Author's Note: This story is inspired by Breakeven by The Script. This is a RolfxAng tale.
It was all so simple.
She'd just pack up her shit and go.
No hard feelings.
She had enough of her own money to pick up her life where she didn't even leave it off because for her, nothing changed.
Just her last name.
And their joint bank account was closed.
He had heard that there was someone new at her side, and while he didn't necessarily believe it, it didn't really surprise him. She deserved to be treated like the princess she was, and like the ambitious warrior she was, she was going to get what she deserved and then some. Even if it wasn't with him.
Especially if it wasn't with him.
So off she went.
And like every morning, he prayed to a God he didn't believe in to get through the day.
The cow would be milked, the dairy gold set aside for the local co-op director to pick up and take to another farm to be pasteurized before being sent to the stores. Then he'd feed the chickens, pig, and goat. After lunch he'd weed the vegetable patches, go through his small peach grove and pick the ripe fruit, prune the bad, and then spend the rest of the day and well into the evening sorting his harvest for the weekend farmer's market.
He led a simple life.
Apparently it was too simple for her.
Or so he thought….
When they were friends, she'd help out. When they got married, they both knew that she was as much a farmer as he was, but she also had a day job that would take her away for most of the day, so he did much of the work himself, no big deal. Come harvest time, they'd hire on extra help because even if she didn't work in town, they'd need the help.
But as the economy and needs of the people in their area changed, he downsized the farm, selling off acres and acres of land to local home construction companies. What wasn't sold was leased to telecommunications companies for radio and cell phone towers.
The money was invested and reinvested and they lived well.
He even suggested that she quit her job to stay home, but she just couldn't. Working at the local radio station was a lifelong dream and she loved volunteering at women's shelter, mentoring teenage girls at the YWCA, and serving meals at the soup kitchen with her sorority sisters. She liked being out in the world, so off she went.
His friends swore she loved being at home, when he wasn't ordering her around.
She knew how to cook, clean, harvest. She knew when it all needed to be done and would take the lead in getting things done. As a matter of fact, she was the one that took them to the farmers' market. Helping with the co-op was easy, just set your goods aside for the next guy to pick up, collect your check every other week, cash in, do it again. But going out to the farmer's market put a face and name to the tiny logos on the milk and cheese and such at the local grocery store.
People like that.
A lot.
But it brought complications.
Someone wouldn't like how their peaches turned out, or couldn't understand why they got so much kale one season, but only broccoli the next.
And he'd have to answer for every failing as much as he would every praise.
She was good at it; receiving criticism with praise, answering questions, upselling one vegetable but downselling another.
He hated it.
What did these people understand about the land and animals?!
Shit happens!
You plant, you harvest, you accept what Mother Nature brings, you move on.
The rides to the market would be trepidatious. The rides home, anxious.
He'd yell, she'd promise to help them to do better.
But when he needed her most, or so he thought, she'd be gone. Off to work, bringing Peach Creek it's daily mid-day to rush hour dose of Top 40 hits. Off to help keep teen girls out of troubles with smooth talking boys, figuring out algebra equations, and college apps. Off to the soup kitchen to feed the poorest in their region the goods of his hard work.
She knew he was capable of taking care of everything, so she left him to it, ready to be his Hype Woman when the time came.
But she never got much of a chance because as far as he was concerned, she was supposed to be there to point and sell, milk and butcher, as all the women in his family had always done.
His Nana would often be the first to remark how unlike the women of his family she was, though.
There weren't any princesses, real or self actualized, but she was the first college grad they had all ever met.
She had her job and apartment, friends, family across town.
Why she wanted to be with him was a mystery.
Why she left was not.
His blatant disregard for her feelings wore thin on her nerves. His friends would regularly be on his case about it, but he ignored them. Everyone knew that, culturally speaking, his roughness was par for the course.
The passive aggressiveness and jealousy of the women in his family towards her hurt her to her core. She would never understand why they'd be so demeaning when all she wanted was to support them, but once her mind was made up to leave she stopped caring.
But her lack of cares to give looked like acquiescence and he figured she'd finally learned her place.
Then her report on the quality of life for women in the state won her a local Emmy.
The play about a girl finding her way in the middle of a revolution won her a local Tony.
Then Hollywood called.
An old college classmate wanted her to consult on a new movie for Hulu. Between the harvest and the holidays, she worked on emails, took Skype calls, canned the vegetables, and took a pig to slaughter.
If she hadn't also been working on her farm chores, he'd chucked her laptop out the window.
"It's just one last project, Rolfie," she told him and he gave her space not thinking it was her way out. Just a last hurrah before she finally "settled down."
She left for Los Angeles the Monday after Thanksgiving. She also left her wedding ring set and the divorce papers on the kitchen table.
When she came back to town right before Christmas, he was gone to the Old Country, but had all of her things neatly packed in the living room; a check for what was left in their joint account was sent to her mother's.
Everything was finalized before the new year, but instead of being a fresh start, it's been his worst year yet.
On his heart and soul anyways.
The farmer's market and his family shrugged off her absence as good riddance, her now acclaimed status in California too liberal for their tastes.
But everywhere he goes, he sees her, he hears her, and he feels how good she really is.
The money she sends back to the YWCA and the soup kitchen has helped so many do better.
Every time an organization Hell bent on changing the status quo for the most oppressed in society needs her, she's there, voice ready to speak, ears ready to listen, mind ready to understand, hands ready to help, if only to write a couple thousand dollar checks.
Today, he turns on the television in time to see the weather report and sees her face again.
"We have with us today, the woman Lin-Manuel Miranda has dubbed a whirlwind of chaotic good," Head Anchor Nazz Von Bartonschmeer-Hill said with the biggest grin Rolf had ever seen on her face. "Take it away, Angela!"
And there she stood, looking awkward as hell, but laughing her ass off about it.
"Today, it's going to be cold and sunny, with light northeastern breezes coming down off the mountains, so bundle up Peach Creek. But Lemon Brook will get some light snow, so y'all should just stay inside," she giggled as she clicked a device in one hand, that showed what the weather radar was showing, wildly gesturing with another.
"So everyone just get cozy and stuff," Nazz intoned as the camera zoomed out to her and Ang cackled.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he said softly to himself as he turned the television off.
He had seen enough.
Later he saw Eddy at the gas station, but it mildly surprised him to see the shortest Ed alone. Then again, their location was in the dead center of town so maybe he was between dates? Rolf was just relieved that -
"She ain't with me," he huffed as he got back into his car knowing Rolf's curiosity was getting the best of him if he was getting gas at the biggest gas station in town and not the one just a few minutes down the road from his "edge of town" farm.
The loud blast of a motorcycle racing past made his heart skip a beat, but seeing her step out of the Royal Blue 1978 VW Beetle at the gas pump two pumps away made it stop completely.
"Grab me a whatchamacallit, Babe!" The blue haired woman called to her as she ran inside.
"You'll ruin your dinner!" Ang called back with a laugh and his stomach knotted up bad.
"I guess we're even now," he said softly to himself as he climbed back into his truck and drove away, what was left of his heart shattered on the grimey ground.
She always liked blue...