Finding Bluefield by Elan Branehama Page A

alongside. They slipped behind the barn and followed the tractor path through the corn seedlings. In the years since her father died, Nicky had been renting her land to their neighbor, Mr. Jamison. The farm was paid for, had been for a long time, and the rent money paid the taxes and gave Nicky a decent income. Rumor had it that Mr. Jamison landed a contract to supply pork to the army. With the Stewart land, Mr. Jamison had the largest farm in the county. He’d offered to buy the farm from Nicky after her father died. Had offered a more than fair price. Mr. Jamison and Nicky’s father had been friends since they were kids. They played football together in high school, went to the state finals their junior year, and he was not about to take advantage of Paul’s daughter, a Southern woman, not like that scoundrel who got Nicky pregnant. You tell me who the father is, Mr. Jamison had offered Nicky on several occasions, and I’ll haul his ass out here to take responsibility for that child.
    Nicky stopped in the cornfields and looked over the four-inch-high seedlings.
    “What?” Barbara said, turning around to look at Nicky.
    “Nothing.” She caught up and gave Paul a kiss. “Everything is perfect.” She put her arms around Barbara. “I love you,” she said. “I love Paul. I love this farm.”
    At the edge of the woods, they maneuvered the carriage onto the narrow path that led to the pond. When they arrived, Barbara took the blanket and spread it on the shore. She sat with Paul on her lap. “Your mother and I fell in love here,” Barbara said to Paul.
    “Tell him more.”
    “You brought me here without asking and then you just stripped in front of me. I thought you were so feisty.”
    “I thought you said it was when you looked into my eyes that first time at the diner,” Nicky said.
    “Yeah, that too. But here is where I was sure.”
    “Because you saw me naked?”
    “That never hurts.”
    “But you weren’t going to act on it?”
    “No.”
    “You needed me to do that.”
    “I didn’t know that you would.”
    “But I was the one who made the move.”
    “Take all the credit if you need to,” Barbara said. “Do you think if Kennedy had lost we would be together?”
    “Sure, cause I still would have gotten drunk and come over to see you.” Nicky leaned over and kissed Barbara. Nicky kicked her shoes off. Her body, sore from the effort of childbirth, felt fresh and energetic, freed from the great task of sustaining another life inside her. She rolled up her pants, stood, and waded in the shallow water. “We might have to put a fence up.”
    “Why?”
    “Paul could wander out here alone.”
    “We have some time before he can make it out here on his own. By then you’ll teach him to swim.” Paul began to cry.
    “Let me feed him,” she said, making her way back to the blanket. Paul started feeding and stopped crying.
    “What’s Paul going to call me?” Barbara asked.
    “What do you want to be called?”
    “I don’t know,” Barbara said. “I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I want him to know who I am. How will he know who I am?”
    “You’re his mother,” Nicky said.
    “You’re his mother, Nicky.”
    “He’s a lucky guy. He has two mothers.”
    “He can’t call me Mom. At school, they’ll say, give this to your mother. What will he say? Which one?”
    “That would be funny.” Nicky shifted Paul to her other breast. “I wish he could say that. I wish he could. How about Aunt Barbara?”
    “That would mean that we were sisters. Or I was his father’s sister. Lots of questions without answers. It’s too confusing.”
    “They’ll just figure we’re a couple of spinsters. Old maids get called aunt.”
    “Great. I get to be an old maid. Still, that’s everyone else. What about Paul? How will he know who I am unless he knows what to call me?”
    “Barbara, I can’t believe you’re all worked up about this. He’ll know who you are.”
    “That’s easy for you to