this ain't the clean version

I used to feel like I was broken pieces. Like I was something all torn up. Nowadays though I’m more like a quilt. Like I’m back together as something new. I’m not what I was before, same as how a quilt isn’t called many old shirts sewn together. It’s a quilt. It’s got lots of seams and messy stitching, stuff people can see, but they don’t call it broken. It ain’t pieces anymore. Same goes for me. I ain’t pieces anymore. 

“I don’t got too many wishes when it comes to Christmas presents -- I’m happy with whatever folks choose to get me.

I do have one very special specific thing I want from my husband, but I need to ask him it in person. Ain’t the sort of thing to request in any other way than holding his hands and looking into those beautiful blue eyes.”

“Work on the farm is just as fulfilling and rewarding as being Sheriff. I don’t reckon I could be a lawman -- the sort I want to be -- anywhere but the Springs, and as we ain’t in the Springs right now, farming suits me down to the ground. 

There’s also something sort of ... thematic bout it? Considering where Freddie and me are in our life together. Planting, and ploughing; reaping and rearing. It feels right to be working like this, the two of us, on our own plot of land with responsibility only to ourselves and our happiness. 

I don’t rightly know if I’m explaining it right. But that’s how I feel.”

“It’s coming up fast! We got just about everything worked out. There’s like to be last-minute things that pop up but Freddie’s been able to finesse everything we might possibly want (not hard when you’re in a small town and you’re an Apple Fall Chapelle in favoured standing, plus you got the money to order in anything you need). Plus the entire town is building up excitement and anticipation for this thing. It’s a helluva turnaround from how we had to do it in the Springs, quiet and just the three of us so that Ruby wouldn’t wander around weeping and bleeding at the wrists to get sympathy like we got married expressly to hurt her.

Here, we got the whole town looking forward to us getting married. I mean -- for lots of em it’s the prospect of the party, but that’s fine by us. We’re looking forward to everybody celebrating with us on our special day.”

“He don’t need to! I’m always on hand for that. We ain’t had this fireplace enchanted like the one back in the Springs so it’s gotta be drawn by hand and my husband never misses the opportunity to ask me for a fire and watch me build one up so I don’t reckon it’s likely he will learn anytime soon.”

“Of course! We decided to skip on being in the city for Christmas -- we’ll do that for New Years -- so we can fully dedicate ourselves to Apple Fall Christmas. I mean, my husband is a Chapelle, he can’t go gallivanting off when he’s needed for planning festivities!

So aside from all the town stuff -- and boy howdy, there’s gonna be town stuff galore, there always is -- we gonna get in our own tree (that’s like the Springs) which I’ll cut down and bring home and put up. Then a ton of decorating the farm, Alesha wants us over for some kind of dress-up cocktail party, Darla wants us to go with her to some Silver Yule dinner-dance the Jaycees are having? We’ll be hitting Lexington for a supper with Susanna and Daddy and whoever their guests are, and we have to spend a night at Cheyenne’s of course. Grandma Feebee wants us to drop by for tea, and Mamaw and Papaw Hollinsworth asked if we could come help out at the Christmas party they throw for a bunch of kids in town every year. Momma we’re having to the farm with Aunt Caroline and Odell and Earle on Christmas Eve, and then it’s just us to do whatever we want until we leave for our New Years trip.

I dunno yet if we’ll still celebrate our anniversary on the 28th or change to the new one in mid-December, but I suspect my darlin’ husband will want both.”

“Closer now than we was for a long time.

Earle and me was tight when I was young, but then I went to prison, he went into the Marines, it was a different set of life circumstances for a while. 

Having him come help out on the farm so much is great, though. And I don’t mind him setting so strong by Freddie; my little husband is a pleasure to look at and interact with, and if Earle is queer and don’t wanna find one of his own, he might as well vicariously enjoy Freddie. 

I wouldn’t share my husband’s heart or body with my cousin, we ain’t that sort of South, but he can soak up Freddie’s company all he wants. He really dotes on Freddie (and knows he’s a fairy, which is good too), so it’s fine. All of us understand what the deal is.”

“Some do.

Cheyenne knows it for sure, I reckon Susanna suspects, Bone and Esperanza do, Earle does. Momma maybe? I don’t think Momma understands quite the scope of it, but that’s fine. 

I feel like the important folks what wouldn’t be judgemental about it know. And that’s good enough. I don’t need the aggravation of all and sundry knowing my business with my sex slave.”

“A little bit. Now that he lives in Lexington with Susanna, there’s some distance and time between seeing him, but I reckon that works out for everyone. 

It ain’t been bad. Everyone’s been telling me how much Harlan’s changed, and I do love Susanna, and I just ... everyone deserves another chance. 

Okay no not everyone, if Freddie hears me saying that he’ll go berserk. But Daddy ain’t outright harmful, just bad at being there for me. And now if he wants to try, I ain’t so vulnerable or bad-off that it could really hurt me. So why not let him try? Either it works out or it don’t. I’m fine either way.”

“I have been to a couple meetings, yes. And I took my husband with me as they was open meetings, free for you to bring your support person even if they ain’t in the program. 

It was odd but not uncomfortable. It was odd mostly for being back in the Fall, and for these being folks who ain’t in a supernatural town, so I couldn’t very well mention the strain of the demon being what drove me to addiction. But they all know about Ashland and how that drove me to addiction. Some of em was in with me. It’s disconcerting, but I know as much about what happened to them as they do about me so it evens out.

I reckon that’s the thing, it’s more of a balancing act than meetings were back in the Springs. Nobody’s gonna talk out of bounds about what happens in meeting, I ain’t worried none about that, it’s just a new set of normals and parameters to get used to.

Having Freddie helps. I don’t know if he rightly wanted to talk, when the facilitator asked him to say some words, but he did anyhow and he made me so, so proud. Feeling proud at meeting is new for me. No matter how well I’m doing, and how much the group tells me so, I always just feel adequate. And in a way that’s helpful because I don’t ever wanna get complacent, but feeling proud of myself for having won the man who would talk about me that way, like Freddie did in front of everyone, it’s ... I like that feeling. It’s good. We’re gonna keep going.”

“Freddie surprises me every damn day. I mean he does and he doesn’t, y’know? It doesn’t surprise me that my husband is capable, and bright-eyed, and pitches in, and wants to be noticed and fussed-over and admired. But I ain’t never ready for how exactly he chooses to express any of this. It’s always new and novel and exciting and adorable, and then he goes on and surprises me even more the times when he decides to take control of the helm and put me through my paces. I love it all. This man will keep surprising me until I ain’t got a tooth left in my head from age.”

..deep, rooted fear

“I’ll miss all the stuff that comes with living a magic life, in a magic place, full of magic things. The shops in Soapberry always have something new and exciting to try out and Lord knows, that ain’t Apple Fall, hah hah! But I reckon we’ll make do with more mundane exciting stuff. Living on a farm ain’t gonna be boring, that’s for damn sure. It’ll keep me from getting too homesick for our home and my birds.

I’m looking forward to both places equally, for seperate reasons. I suppose you could say I’m a lil more apprehensive about Greece, since I don’t speak the language and it’s a whole new country -- but I’ll have Freddie there, and I intend to throw myself into it. Maybe we can find some magic way for me to speak enough Greek to get by? Freddie might know how!”

“There’s plenty of em I been mulling over -- older songs mostly, like It’s Been A Long Long Time, or You Belong to Me -- but lately I’m thinking of something sort of more contemporary. A certain slower version of Simply the Best.”