AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl was surprised, on the road, to find Merle riding in his direction on Duke, a plow horse of Hershel's that was entirely unaware that he was a draft and, as such, wasn't built for being a riding horse. Slow and easy was Duke's typical approach to being ridden, but he typically behaved better when given commands from his back than he did when he suffered the indignity of being yanked around by a lead. A trip to town, though, seemed to suit both Merle and Duke just fine.
"You couldn't find no better horse in Hershel's barn?" Daryl called to his brother. He could see Merle laughing from the short distance away and he continued laughing even as he closed the space between them.
"Like Duke," Merle responded. "Suits my style. Got us an understandin'. I don't like to run and get my damn ass jostled up into my neck and neither do he."
"What'cha doin' out here Merle?" Daryl asked.
"Headin' out to Eden," Merle said. "Didn't think I was gonna let'cha ride out alone, did'ja?"
"How'd you even know I was leavin' now?" Daryl asked.
Merle laughed.
"Been waitin' since Hershel left to come see your stead," Merle admitted. "Me an' Duke. He don't care. Thought we was waitin' all that time for a load of something I reckon." His face changed to a slightly more sincere expression than the half-grin that he'd been wearing since his laughter had died down. "You hell bent on goin' after you a wife. I weren't gonna let my lil' brother go get him a wife without me. Hell—she might be a whore, but soon as you marry her? That whore's a Dixon, and that makes her about all the family we got left." He laughed to himself. "Besides...you don't know nothin' about women. She's liable to pack a bag that's too heavy for them regular mounts. But ole Duke here?" Merle leaned forward and patted the neck of the oversized beast that seemed entirely oblivious to everything around him. "He can pull a healthy stump out the ground. He can prob'ly handle her load."
More pleased than he really felt it proper to admit at the moment, Daryl nodded his head at his brother as a way of giving thanks and nudged Nessie forward so that their caravan could pick up their steps again wander on in the direction of town. Runt kept close to his side, and every now and again Daryl glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Merle, riding a horse that could've overtaken Nessie and Runt's short steps with one full length stride, was managing to keep up.
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Andrea held the curtains back with her fingers and watched the approach of Daryl and Merle. Riding a chestnut mare and leading a buckskin, Daryl was coming calling—and the rider-less but saddled horse made his intentions fairly clear. He intended not to be leaving alone. Behind him, moving at the slowest pace he could without standing still, came Merle on a bay Clydesdale that looked somewhat strange stumbling his way through the muck of the streets that were muddied with the water that some of Andrea's girls had recently tossed out the windows.
Andrea smiled to herself.
"Carol?" She called. "Carol? Need you to come down here. We got visitors and I know one's here for you."
Andrea grabbed her robe from the hook that she kept it on to make sure that she was always fit to open the door, and she wrapped herself in it. She opened the door while the two men were still securing their mounts to the hitching posts set out in front of the house.
Andrea leaned against the doorframe and waited for them to make their way up the steps, both of them nodding their heads as a greeting to her as they came. The oldest of the brothers was grinning like a jackass. The youngest looked like he was doing everything within his power not to part company with whatever breakfast he may have scared up.
"I'm sorry," Carol called, coming up from behind Andrea—from the sitting room in the back of the house where the girls rested between clients. "I didn't hear you."
She was focused on readjusting her clothing and Andrea glanced at her and shook her head.
"You won't be wearing that," Andrea declared. "Go—put on a dress. Pack your bag. I wanna have a little talk with the boys."
Carol stared at Andrea open-mouthed and Andrea waved her hand at Carol to get her moving. She wanted to make it clear that changing her clothes and packing her bag, at least, were not up for discussion or negotiation. Maybe she would want to continue arguing about whether or not she would go with Daryl, or whether or not she would marry him, but Andrea was at least pushing her in the direction of the first step.
And Andrea wanted to talk to Merle and Daryl.
