Page 27 of Guarding Over You
She had her right to parent her child the way she wanted, and he had the same right to know it’d bother the shit out of him and it’d never work anyway.
“None of it is my preference,” she said after a minute.
“What?”
“Gracie’s eating habits. Not what I want and she didn’t use to be that way. Nothing is the way it was before, but I have to pick my battles with all the changes in the past year. Normally I give her what I know she’ll eat mixed in with what I’m having. She has to eat some of mine, even if it’s not her favorite. Kind of our compromise. To me, the hope is that I can just move to mine completely and not make the two meals.”
And that was why he tried not to judge too much. There was a reason. A good one by the sounds of it with a solid compromise blended in.
“The ex?” he asked. Hard not to figure out with the way Arden was giving the guy shit last week.
One week ago. Had it really been that long? It felt more like yesterday.
Or that could be because she hadn’t left his mind much.
On Sunday, he’d hoped to catch sight of them in the back, but he’d been gone most of the afternoon and when he got home it was after dinner and too hot to sit on his patio for long.
“Yeah. My ex-husband. It’s not been a great year and Gracie is... timid around her father now. We are treading water, but at least we are moving toward the shore. It’s better than it’s been. I’d hoped the move here would help and give her a change of environment to kind of reset.”
As much as he wanted to know more, something told him not to ask.
Least of all to ask in a place where they couldn’t have a private conversation.
“Where did you move from? If you don’t mind me asking. I grew up in Warrensburg. Lived in the area my whole life except for med school.”
“We moved from Saratoga. I grew up there and went to college at SUNY Cortland and returned home, got a job right away at the county as a case manager, then a social worker.Started at the hospital a few weeks before I could close on the townhouse.”
“Not that far then,” he said.
“No. I’ve been around the area on and off. Never was at your parents’ orchard though I’d heard of it. I hadn’t realized until you mentioned your siblings who you were. Is it still an orchard now?”
“It will always be an orchard but not open to the public for picking. Clay’s running it all with the hard cider, but my mother has the cafe and bakery year round and one of the old barns is now a wedding venue. It’s a much different place than I grew up on.”
“That sounds exciting. Hard cider is much more interesting to me than just apple picking. I only say that since I’m talking to another adult. If my daughter were here, oh yeah, apple picking is the jam.”
He laughed. “That can be our secret.” Might as well keep this light since she was more open that way. She’d picked up on the humor again and he’d rather it be that way for now.
“Maybe this fall, you can bring Gracie out there to let her run wild and pick as many apples as she wants with no competition. That is if she eats them? Or is it just picking?”
“That’s very sweet. She’d love it. And yes, it’s one fruit she loves. She’d eat three in a row if I didn’t stop her. She gets one a day. She likes fruit more than vegetables, but I know that’s normal with kids.” She took another bite of her lunch so he did the same. “Where did you go to college? You didn’t say.”
“I went to SUNY Albany for undergrad, just wanted to stay close to home. Ford went there too. We are only a year apart in age, so it helped being there and sharing a car to come home or move around on campus.”
“Did you live together there?”
“We did. He had an apartment his last three years, I moved in with him my freshman year and stayed the whole time. Got other roommates when he graduated that year. And since we only had one car, one of us was always just kind of hanging out around campus or taking the bus. Sometimes we’d walk, but it was about a mile, so not horrible. Worked for us.”
“That’s great you could do that. I’m an only child. My parents live in Saratoga still. I couldn’t wait to leave the area and get a feel for life, but came home and ended up a divorced single parent. Not exactly my dream goal.” She waved her hand. “Where did you go to med school?”
“University of Rochester. Still close enough to come home, then did my residency back in Albany. I knew this is where I’d land and since people aren’t fighting to be in these more rural areas, it fell into place.”
“Sounds like you got your dream goal. Glad one of us did.”
She was still grinning. “There is time yet for you to get it. Or all of it. Having your daughter happy and healthy has to be on the top of your list. She seems it to me.”
“Thank you for that,” she said softly. “It means a lot. Sometimes I wonder if I overanalyze things to death because of my job. Like I should have known better and yet I made stupid mistakes.”
“Hey,” he said, his hand reaching over the same as it would have a patient who was struggling. His job wasn’t just to go in and fix and kick them out for the next, it was to comfort and nurture while they were in his care. At least that was how he always looked at it. “Stupid mistakes are better than deadly ones. Trust me, I know.”
