AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
This chapter is a little shorter than some of the others. It's the morning after the wedding, and then it's something of a transition chapter. There's more to come, but I wanted you to know that this one is something of a turning point to show where we are and set us up for where we're going next.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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When Daryl woke there was barely any light coming through the small windows of the cabin. Before he was even fully awake, he slowly took inventory of his surroundings. When he'd been travelling with Merle, some time ago, between Georgia and "West," he'd learned well the sensation of waking in places that were strange and unknown to him. He'd learned the sensation, almost every morning, of waking into something that felt like a new world and a new life.
This morning, though, he truly woke to a new life.
Daryl's bed was empty, except for him, and finding it cold and empty made him open his eyes with a start. He found that Carol hadn't left him. Or, at least, she hadn't gone far. Carol was sitting at their little table with a bowl in front of her. In the bowl she'd arranged the ham and biscuits that Miss Jo had sent with them. Carol had her face buried in her arms as she leaned on the table.
"If you was set on sleepin'," Daryl offered. "Why'd you leave the bed?"
Carol jumped, clearly not expecting him to be awake. She sat up, but her face immediately gave away the fact that she wasn't happy. She wasn't happy at all.
"Not sleeping," she said softly.
"Why you cryin'?" Daryl asked. "Somethin' I done or...didn't do?"
Carol shook her head and swiped at her face and eyes with her palms.
"I don't even know how you like your coffee," Carol said. "I don't know if you like it strong. I don't know if you like it—weak. I got coffee here and a little sugar, but there's no milk and I don't even know if you like it with milk."
Daryl chewed at his thumb and watched her.
"Told you," Daryl said, "that I don't got much in the way of food here. Not this morning. Not right now. Miss Jo said we could get some from there. Food I was owed anyway for workin'. Food I would be owed for workin' this place. For what Hershel gets outta the harvest. Food to keep us goin' until we growin' our own. Get you a lil' garden. Cows and chickens. Pigs too. I'ma set traps. Hunt when I can. Build you a smokehouse. I can ride into town. You too. Get what'cha want from the general store. Carol—we ain't got a lot right now, but that's just right now. Just this mornin'. We ain't gonna starve. I ain't gonna let that happen."
Carol shook her head at him.
"What kind of wife am I?" Carol asked. "When I can't even make my husband coffee of a morning?"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"You the best kinda wife," Daryl said. "I mean—you cryin' a bit more'n I woulda thought you would right off, but you the best kinda wife. I'm the husband that ain't give you what'cha needed."
Carol continued to swipe at her face a moment and then she wiped her nose on the tail of the nightgown she was wearing. Slowly she seemed to bring it all together and to dry up the tears that she'd been crying. She looked at Daryl and she shook her head at him.
"You have...you've given me everything," Carol said. "All of this..."
"But I didn't give you no food for fixin' so you wouldn't have to cry over not havin' it to fix," Daryl offered.
Carol frowned deeply, but Daryl could easily assume that the expression was some leftover residue from the emotions that had stirred up all the tears.
Daryl understood tears. They'd always been something he'd struggled with and, though they weren't proper for a man, he figured that a woman could use them any time she pleased. He just hoped Carol didn't have to use them often because he knew the awful feelings that he usually felt when he was worried about being worked up to tears. They were usually the kinds of feelings that made it seem like something wild had gotten caught up in his gut and was trying to chew its way out. Or like something was squeezing his chest hard enough to cut off his air. They weren't feelings that he wanted for Carol.
"I'ma go now," Daryl said. "I can go right now. Get'cha the food I didn't bring from Miss Jo. That's some. I can get Nessie and Runt. Bring 'em back here and you and me? We can go to town. Get whatever else you need."
Carol shook her head at him.
"No," she said. "No. You don't have to go right now. We don't have to go right now. I just—I don't know how you like your coffee, Daryl. I don't know how to make you coffee in the morning that you'll like."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I like it just about any way it's give to me," Daryl said. "Without nothing. With sugar. With milk and sugar. It don't make no never mind to me. I drink it how you give it to me."
