VeronaHills, Round Twenty Eight: Roseland
Were water-side proposals cursed? Sunny really had to wonder.
A long time ago, his dad Cyd shared that he was bisexual, and had proposed to another man by Owlberry Lake before meeting his mum Penny. Coincidentally, the man who turned down Cyd's proposal was Leod McGreggor, who originally owned the land Sunny now lived and worked on, all because Cyd later married Tybalt, who was close with Leod. Life was funny like that sometimes. Anyway, Sunny wondered if he should've known better when he took Dot by the hand to his favourite spot on the farm, by the sparkling fish pond on a sunny day.
Dot said she loved him. She admitted she'd been a wine drunk when she blurted out she'd marry him after he footed the bill for new Printer Press gig equipment as a gift. She said her heart was with the Printer Sisters and maybe always would be and it wouldn't be fair on him to have one foot on her drum pedals and one foot on the farm with him.
It all made sense. It still hurt to hear.
Although it was summer, the metaphorical rain poured when Sunny found Tina on the dirt ground of the barn the next day as he was going in to prep for a market. She liked getting a headstart on inventory; her clipboard lay with an unchecked list next to her. The doctor had told her to take things easier lately; something she'd laughed off but Nathaniel wished he'd been more stern about as her husband. A grim quiet fell over the farm as even the dogs ceased barking in an extended moment of silence.
One night, Nathaniel and Sunny wordlessly pulled up chairs to the computer and put in adoption applications - Nathaniel for a cat named Baron, and Sunny for a dog named Posey. All they wanted was to feel like a normal, busy, alive agricultural hub again.