This was an opportunity that Andrea didn't want Carol to miss out on. The idea of marriage to a man that she hardly knew could be terrifying, but even more terrifying could be the reality of a future in such a business as this. The time ran out for everyone. The sand ran through the hourglass. A dried-up whore who had lost the blush of youth and beauty didn't have good prospects. Not unless she was a Madame. Not unless she had saved enough of her money to get her through whatever old age she might dream to have. Not unless she'd earned enough respect and admiration from her girls that they were prepared to care for her through that old age.
Every whore had a day when the time simply ran out—and only the best of them had one that extended much beyond the years that Carol and Andrea both were already facing.
Carol wasn't an exceptional whore. And, as Andrea had told her time and time again, such a statement wasn't meant to cause her sadness or heartache. It was simply fact. Carol had been raised to be a wife. She'd expected to live as a wife and that was the life that she was prepared for. Being a whore didn't suit her in the slightest.
And one day Andrea wouldn't be able to care for her any longer.
From the outside looking in, there was nothing that was immediately objectionable about Merle and Daryl. They were relatively clean, all things considered. They were healthy and strong and not afraid of the hard labor that their lives required of them. They seemed level-headed enough and, though it was clear that Merle was prouder than perhaps he had a right to be, neither of them seemed so consumed by pride that it made them fragile and prone to coming to pieces at the slightest threat that something might knock them down a notch.
From the outside looking in, it was clear that they'd been knocked down about as low as a body could go. Now they were on their way up.
Marrying Daryl would raise Carol's current standing in society. It might not raise her high up—and maybe Daryl would never have that to offer her—but it would raise her to the point that she didn't have to feel the need to duck her head in public. Marrying Daryl would make her respectable. It would make her a proper wife again.
But Andrea wasn't going to simply send her off with the two men without having a sit-down talk with them to put her mind at ease.
Once Andrea pointed her finger at Carol, directing her back toward the bedrooms, Carol turned and took her objection with her. Painting on a smile, Andrea turned back to address the two men that were mounting the steps to her house.
"This a business call?" Andrea asked. "Or personal?"
"Reckon you know why I'm here," Daryl offered. He cleared his throat and glanced around, still held somewhat outside the house because Andrea hadn't cleared the door to allow them inside. "Carol...she—uh—she here?"
Andrea nodded her head at him.
"She's changing her clothes," Andrea said. "Packing a bag. But—I'd like you two gentleman to come with me? Let me show you the sitting room. We can wait more comfortably there."
"We weren't plannin' on bein' here that long," Merle said. "Not with ridin' back to the farm tonight."
"Hershel's waitin' to do the marryin'," Daryl said. "And supper—they don't hold it too late. Might not want to put it off too long and I'm sure Miss Jo's gonna want us all to eat." He cleared his throat. "Celebration and what have you."
Andrea smiled at him as reassuringly as she could. It was clear that the young man was so nervous he might as well have had bees swarming around in his britches.
"I just want to talk to you for a minute," Andrea said. "Everybody's got a minute to spare. Follow me?"
Andrea let the two men into the house. Rather than remove it, she kept her robe on. For a moment she wanted their full attention and she was more than aware of how easy it was to lose a man's focus when certain garments were present and others weren't. Andrea guided the men to the sitting room that she knew would be empty. There were two grand sitting rooms in the house. One, in the back, was for the use of the girls in between clients. The other was for the use of the clients if all the girls were occupied.
At the moment, they had no one waiting and most of her girls were occupied.
Andrea waved her hand at the furniture in the room and both Merle and Daryl stared at the couches but didn't sit.
"Sit down, gentlemen," Andrea offered. "The furniture in here was made for that."
"It's just..." Daryl offered, looking back at the couch, "we're pretty dusty from the road."
Andrea offered him a smile and an understanding nod.
"These couches have seen more than their share of dirt," Andrea said. "A little more? It isn't going to ruin them. Sit. Get comfortable."
With the final push, the men did sit and Andrea took a seat where she could see them both. She bit the inside of her lip so as to not laugh at the obvious discomfort that they felt sitting on her couch, both of them repeatedly dragging their hands across their pants legs to dry their palms from nerves.
"Tell me about yourselves," Andrea said. "Daryl? Tell me about yourself."