"But how do you like it?" Carol asked. "Because—if I'm going to be the best wife that I can be? I have to do things like you like them, Daryl. I wanna know how you like them."
Daryl sat up in the bed. His first instinct was to cover himself and hide his nakedness from Carol, but then he remembered that he didn't have to do that. She was his wife. His nakedness was something that didn't offend or in-sense her. He gnawed at his thumb nail, contemplating her great worry that he would be unhappy with something she did. He couldn't imagine not being happy with everything she did.
"How you like it?" Daryl asked.
"With milk," Carol said.
Daryl nodded his head.
"Then that's how I like it too," he offered. "But—since we ain't got no milk, you reckon we could drink it without milk right now and then we just—from here on have it with milk? 'Cause Hershel's got a milk cow over there that he said we could take off his hands. He was gonna sell her anyway and—I told him I'd just pass him a couple dollars for her. Can't bring her right now 'cause I don't got the barn up, but soon as I got it up? And until I do we can just—bring some of the milk?"
Carol smiled at him. It was more sincere than some of the smiles that she'd worn even the night before.
"What if we drink it black," Carol said, "until you get the barn up? And then? We can celebrate the barn bein' up by drinkin' the coffee with milk then?"
Daryl liked that idea. He liked it a lot, actually. And he liked the smile that it put on Carol's face. He nodded his head, agreeing with her.
"You sure you like it like that?" Daryl asked.
"I'll make the coffee, Daryl," Carol said, standing up. "Here." She picked his pants up from the back of the other chair where she'd draped them. "You start your morning. I brought water in. Wash your face. I'll go make the coffee. You'll have it with your biscuits for breakfast."
Daryl took his pants and started to work his way into them.
"You make the coffee," he said, "and we'll split the biscuits."
"There's hardly enough there for you to eat," Carol said.
"If there's enough for me to eat," Daryl offered, "there's enough for both us to eat. And if there ain't? There's just enough for you."
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Carol was almost terrified, when she first arrived at her new home, that she would find being Daryl's wife to be impossible. She feared that she would find it difficult to please him and that he'd rarely be happy. She worried that she would displease him at every turn and, like her first husband—of whom she'd chosen never to speak—he would consider her a failure at being a wife.
It didn't take her long, though, to discover that her fears were entirely unfounded. Being Daryl's wife, Carol quickly learned, wasn't half as hard as she'd anticipated it would be. It seemed that he was pretty honest with his expectations.
Almost immediately, Daryl had gone to work on their little farm. From town and from their neighbors—if such a word could be used to describe the Greenes who lived some distance away—Daryl stocked their pantry to the point that Carol was sure they'd survive clear until the winter without problem. Seeing their immediate needs were out of the way, Daryl had built them the most important things that they needed. He'd set them an outhouse in less than a day and his brother had come over to help him quickly build a rabbit hutch and a chicken coop—both of which had been almost immediately stocked with animals that Daryl bought off the old man.
With chickens and rabbits to tend, Carol had an immediate purpose. In addition, the old woman had given her some seeds to start her own little garden—nothing more than a small square plot that would produce food for immediate meals and a little leftover for canning—and Carol had reveled in the feeling of digging in the dirt and imagining bringing to life the food that would feed her husband. Her husband who ate everything she fed him like it was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted.
Her days were predictable and simple. They were repetitive and peaceful.
In the morning she rose with the sun or a little before. She tried to wake before Daryl and, if she did, she offered him the opportunity to take advantage of her body since most mornings he woke up with the natural inclination to do so. The mornings she made about him—all about him—and she left him, rolling in the bed with the good feelings she tried to give him, while she made his breakfast. Daryl liked coffee for breakfast, still black because the barn wasn't built, and he liked whatever was left over from supper—biscuits and cold meat were his favorite breakfasts.
As soon as Daryl was fed, he was out the door. He worked tirelessly, going between tasks all day long. He worked the land. He built. He traipsed back and forth on borrowed horses and brought supplies in a borrowed wagon. He lost himself entirely in his work, so Carol lost herself entirely in hers.
