Willow’s phone jangled her nerves and shocked her out of a restful nap.  The clock said ten-thirty.  Surely, it wasn’t Bill already.  She debated whether or not to answer but finally caved and flipped open the phone.
“Ms. Finley?  This is Suki at Boho.  We have a business proposition.”
***
Bill’s call came at two o’clock sharp just minutes after Chad left for work.  Willow, still reeling from the morning’s call, answered in somewhat of a fog.  “Yes.”
“Willow?  It’s Bill-”
“Yes.”
“Are you ok?”  He hated the distant sound in her voice.  Things were worse than he’d anticipated.  He’d justified every single one of his actions but as Sunday crawled into the wee hours of Monday morning, he’d slowly realized how obnoxious he’d been.
“Oh Bill, I’m sorry.  I was thinking about something- actually, something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“First, can I apologize?  I realized last night just how boorish I’ve been.  I was worried about you Willow and I let it affect my behavior.”
All of Bills subtle hints about his growing attraction to her had failed but one sentence declaring concern for her well-being pulled the wool from her eyes.  “I understand now.  I do.  I wasn’t exactly gracious about all of your help and- well, I’m sorry too so let’s just pretend that we’ve both been nice children and go back to sharing our toys.”
The childish reference killed Bill’s budding declarations of affection.  “You said you had something to discuss?”  Bill’s recent childhood habit of slipping into prayers had slowly resurfaced in the past few weeks and now he prayed fervently for an opportunity to share a piece of his heart.
“I got a call from Suki.  Do you remember her from Boho?”
“Yes…”  Bill’s radar went spinning wildly.  He could sense a business angle from a hundred miles away.
“Well, when I was there on Wednesday, I showed her pictures of the jumpers I made for Aggie’s twins.  I guess she like them.”
“I’m sure they were cute-” Bill began.
Willow continued without waiting for Bill to finish.  “She wants me to move to Rockland and take charge of a sister store to Boho.”
“They want to open another store?”  Excited was an understatement.  Bill was thrilled as the full impact of the prospect hit him.
“Well, not another one exactly.  They want to open a children’s version.  They’re tentatively calling it Little Boho Chic.”
“Catchy.”
“Insulting but it’s not my call.”
“You don’t like the name?”
Willow sighed.  She knew she was being ridiculous but the idea of a store with such a silly sounding name didn’t appeal to her. “It’s not my style but that’s not important.  I asked her to call you with their business offer.  I don’t know anything about it really.”
“So they want you to do what, do you know?”
“They want me to design the outfits they’ll sell, choose which fabrics they’ll use from the ladies store and then what fabrics will be exclusive to the girl’s section.”
“So they want you to set them up?”
“Well,” feeling silly about her hesitation to put their offer into words, “They want me to train with a manager from Boho and then run the store once it’s open.  I would have to move to Rockland.”
Bill’s excitement was more than evident.  He immediately launched into an explanation of all of the benefits to accepting the job including how close she’d be to the finest physical therapists in the area.  He shouldn’t have spoken.  He knew it the minute the words escaped between his lips.
“That’s reason enough to forget it.  At least here, I have stairs which they did say are good, and soft dirt to walk on instead of concrete and-”
“Just think about it-” A flash of genius followed.  “Pray about it Willow.  Remember, your mother chose this life as a way to prepare you for your own life.  She never expected you to feel obligated to continue it.”
“I’ll think about it.  The design aspect sounds like a lot of fun.  I just don’t know if I could stand being cramped in a little store like that all day every day.  I think I’d go crazy.”
“What did Chad say?”
Silence hung over the airwaves.  Bill knew instinctively that she hadn’t told him and couldn’t decide if it was good news for him or bad.  “You didn’t tell him?”
“It was selfish of me.  And wrong.”
“Why?”  This, Bill hadn’t expected.”
“Well, I thought maybe if Chad thought I might not be staying, he’d quit helping me with the harvest and, well, if I do stay, I’m going to need that food.”
Resisting the temptation to keep her doubting, Bill protested.  “Chad’s a bigger man than that.  He’ll help because it’s what he does.  He’s a good friend, not a convenient one.”
“You’re right.  I’ll think about it.  I really just don’t know if I’m ready to make such a huge change.  I still wake up and hurry downstairs to wish Mother a good morning.  Leaving here-”
His voice as careful and gentle as he could orchestrate, Bill spoke soothingly for some time.  Against all of his natural tendencies, he didn’t pressure, he didn’t cajole.  He encouraged, sympathized, and just before he disconnected the call, he prayed briefly for comfort and wisdom.  Willow stared at the phone for several minutes.
***
At six o’clock, boredom attacked Willow from all quarters.  She wanted to escape- go anywhere- do anything but sit in her room and stare at the four walls.  She’d read her book, she’d memorized every feature of every photo in the album, and she’d nearly committed her mother’s journal of 1988 to memory.  And, she was hungry.  Very hungry.