Daryl shrugged his shoulders.
"Ain't much to tell," Daryl said. "Reckon I'm a farmer now. Got me a lil' piece of land. A house now. Won't be long I'll have a barn." He shrugged his shoulders again to end his wordy speech with a gesture that would say, for him, that there wasn't much else that he could tell.
"Been married before?" Andrea asked.
"Don't aim to get married more'n once," Daryl said.
"A lot of people don't aim to do it," Andrea said. "But that doesn't mean it never happens."
"No ma'am," Daryl offered.
"What about your family?" Andrea asked.
She could immediately see, from the red that flooded both their faces, that the question touched on something that was, perhaps, a little delicate.
"The hell about your family?" Merle growled at her, attempting to return offense with offense.
Rather than feel offended, though, Andrea simply nodded her head.
"My mistake, I suppose," she said.
"You lookin' at all the family we got left," Daryl said. "Nothin' else to say but that."
"Come out here not to have to say nothin' else," Merle added.
Andrea sat forward and sighed.
"What are your intentions, Daryl? With Carol?" Andrea asked.
Daryl glanced at his brother like he might answer the question for him, but it was clear that Merle was leaving most of the talking to Daryl—unless of course he felt that he needed to step in to protect his brother. Andrea could respect that. She could respect the need to protect. It was a need that she'd always had too. There was nothing wrong with it and, honestly, she was happy to see that it belonged to at least one of the brothers. She figured, too, that it would belong to them both if the time and situation was right.
"I don't got no intentions," Daryl said. "I mean—marry her. But—that's...that's it, I suppose. Ought I have more? Intentions?"
Andrea laughed to herself.
"You want to marry her," Andrea said. Daryl nodded his head with some enthusiasm. "And then what?" Andrea asked, raising her eyebrows at him.
Daryl shrugged his shoulders again in response and cleared his throat before subjecting his palms to another sweep across his dirty pants.
"Then she's gonna be my wife," he said.
"And what do you think, Daryl, makes a good wife?" Andrea asked.
Out of the corner of her eye, Andrea caught some movement. She rolled her eyes in the direction of the movement, but she did her best to keep from turning her head. She didn't want to let the mover become aware that she knew of her presence, and she didn't want to alert Daryl and Merle to her approach. Not yet.
"Good wife—stays with me," Daryl said. "Don't go nowhere unless..."
"Unless?" Andrea pressed.
"Unless I know about it," Daryl said. "Makes a home outta the house I give her. Meals outta the food. Good wife...hell, I don't know. Just does the wife things that wives do."
Andrea accepted that, perhaps, it was difficult for him to put into words exactly what he expected of a wife. Perhaps it was simply that the young man had no grand expectation for his wife. She nodded her head at him.
"And what would you do," Andrea asked, "if she weren't a good wife? If she didn't do things...quite like you liked them?"
Daryl looked almost shocked at the very suggestion that Carol might do something like fail to live up to his very limited expectations. He backed up a little on the couch and shrugged his shoulders again.
"Reckon...I'd ask her why she weren't doin' 'em?" He said, the words coming out as a question.
"Is that what you would do?" Andrea asked. "You'd ask her why she wasn't doing them the way you wanted? You'd ask her...to do them the way that you wanted?"
Daryl glanced at Merle again, but finding no help there he nodded his head again.
"Yeah," he said, a little surer of himself. "Yeah. Think that's—think it's what I'd do."
"Would you put her out?" Andrea asked. "Leave her to—fend for herself? Leave her to—find a life for herself because she wasn't suiting to what you had in mind?"
Daryl shook his head.
"No," he said, but he didn't bother to elaborate on his answer. It was simple and to the point. He wouldn't put her out. It hadn't even entered his mind as a possibility.
Andrea nodded her acceptance of the answer.
"Would you hit her?" Andrea asked. "Teach her that way what you wanted her to know?"