Carol ate her breakfast after Daryl was out the door and she washed up their dishes along with anything leftover to be washed from the night before. Then she turned to her other work. When she wasn't tending her garden and the animals in her care, Carol washed their clothes and prepared their meals. She scrubbed their floors and kept their little home clean. She called Daryl in—because he'd forget to come on his own—when it was time for lunch and she fed him something akin to what he'd had for breakfast. There was always more at lunch, though, because Daryl worked up an appetite putting their life together for them. As soon as he'd eaten, Daryl would return to his work and Carol would return to hers.
And when she couldn't find something that absolutely needed her attention, she ventured out to where Daryl worked and offered her hand to help him. He refused to let her drive a nail or carry boards—sure that it was too hard for her and afraid that she'd be somehow hurt—but he'd let her hold nails for him and he'd let her help him carry anything that was light enough to bundle in her skirt.
Just as soon as Carol would see the sky changing so that the sun warned her it would soon be starting the last leg of its descent, allowing the moon to take over in the sky, Carol would return to the house. She'd ready their dinner and she'd call Daryl inside. While he finished the last of his meal—always eating more because she served him a meal fit for a man who worked like he did—Carol would draw up the water for a bath and heat it just enough over the fire that still burned low from cooking their evening meal. She'd douse the fire before she came inside, and she'd pull the bar down over the door and lock it once she was in for the night.
Daryl liked to be bathed and Carol took her time with his bath. She washed him carefully and thoroughly. As the practice became more and more common, and as he showed an interest, Carol let him wash her as well. He seemed to enjoy bathing her as much as he enjoyed receiving a bath himself.
And then, both of them tired from the day, they would go to bed.
Sometimes they slept and did nothing more. Sometimes Carol taught Daryl things that they could do together. Her husband, she soon learned, had an almost insatiable need to learn more about sex. He wanted to learn more about what they could do together. He wanted to learn more about all the things that he believed were somehow secrets that only certain people knew about. But, more than anything, he was an eager student to learn about Carol's body and what he could do to pleasure her.
And though he was clumsy at first, he was such an eager student that Carol seldom fell asleep dissatisfied with the experiences that they shared.
And just like that, their lives went on for some time. Each day was comfortable and happy—just like Daryl had promised. Every day was full of work and snatches of shared moments together. Each night was warm and safe and marked by sleep that felt well-earned.
Slowly the crops that Daryl tended grew and promised to be something when the time came to harvest them.
Slowly the garden that Carol tended grew and promised to yield food that she could prepare for meals and can for the winter.
Eggs were eaten and others hatched to provide chicks that Carol did her best to raise for future food and egg production. Rabbits grew and mated, producing more rabbits that would, in turn, produce more rabbits. Eventually, Carol was sure, they'd have far more of the creatures than they could even stand to eat and, like the Greenes, they would be eager to hand them off to anyone else who wanted to raise their own.
Eventually the barn went up. The fences, too, went up around it. Daryl soon brought them two dairy cows to put in the fences and then, another shelter built and other fences added, he brought three pink pigs that would eventually grow themselves into hogs.
With the promise of a winter that would eventually come, Daryl built a shelter that he stocked with wood he cut and stacked in neat columns for their tiny fireplace. He built a smokehouse and he hunted, early in the mornings, for deer that he brought home, cleaned, and hung inside.
Slowly other fences went up and there was the promise that, with the harvest, their money would buy the starting heads of cattle for them to raise.
And never once did Daryl seem dissatisfied with his life. He seemed, just as he'd said he would, to always regard Carol as the best kind of wife that she could be. He seemed to love her for everything that she was and he seemed to believe that she was wonderful at anything she even tried.
Carol soon learned that not only could she come to love Daryl, but she had already learned to love Daryl. She'd learned to love him more than she ever imagined possible. She'd learned to love everything about him. And it hadn't taken nearly the time that she'd imagined it might.
Daryl, Carol found, was an easy man to love.