Rosemary Hart's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Brody doesn't answer right away. He looks at the willow tree, then at the water bottle on the fence post, then back at Rosemary like he's trying to find the right words in her face. She realizes she's holding her breath. When he finally speaks, he says he needs time to think, and Rosemary feels something inside her go very still. Not broken. Just still. She tells him he can have until tomorrow morning, and then she's driving out to the camping grounds to work on the town project with or without his answer. The words surprise her as much as they surprise him — she didn't know she was going to say that until it was already out. That night, Rosemary doesn't sleep. She packs her truck with the supplies she's been gathering for months — tarps, stakes, the donated benches from the feed store. By dawn, she's at the camping grounds, clearing brush around the fire pit. The work feels good. Her hands know what to do even when her mind doesn't. She sets up three tents in a half circle, the way she sketched it last winter. Each one faces the center where the fire will be. She imagines families here, kids roasting marshmallows, the kind of simple good she wants to build in this town. Brody shows up just after sunrise. He parks his truck next to hers and gets out slow, like he's not sure he's welcome. Rosemary keeps working, driving stakes into the hard ground. He walks over and picks up a mallet without asking, starts helping her secure the last tent. They work side by side for twenty minutes before he says anything. When he does, it's not an answer to her question. It's a question of his own. He asks what she needs from him to make this project work. Not the life. Not the future. Just this. Rosemary stops hammering and looks at him. She realizes this is the first time he's ever asked her what she needs, and it's not enough, but it's something. She tells him she needs his truck to haul the benches from the feed store, and she needs him to help her dig the drainage trench before the summer rains come. He nods and says he can do that. She nods back. They finish setting up the last tent together, and when it's done, Rosemary stands in the center of the camping grounds and sees what she built with her own hands. Brody didn't choose her, not the way she wanted. But he showed up. And for now, that's the only answer she's going to get. She decides it's enough to keep working with, even if it's not enough to stop the ache. The willow tree is visible from here, across the open land, its branches moving in the morning wind. She planted that tree when she still believed showing up was the same as being chosen. Now she knows the difference, and that knowing changes everything.