She swung her legs back and forth on the thick branch she was sitting on in the overgrown oak tree. It was her secret spot, this oak tree, and she used to hide there when she was a kid and had a lot on her mind. She came here a lot after her mama and Shawn died.
She had missed the peace and safety of the woods around the farm while she was in Atlanta. The sturdy oaks and sprawling greenery had sheltered her many times growing up.
She swung her legs once more and leapt off the branch, landing easily in the soft earth at the base of the tree. It was not a very high branch, and she had jumped off it a thousand times before, starting with the time she actually fell off and broke her arm when she was eight.
She brushed off the dirt on her jeans and started back towards the house. She always knew it was time to go back for dinner when the light from the sunset slanted in sideways through the trees.
It had been a little over a week since Maggie's wedding and Beth was still at the farm with Hershel. Maggie and Glenn were in L.A. for their honeymoon and were due back in the next few days. But even when they came home, Beth wouldn't join them again in Atlanta. They needed their space to start their new life as newlyweds and Beth needed to figure out her own place in the world. For now, she was helping her daddy on the farm and Patricia in the kitchen and just getting by, day by day.
Maggie's wedding had been a day of high emotion, impossible happiness and aching grief. She had said goodbye to her childhood in a way as she helped her sister start her new life as a married woman, and had also said goodbye to her own marriage as she returned Daryl's ring. The thought brought a lump to her throat.
She hadn't heard from him since that night, and the thought that she might never speak to him again brought a strange kind of panicked grief, though she could never regret her decision. She had meant what she said when she told him she was not the girl he married anymore, nor was she that nursing student in Atlanta anymore. She had tried both lives, both versions of herself, and neither fit properly. She couldn't begin to think about joining her life with someone until she knew what kind of life she wanted.
She was almost through the forest and could see the farmhouse on the horizon. She ran her hands through the tall grass as she walked, enjoying the smell of the late summer grass, so familiar to her from her childhood. It reminded her in a way of the garden by Daryl's cottage in the woods, the wild sprawl of the flowers and plants that showed an enthusiasm for natural growth, not a lack of care. How different it was from the neat and bare florists shop she had visited with Maggie in Atlanta. The store was cold and pretentious, overly concerned with appearance and less so on the warmth and joy a garden could bring.
By the time she was climbing the front porch steps to the house, she knew what she wanted to do.
She kept her idea to herself all evening, letting it form and grow stronger. If she was unusually quiet, her father didn't say a word about it, he knew how much had been weighing on her lately.
She woke early the next morning and found Hershel sipping coffee on the front porch alone. She was glad for the chance to speak to him privately.
"Daddy," she said quietly, sitting beside him on the swinging bench. "Can I talk to you about something?"
"Always, doodlebug," Hershel said with a warm smile.
Beth gathered her courage and said, "I want to open a greenhouse. I want to grow flowers and sell them in my own little shop. This town doesn't have a florist, and I want to grow things that would help people, as my garden has helped me."
Hershel didn't speak for a moment, only smiled at his youngest daughter in quiet contemplation.
"I think that's a wonderful idea, Bethy," he said finally. "It will be a lot of work, but I know you're up to the task."
Beth nodded firmly. "I can do it. I can work hard."
"I know you can," he said. He paused for a moment, then said, "I want to show you something."
He asked her to run inside and grab the car keys and his cane. Beth was confused, but intrigued, and eagerly gathered the things they needed to take a drive. She asked him where he was taking her, but when he only smiled and remained quiet, she knew he wouldn't tell her until they got there. She had settled in for a long car ride, and was surprised when he stopped the truck while they were still on their property.
They were on the other side of the property from the house, on the other side of the tilled fields and barns and a small copse of trees, an area of their land they didn't get much use and a place Beth hadn't really been in years. It was still their land, but while Beth could easily run across the acres, she knew her daddy had driven them because he could not, and it was just far enough away to make the distance unpassable.
But despite the few years it had been since she was last there, she blinked in surprise as she immediately recognized where he had brought her.
It was her mother's greenhouse. Her first mother, Josephine.
Neither Hershel nor Beth spoke as they stepped closer to the abandoned greenhouse. It was nearly in ruins now, overgrown with vines and weeds and with a few of its windows broken in.
But Beth could remember what it used to look like, how it had looked when Josephine had kept it bright and clean and overflowing with vegetables that she sold at the local farmer's market. Beth could remember her bringing her there when she was very little, how she had showed her the different kinds of plants and how to care for them.
The greenhouse had been left empty for many years, its plants long since grown wild. Annette had been a gifted gardener as well, but leaned more towards garden flowers by the farmhouse than market vegetables in this old greenhouse. Beth had been back since Josephine had died, but only sporadically over the years, it was too far away, and too full of painful ghosts to visit often.