"Listen just a damn minute!" Merle spat, getting to his feet like a shot. Andrea sat back in her chair, unsure at the moment if Merle might hit her for such a question, but she gave him her attention. "Daryl ain't come here to answer none a' your questions. He come here 'cause he's got himself a mind to marry that lil' woman if she'll have him. An' she'd be damn lucky to have him 'cause—'cause there ain't nothin' he wouldn't give her. Nothin' he wouldn't do for her. Not now that he's set on marryin' her. We don't come from shit. Got our asses here straight from Georgia by payin' off our debts with our backs an' our sweat. We ain't worth no more'n you is—but he don't gotta sit here an' answer questions like this." Merle's temper seemed to run out. He'd offered no injury to anything and the red was starting to fade from his features as he settled down from the insult. Daryl was watching him. Andrea watched him too. "He ain't no—he ain't no prize," Merle said. "And maybe—lotta that's my fault. I been raisin' him since—since he was missin' half his damned teeth. Didn't teach him everythin' he prob'ly oughta learn but I taught him one damn thing. And that's that he don't beat on women."
Andrea offered Merle a soft smile and the smile, it seemed, reduced the redness even more. He glanced back at the couch and mumbled something that might have been an apology as he returned to the seat he'd been sitting in before.
"I meant no insult," Andrea said. "It's just—I care for Carol. She's one of my girls. And I don't want to just send her off with just anyone. You understand."
Daryl nodded his head at her.
"You satisfied?" He asked.
Andrea returned the nod.
"I think I am," she said. Andrea shifted and changed her position. She glanced in the direction of the doorway where she knew that Carol was standing somewhat hidden behind the heavy curtains that she closed sometimes to give her clients privacy. "Carol? Are you satisfied?"
Daryl moved and got to his feet at the mention of Carol's name. His head shot in the direction of where Andrea was looking. Andrea watched his face as Carol rounded the corner dressed in one of the simple cotton dresses that Andrea had given her. It was soft and had a rose floral pattern. Andrea never wore it and Carol had admired it, so Andrea had given it to her, though she'd never seen her wear it until then. A soft smile curled across Daryl's lips and his eyes went wide with the admiration of something as simple as Carol standing there in a light cotton dress.
Carol shook her head at Andrea. She was afraid.
Even things that were good were sometimes terrifying.
Andrea stood up as well and readjusted her robe. Merle didn't get on his feet until Andrea rose.
"Carol—Daryl's here, and I think he wants your answer. I saw that he brought a buckskin with a saddle. I think that mount's for you to ride," Andrea offered.
Carol shook her head again.
"I can't go," she said. "I'm not—you don't wanna marry me." She directed the last of her words to Daryl.
Daryl licked his lips and nodded his head.
"But I do," he said. "I do. You can see it all now. The house. I got it up. It's real nice. Ready for ya. It ain't gonna be the big one I'ma build you later but...but it oughta do for now. Got my first harvest in the ground. Planted. It's growin' down in the dirt." He raised a hand at her and dropped his fingers down in his shirt pocket. He came up with something and he walked forward—toward Carol—offering it out gingerly like he might be trying to feed a piece of meat to a dog that he wasn't entirely sure wasn't set on biting his fingers. "Got this too."
Carol outstretched her hand and Andrea saw, when Daryl pulled his hand away, that he'd put a ring there. A simple band on a chain. Carol stared at it and she shook her head at the ring.
"I don't know if I can be what you want me to be," Carol offered.
Andrea laughed to herself.
"It seems to me that Daryl's got some pretty simple expectations," Andrea said. "I think—you could manage it just fine."
"This is my home," Carol said, directing her words toward Andrea.
Andrea's stomach tightened. The security that Carol felt there was holding her back. It would hold her back from everything. Andrea shook her head.
"It hasn't always been," Andrea said. "And it isn't anymore. Carol—you don't belong here. You never did. And you don't have to marry Daryl, but this isn't your home. It isn't where you belong."
Andrea's chest ached at the expression that crossed Carol's features. She wanted nothing more than to take back her own words, but she knew that the words were necessary. She had to be cruel, at this moment, to make sure Carol got the best thing she could out of this life.
Carol looked at her with an open mouth.
