is. He looks at you with those puppy eyes, the same way he did at school. Never noticed at the time, but boy, he had it bad for you. Gave me a run for my money."

I still blushed, hearing her speak like that. Flora. Ned. My fucking life.

"Okay." I changed the subject before things got out of hand. "Christmas. Wanna come here after you've had dinner?"

"And play third wheel with you and Ned eating each other's faces in between scoffing all the gingerbread biscuits?"

"We won't be scoffing anything. Ned has to be up at Violet's until the twenty-sixth. He only turns up here to sleep."

"And you?"

"I'll be here, trying to figure out how to live without him when he's just up the road running four sheds on his own."

"He'll live."

"He'll be fine."

She smiled and it instantly calmed me. I needed us to be just like we were now. Calm. Relaxed. On the same page. But I wasn't going to tell her that I'd probably sit here on my own for a bit, light some candles and sob my heart out. Get it out of my system before Ned got back.

"You okay?" she asked quietly .

"Yeah," I answered. "You okay?" I always asked her the same because I wanted her so badly to be.

"Yeah." She took my hand, same as always. "I'm getting there. It's not easy, but I'm coming around to the fact that this is as good as it's going to get. Mum and Dad will pass, and I will be left in that house on my own. Nobody relying on me. Nobody to care if I get up in the morning. Nobody to miss me if I get trampled by the bloody sheep."

"Don't say shit like that." I sounded a little harsher than I'd meant to, but I hated to think of her on her own.

"It's true. I'm past my prime. This is me. This is how it's going to be, and I'm okay with that, or I will be. I mean, look at Violet still running that place on her own. Nobody messes with Violet. Nobody is going to mess with Butter Girl down the south valley either."

"Nobody is ever going to mess with you because I'll have your back."

"I know," she said softly. "But you have to put Ned first because that is what you do when you love someone."

"I still love you."

"You know what I mean."

I did, and I knew she would be fine, with or without Ned's efforts to find eligible single men we could throw her way. I only had to look at Flora to know she was thinking on the same lines.

"No more blind dates."

"Got it."

"No speed dating."

"Fine."

"No letting Ned near my phone."

"Promise."

"But I'll come over tomorrow night. One year later and a day. We'll make it a tradition of sorts. I'll bring a bottle of something, and we'll drown our sorrows—on one condition."

"What's that then?" I smiled .

"Unpack the fucking TV, Teddy. This place is like stuck in the goddamn fifties or something. You need a TV so we can sit and watch shite on the box like normal people."

"I have a laptop?"

"That TV has sat in the box for over a week. Do something about it instead of screwing your hot boyfriend all the time. I see what you're doing, and it's ridiculous, and I picked up your mail again. Perhaps think of stopping by the post boxes once in a while and emptying them?"

Digging in her pocket, she stood up and zipped herself back into her jacket.

"Thanks," I said, staring at the stack of envelopes she handed me.

A Christmas card. And another one. Nobody sent Christmas cards anymore—other than a few elderly people, business acquaintances maybe, the ladies at the post office—but the fancy embossed envelope told me exactly who it was from.

The Honorary Ambassador to Japan Mr Kenji Sato and Mr Edward Backman Jr , the inscription on the glossy card said, though it didn't mention the tree. She was a beauty, that one, and we both looked ridiculously happy, standing either side of her and grinning into the camera.

And on the back in that distinctly neat handwriting:

Thank you for your hospitality. Wishing you happiness and peace. Thank you also for your friendship. Hoping your troubles are now in the past.

Smiling widely and feeling a bit tearful, I took the photograph over to the fridge, loosened one of the rusty old magnets and secured it to the door.

One for the future. Perhaps that was what this was about. Me starting anew. Building this life up from scratch. Accepting the hand of friendship whenever it was offered.

Friendship. I didn't have many of those, but the ones I had, I was starting to cherish. Perhaps that was just me growing older, being tired of keeping people at arm's length. I knew what the grey hairs in Flora's fringe meant, what the dark circles under her eyes were proof of. Being lonely and doing everything on your own was exhausting, and while I couldn't change who I was, who she was, I could get her to sit down and have breakfast with me. I could offer her a hug and take the time to be with her when she popped in during the day to bring me a cup of coffee—all those little things that told us we were still good.

I needed that too. I'd never known how much until now.

I was happy, and it still terrified me. That feeling in my stomach in the evening before the sound of Violet's truck parking at the front of the house, was slowly breaking down my fears. He came back, every night, and things were different. My life was different. The same but not.

And just like that, the world turned. My day moved on, and to be honest, I was exhausted, drained to the core. I couldn't even figure out how to get through the next couple of hours in one piece let alone the next couple of days. My body was broken, my fingers raw with cold and nicks and splinters, and I once again started to question why on earth I did this every year.

I did it because there were no options here. My trees were planted for the next twenty years, my rotating areas all set out, my young saplings strong in the ground, protected by natural barriers of growth that had cost me an arm and a leg to plant, but it was done. There was no going back now.

Unless I gave all this up. But for what?

