I had a freaking blast.
But now I had a lot on my mind.
Meeting Audrey was one thing that was on it.
What I’d do with Rhonda was another thing.
I was settling in and giving her time. But I was going to have to start sorting her shit soon. I just didn’t have a plan.
I was singing Pink’s “Trouble” as I looked around the barn and dealt with Moonshine’s saddle.
Our farm had the four bedroom house and the grape arbor my grandfather put in for my grandmother because she thought it was pretty and she liked to make wine. It also had the gazebo my Dad put in for my Mom so she could plant the wisteria she loved so much. It also had a big red barn edged in white that had six stalls for horses even though there hadn’t been any horses housed there in decades. It mostly provided storage for older equipment and things used around the house, like the riding lawnmower and, of course, now my horses. In the distance we had a grain silo and a pole barn that held the more modern equipment. When they replaced the silo, my father and grandfather decided to put the new buildings in away from the house so as not to ruin the aesthetic of our traditional family farm.
It was a good decision.
Our farm was big, not huge like some of the corporate farms but large for a family run farm. My family’s farm had suffered like all family farms had back in the farm crisis. A decision was made when the farm adjacent to ours was about to hit the auction block because the banks were going to foreclose that we’d buy it in the hopes the extra acreage would keep our farm off that same block. Four hundred and fifty more acres.
A big addition. A lot of extra work. But the decision proved sound. The extra acreage saved our farm.
When I was young, all you could see all around was flat, Indiana farmland. Acres and acres of corn and soybeans. In the distance, you could see The ‘Burg’s white water tower and some buildings. That was it. We were within the official town limits but not near the town proper.
Now, all around our farm were housing developments. Four of them butting our property. And our farm was one of the very few farms left in the town limits.
They were still dropping like flies. The ‘Burg had seen a lot of development in the last thirty years as farms had been gobbled up.
The good news was, these developments, at least around our farm, were nice. Great landscaping, units and houses on them that were definitely meant for mid-to- mid-upper class incomes. Most of them made of brick. All of them clearly had iron-clad, tome-sized HOA covenants overseen by HOA committees that ruled with fists of steel.
This wasn’t my gig but it made the developments nice.
But the size of our farm meant spring through fall it was a lot of work for one man. As was Indiana tradition for centuries, Dad stayed around helping out Darrin until Fin then Kirby could lend a hand and they did this from a very young age. The crop let Rhonda, Darrin and the boys live a decent life but that life was hardworking.
This didn’t mean that Darrin didn’t do extra in order to give them extra. He did. Mainly because he wanted them to have extra and partially because he was a man who had to be busy and there wasn’t a lot to do in the winter on a farm. So he worked full-time every year November through mid-January at the Post Office’s sorting branch to help them with extra mail around the holiday seasons. He also had contracts with three of the four housing developments to clear the snow from their streets if they got a dump.
I knew that the minute he’d got his license, Darrin had pressed Fin into service to help him do this and thus took on the third contract. Fin would get up way early and go out before school to help his Dad clear snow. Practice, I knew Darrin was thinking, for a life on the farm where the days started early and the meals that ended them were huge because they were busy and physical.
What I found out the day before when Rhonda told me was, in order that they didn’t lose the contracts, Fin had pressed Kirb into service and the three times it had snowed since Darrin died, they’d gone out and cleared it.
This was not good. I didn’t know if the developments hadn’t cottoned onto the fact that Darrin died and they had two minors clearing their streets. Or if they were just being nice and intended to dump the Holliday contract next year seeing as spring was coming and the Hollidays didn’t need bad news on bad news. And I wasn’t worried about Fin because Fin was responsible, Fin had a driver’s license and Fin had done this with his Dad.
What I was worried about was that Rhonda had told me that Fin had pulled Kirb out of bed at three in the morning, an hour earlier than Darrin started, because Kirb hadn’t had the practice. And she also told me getting it all done without Darrin’s expertise meant all three times they were an hour late to school and she’d had to call in their excuse.
She didn’t see anything wrong with this and they weren’t my kids so I wasn’t sure I had a say.
Still, I did see something wrong with it and I hoped it didn’t snow again. But if it did, I needed Fin to give me a lesson on the removal equipment because Kirby was not going out at fifteen and neither of them were going to be late for school.
And Rhonda was a forty-three year old woman whose entire work history included working part-time behind the counter at Mimi’s Coffee House the last three years. Now she had time on her hands, no husband, two boys that would soon be doing their own thing and she had to kick in to keep them fed, clothed and having a decent life.
It was time for her to woman-up.
I just didn’t know, with Rhonda being Rhonda, how I would get her to do that.
I sighed and my cell rang.
I pulled it out of my jacket pocket and smiled at the display.
Then I yanked off a glove, hit the screen with my thumb and put it to my ear.
“Mornin’, gorgeous.”
“Hey, Angel,” Mike greeted then went right into it, “We got a crisis.”
I blinked. It had just turned eight in the morning, how could there be a crisis?
“What crisis?” I asked.
“Think I told you Audrey and I don’t talk.”
This wasn’t starting good.
“Yeah?”
“Well, that means that her part of the birthday celebration I left to Reesee to work out with her Mom.”
I was right. This wasn’t starting good.
“And?” I prompted.
“And I just got a call from IMPD that they picked up the prime suspect in a number of cases, some of them happened in The ‘Burg, all of the ones in The ‘Burg are mine and I gotta go to Indy. This is not good seein’ as I asked Reesee to call her Mom and confirm she had her part of the birthday gig set, which was cake and decorations. Reesee phoned and Audrey said she totally forgot and she’s got something on today she can’t miss which means she can make it but she can’t use the next six hours she has to bake a f**kin’ cake, get her ass to the party shop to buy some f**kin’ decorations and then get it here by two to put up the decorations and set out the f**kin’ food.”