"You don't belong here," Andrea said. "You belong—with this young man who loves you enough, without even knowing you any more than he does, to give you a life. To make you his wife. You'll figure out the rest. He will. But, sweetheart? You gotta give him a chance."
Carol looked from Andrea to Daryl and closed her mouth.
"You really wanna marry me?" She asked.
Daryl nodded his head.
"More'n I wanted anything before," he said.
Carol nodded her head and glanced at the small bag by her side—a bag that Andrea had given her the day that Daryl had first come speaking about his intentions to marry Carol—and then she spoke.
"OK," she said. "OK. I'll—I'll marry you."
Andrea smiled to herself at the look of absolute shock that crossed Daryl's features before it melted into a pure joy.
"You gonna marry me?" Daryl asked.
Andrea silently prayed that Carol didn't tell him—because it might just break his heart—that she felt she had little choice in the matter. Her prayer must have been answered because Carol didn't respond in such a way. She simply nodded her head again.
"I'm gonna marry you," Carol said. She offered Daryl the chain that he'd put in her palm and he took it, his hands visibly shaking. Carol turned around and pulled any stray hair that she could find from around the back of her neck. Baring her neck to him, Daryl seemed to understand what she wanted and he carefully unclasped the chain and hung it around Carol's neck. Once it landed in place, Carol picked it up and looked at it before she dropped it against her skin again.
"Just put the bag on Duke," Merle offered. "He don't mind no extra load."
Daryl nodded his head at his brother and took up Carol's bag. He was still looking at her like he didn't believe her. He was looking at her like she might tell him to put her bag down—that she'd already changed her mind—or like she might just simply vanish and cease to exist. Daryl gently put a hand on Carol's back and pushed her toward the door, but Carol broke away from his touch to quickly run and wrap her arms around Andrea.
Andrea accepted the embrace and squeezed Carol back just as hard as Carol squeezed her. She brushed her lips gently across Carol's ear before she spoke in a whisper that she was sure that only Carol would hear.
"You can always come back here," Andrea said. "But—you won't want to. Go on—don't keep your husband waitin' on you."
Carol didn't say anything. She didn't have to. Her eyes said it all when she pulled away from Andrea and stared at her. Andrea tucked a stray curl behind Carol's ear, offered her the most reassuring smile that she could, and pushed her in the direction of Daryl. He picked up where Andrea left off and, gently placing a hand on her back again, he took Carol toward the door.
Andrea hung back a moment and watched as the two of them left the house, leaving the door open for Merle to follow behind.
Remembering Merle, Andrea turned in the direction of the older brother. He was standing there, still working his jaw like he had something to say to her that he wasn't entirely dedicated to spitting out or keeping to himself.
"You got something else?" Andrea asked.
Merle regarded her, his stare hard and his expression not giving away any of his thoughts. Finally he shook his head and shuffled forward to leave the room. He stopped just as he stepped over the sitting room threshold and turned back to look at Andrea.
"What you done," Merle said. "Tellin' her she weren't welcome to stay here. You mean that?"
Andrea shrugged her shoulders gently at the man.
"At the time I did," Andrea said.
Merle nodded his head.
"Why'd you do that? If you don't mean it now?" Merle asked.
"Daryl's going to be good for her," Andrea said. "And—marriage is better than bein' a whore. If she can have that? She should. This house shouldn't stand in her way."
Merle furrowed his brow at her.
"You seem to like whorin' alright," Merle asserted.
Andrea somewhat nodded her head. She couldn't fully agree with the statement, but she couldn't deny it entirely either.
"It's a job," Andrea said. "And—at the end of the day? It's better to like it than to hate it. When it's your life. The only life you've ever had. The only one you've—ever known."
Merle hummed at her and nodded his head.
"Reckon that's so of anything," he offered.
Andrea nodded her agreement and sucked in a breath. She stepped forward, walking in his direction, to make it clear that she would escort him out so that he could ride back with his brother and Carol to attend their wedding—however simple it might be.
"The best part of my job," Andrea said, "is when one of my girls makes it out. You best head on back. You don't want to lose the sun entirely."