Josephine had died when Beth was only five, and so she had regretfully very few memories of her birth mother. Maggie had been ten, and so had more memories, but also more grief and anger when their mother was taken from them too soon from breast cancer. But this greenhouse had been a memory she had managed to hold onto all these years, memories that were now more precious to her than ever, knowing how many she had already lost.
She pushed open the water-damaged, warped wooden door and the smell of the greenhouse almost overwhelmed her. It wasn't a bad smell, but rather a natural one of dust, and growing things, and the sickly sweet smell of rot. Her eyes fell on the markings by the front door, and lump formed in her throat.
Josephine had marked their heights every year they grew, had measured them against the wall and wrote down their heights alongside doodles of flowers shooting up. She had always done that in the greenhouse so they could see how they grew alongside the plants growing. She had encouraged them to write their own names though, and it was clear to see how their handwriting had changed as they grew up. Josephine's own never-changing height was recorded many times on the same wall, at the pleading of her daughters that she join them each year.
Beth could see her own name way down the wall, her name written in a messy child's scrawl. She had been so tiny then, smaller than her waist now. She gently touched her mother's name and the loopy sketch of a daisy beside it. They were the same height now.
"It's yours," Hershel said quietly behind her. "I think your mother would want you to have it. She loved it here, and I know you will put it to good use."
Beth spun around to face her father. She hadn't realized that tears were pouring down her face until he gently wiped them away. She felt as if her heart were breaking and being put back together all at once. She couldn't speak, but he understood.
She threw her arms around him with a sob, and he hugged her tight for a long time, until she was strong enough to leave the place of so many memories and walk back to the truck.
Starting that afternoon, Beth set to work fixing up the greenhouse.
She could manage most of it by herself, and spent hours pulling weeds and sweeping broken potted plants. She started first thing in the morning, and walked over the sprawling fields and forest of the farmland as the sun was rising, eating apples plucked from the orchard trees as she walked. She spent the whole day cleaning and fixing the ruined greenhouse, and barely managed to drag herself back to the house every evening, exhausted and soaked with sweat. But despite her aching back and hands that were growing more calloused by the hour, she loved it. She loved the hard work, and loved building something for herself, something to start her life on her own terms.
For the harder jobs, she roped Jimmy and Otis into helping her. They were happy to indulge her wishes, they both cared for her so much, and her bright smiles and homemade pies certainly helped.
One afternoon, it was just her and Jimmy in the greenhouse. He was fixing the warped front door and she was pulling the last of the weeds from stone floor. The sky was dark, with heavy grey clouds rolling overhead in the humid air, a sure sign that they would see one of the last of the end of summer storms that night.
Jimmy and Beth worked quickly and quietly, both absorbed in their tasks and with other things on their minds.
"I'm sorry I wasn't stronger for you," Jimmy said suddenly, breaking the silence.
Beth looked up, started. She looked over to where he was moving the heavy wooden door and frowned.
He followed her gaze, and just before she opened her mouth to speak, he gave her one of his loose little half-smiles that she had always found so endearing.
"I meant," he said slowly. "After your mom and Shawn died. You needed me and I just… faded out. I should have been there for you."
She blinked, surprised. She was not expecting that. Jimmy was not known for his heart-to-hearts.
"Oh, Jimmy…." She said awkwardly, gently putting down the weed puller. "That was so long ago…"
As always, the mention of her stepmother and stepbrother's deaths brought a stab to her heart and an itch to her scar. She didn't really want to think about it today, not here in Josephine's old greenhouse under a stormy summer sky.
He nodded, and looked down. Thunder rumbled overheard.
"But," he said quietly, still not looking directly at her, "I just mean… I'm glad I can be here for you now. I'm glad I can help you now. And I'm glad…" he paused and gave her another sweet half-smile, "I'm glad you have someone you really can lean on, even if you don't know it yet."
Beth couldn't help but smile in return, and didn't even wince at the veiled mention of Daryl.
Jimmy only allowed the tender moment to last a second longer, before he loudly cleared his throat, scuffed his boots, and looked up through the glass ceiling where thunder rolled lowly overhead.
"I hope the weather holds," he said in a louder and stronger voice than before. "Hershel wanted to start harvesting the fields in a few days and this storm will slow our schedule."
He talked a few minutes more about the harvest and the storm, sturdy, sensible things that had no painful emotion attached to it. Beth couldn't help but smile. He was still so like the boy she had known when she was seventeen, always so awkward at talking about sentimental or emotional. She had almost forgotten that before they had been boyfriend and girlfriend, they had been best friends.
They walked back to the farmhouse together, talking and laughing about their plans for the greenhouse. The storm held until they were in sight of the house, then the clouds opened up and rain started like a bucket pouring out. Beth shrieked, and they ran laughing back to the house, where they crashed through the door breathless and soaking wet. They ate Patricia's famous chili and cornbread for dinner wrapped in thick towels and still shivering slightly. Hershel wanted to hear all about their day of work, and Beth let Jimmy explain. As content as she was in that moment, she couldn't help but feel like something was still missing.