Fish.  Willow wanted dill baked trout.  It sounded heavenly.  Fried green tomatoes- oh they’d be the perfect side dish.   She considered the fallout when Chad arrived back and then grinned.  He wouldn’t be home until ten o’clock.  Surely, she could fix it and get back in bed before ten.
Her leg screamed for more painkillers but she refused.  They made her feel muddle-headed and she needed her wits about her for this.  Just as she started to lower herself to the first step of the stairs, she remembered something.  When she was ten, her mother had brought home a pair of crutches from a yard sale in Fairbury.  Thanking the Lord for her obsession with war stories and amputations, she crawled up the attic stairs and retrieved the crutches.
At the top of the stairs, Willow tossed the crutches onto the landing and scooted her rump down a step at a time.  When she reached the landing, she let them slide down and smiled with satisfaction as they leaned perfectly against the bottom few steps.  This’d be a piece of very painful cake.
Though awkward to maneuver, Willow managed to make it to the back door in a reasonable amount of time.  Her armpits screamed against the injustice of hard rubber slamming against them with each step.  She knew there were buttons for adjusting but she wasn’t going to mess with them now.
Saige nearly knocked her over with excitement.  Willow rolled the puppy away with the bottom of the crutch every few steps until she felt like her arms as well as legs were fighting for help.  Once at the freezer, she found a new problem.  There was no way to carry back the fish.
Feeling quite foolish, Willow wrapped it in a kitchen towel, stuffed the ends in her teeth, and hobbled back across the yard.  Every step sent the frozen fish swinging into her breastbone.  “Great.  More bruises.  Get a tote for the tomatoes.”
It took her nearly an hour from the time she left her bed until the time she collapsed, exhausted, into her kitchen chair.  A washed tomato sat beside the sink and her frozen packet of fish lay soaking in a bowl of water.  She was disgusted.  It took an hour to do a five-minute task.
Her stomach growled.  She wanted that trout. Steeling herself against the waves of pain sure to follow, Willow stood and grabbed her trusty skillet.  She’d have to make a fire in the stove.  There was no way she’d try to take it out to the grill.
Ignoring the heat, the pain, and the exhaustion, she fried her fish and tomatoes.  The scent caused Saige to scratch mercilessly at the door.  Willow banged her crutch at the bottom of the screen but the pup ignored her and scratched.  By the time Willow took her last bite, the puppy wiggled around her feet and a torn screen announced the score.  Saige: 1.  Willow: 0.
***
Chad glanced around the yard as he made his way to the back door.  A ripped screen and the lingering scent of fried trout shocked him.  He took the back steps two at a time and burst into the kitchen.  A dirty frying pan sat on the stove.  Heat still radiated from it making the room stifling hot.  A plate lay turned upside down on the floor.  His first step sent a fork flying through the air.
Saige flew from the direction of the living room and yapped excitedly around Chad’s legs.  “What are you doing in here girl?  Who was out here?”
Chad pushed the puppy outside and shut the door.  He wandered into the living room and stepped in a pile of excrement.  “Oh ugh.  Saige!”
Upstairs, Willow heard him in her sleep and rolled over pulling the pillow over her ears.  Chad, on the other hand, stepped out of his shoes and set them on the back step.  He scrubbed up the ‘dog pile’ and wandered through the house looking for puddles and other piles.  “That puppy is more trouble than she’s worth,” he muttered.
Crutches at the base of the stairs startled him.  “Oh she didn’t.  She didn’t!”   Of course, she did.  He knew it.  He had to get Chief Varney to mobilize his wife and the ladies’ Bible study or Willow would kill herself trying to be herself.
Chad grabbed one of Kari’s early journals and began reading.  He needed to wind down and Kari’s insights into life on the farm and into Willow’s personality relaxed him like nothing he’d ever read.  Then again, he rarely read anything but his Bible.
Half way through September 1993, Chad involuntarily sat upright.  He reread the section hoping he hadn’t read what he thought he had.  His heart sunk and he rushed to the kitchen searching for Willow’s reference journals.  He read through the handwritten index and finally turned to the page on hay cutting.
Sickened, Chad pulled his phone from his pocket.  He dialed the number of the station and waited for Joe to pick up.  “Joe, I’m going to be sick tomorrow.”
“Calling in lies huh,” Joe teased.
“Nope.  Not a lie.  I either go to work and get sick, or I take preventative measures.  Right now, I could hurl.”
“What’s wrong?”  Joe’s concern was hemmed in mirth.  If it didn’t have something to do with Willow, he’d work double shift and give Chad the money.
“I botched Willow’s hay.  I piled it into the barn without letting it dry.  I’ve got to get it out of there or it’ll mildew.  According to Kari’s journals, it can even cause some kind of spontaneous combustion thing and burn down the barn.”
“I’ll work for you.  Fix the hay.”
“Hey Joe,” Chad added as an afterthought.
“Yeah.”
“Pray.”