My life was laid out ahead of me; always had been. It had once felt like I was trapped, but lately, the strings that held me here felt more like safety reins. Mostly, I welcomed them. They brought me calm and peace because this was home. An unexpected part of a new adulthood where safety was valued over the need to escape.

A year had passed, another winter, and I could deal with it. Think of my dad with fondness instead of that horrible sadness I'd thought would stay with me forever. It was Christmas again. Dad would have hated to see me being sad. But Christmas also meant working, and I did until I couldn't take it anymore, at which point I grabbed some food from the fridge, got in my truck and drove up the hill to Violet's cottage.

I found Ned hobbling around with an ice pack strapped to his foot, and life once again made perfect sense. I smiled because I could and because there were Christmas candles on the table and an open tub of Violet's homemade biscuits. I snagged one immediately and shoved it whole in my gob.

"Bloody heifer three-seven-eight," Ned muttered, hobbling over to the table. "It's always her. She's got a thing for me and always wants to come up for a good scratch and cuddle, and today, I got sidetracked and didn't have time, so she bloody stomped on my foot."

"I'm sure she didn't mean it." I laughed around the mouthful of biscuit as I helped Ned plonk his stubborn arse down on the chair beside mine and gently raised his foot onto my lap, stuck a biscuit in his mouth. He groaned as I carefully rolled down his sweaty old sock. He needed more socks because this one was less than a couple of months old, and he'd already worn out the heel.

The same way I did.

Funny that, eh?

"Ouch!"

"Ouch indeed," I said, looking at the state of his foot, bruises blooming on the top half, and his big toe was twice the size it should be. I'd done it often enough myself, tripping over logs and trying to kickstart generators and such. "Nothing a hospital will touch. We'll strap it up and ice it overnight. You'll live."

"What do you mean, nothing a hospital would touch?" he moaned. Weakling. "It could be broken for all I know."

"This is the sticks, Ned."

"Babe," he whined.

Made me grin every time. Babe. I was Ned's babe.

"Yes, Kitten. It's sore, but it's not broken. If it was broken, you'd know about it, but I'll make you a deal. If it swells up to the size of a balloon overnight, I'll take you up to the health centre tomorrow. They can give you a plaster, and I'll buy you a St Lucia bun as a treat."

"Fuck you." He glared at me from under his fringe. Ned Anderson, the boy with the once-perfect haircut now sported a mess of hair that he tucked back behind his ear. "Kitten. What the hell is that?"

"Well, if I'm Babe, then you're Kitten. "

"We're professional farmers, you know."

That made me howl.

"Of course, we are. Hence, little kittens like yourself get boo-boos. If it makes you feel any better, I brought you lunch, and you can sit here and rest that little foot while I make you coffee."

"Coffee's on. Just needs pouring."

"Anything else Your Majesty requires?"

"Well…" He smiled at me from under that fringe. "It's Christmas."

"Yes, and this afternoon, I have to clear up everything on the forecourt. Dismantle stuff and pack things away. We had stall holders from as far as Karlstad today, sold out of planters, and yeah, everything's gone. Done and dusted. I have a whole shed full of rubbish I need to take to the recycling site." I'd left everything as it was, the last of the students locking up the sheds on the forecourt as I'd buggered off up here.

"I popped into the classrooms earlier. Those kids had gone all out on those plant displays, huh?"

"Christmas planters are a big thing."

"Violet bought four this year. Asked me to put her name down for next year too."

"Of course."

"But as I was saying…"

"Yes?"

"Does an injured man not deserve a Christmas blowie? I mean, it might soothe the pain. I hear it's good for relieving swelling."

"Swelling?" I eyed him up suspiciously as he struggled to hold back his laughter. "Ned. This love thing, you're pushing it here."

"I don't think I am because the love thing—it goes both ways."

"Does it now?"

"I love you. You know that. Especially when you look after my poor foot."

"Lunch. Rest. Get out of those clothes for a bit. That's all you need. "

"Well, you better get a move on with the food. I need to go back out there. I haven't even started shovelling in shed two, but then—"

"If you're busy, I might have to just sit here on my own. Such a waste of a Christmas boner. I mean, you look incredibly sexy in those thermals."

"Is that so?"

"Might have to rub one out right here on the chair."

"Need to go check on the tanks, babe."

"Rejected. On Christmas Eve." I pretend-rolled my eyes.

"I asked for one. You could have had your pants down by now, but instead, here you are, still sitting at the table wasting my time."

"You said you needed to go check the tanks."

"Will you wait for me?" he asked, then stopped, realising what he'd said. The words sat heavy in the room as we stared at each other in silence.

"I would wait for you," I promised. "As you waited for me."

I loved him. The whole thing was so bloody clear in my head, and it made me regret every doubt I'd had earlier today. This was my life now. Was I allowed to be this chilled about how frighteningly good things were?

"Edward Backman." He smiled wickedly. "Good thing you're a farmer and not a poet."

His laughter rang through the air as I pushed his foot off my lap, got up, poured us some coffee, served lunch, agreed to tidy up while he went to check those tanks. Then Ned Anderson was getting it. Good.