"But I live here," he said, wiping his hands down the front of his signature, pressed-to-military-standards khakis. "You buy in North Carolina."

I nodded, and when a smile spread across his face, I could tell that he was starting to get it. "There are no less than fifty direct flights from LaGuardia and JFK to Raleigh every single day. And if you get super brave you can head on to New Bern or Greenville."

"Oh my gosh," Daniel said. "This is so major. You would trust me to do the buying?"

Handing over control has never been one of my strong suits. "Well, let's not get carried away," I said. "I might check in on you from time to time."

There were two bright sides: One, Daniel had fabulous taste. Two, the places I was sending him to had very few opportunities for critical mistakes.

"Obviously, you'll get a raise," I said, "and use your company card for travel expenses."

"Can I-"

I cut him off and said, "You can start flying first class when I do."

"Damn," he said under his breath. "That will be a quarter after never."

I shrugged. "It's absurd to pay five times the price for an hour and a half flight." I kissed him on both cheeks and said, "Okay, love. I'm off to see Anna."

Every year when I had this contract renewal meeting with my boss, Anna, she looked increasingly nervous when I walked through the door. I held the majority of the firm's biggest accounts and attracted the biggest jobs. We always skirted around the issue of me opening my own firm, and, hands down, it made the most sense. My clients would follow me because they didn't need a big-name design firm as long as they had a big-name designer.

This year, I noticed that Anna's chestnut hair was a couple of inches shorter and the black patent French chairs across from her lacquered French desk had been changed to Lucite. And, this year, she wasn't mincing words. "So that I don't have to sit here for an hour making small talk and feeling like I need a ginger mint, please tell me if you're leaving me or not."

I had fully planned on leaving her. It made no sense to stay. I could hire my own accountant and assistants, and I could keep a much larger percentage of my profits. Staying at her firm was the worst business decision I could make. Graham and I had gone over and over the situation and decided time and time again that staying with Anna made about as much financial sense as growing your money by planting it in the yard.

But here's the thing: What the job cost me in money, it made up for in convenience. I wasn't living in the city, and finding great staff was so difficult. At Anna's, there was always someone to run and take measurements or pick up fabric samples or send me pictures from Waterworks. Plus, I loved coming into the city and rushing straight to see Anna so that we could collaborate on our latest ideas.

So I smiled and said, "I know it makes me crazy, but I'm sticking with you."

She walked around the desk and hugged me. "Do you think you should at least become a partner or something?"

I shook my head. "I'm about to have three kids, Anna. I barely have time to brush my teeth."

I kissed her, and, as I walked out the door, the phone rang.

"I'm so glad it's you!" I practically squealed. Before Scott could even say anything I said, "Do you want to meet for coffee at Zibetto?"

On my walk to the restaurant, I thought about getting back to the apartment and how I needed to soak some oats to make the homemade oat yogurt that you loved so much. And Alex would want a new batch of those strawberry muffins he had no idea were so good for him. I needed to get Jodi to make some applesauce, because she scolded me last time I bought it. You were in desperate need of new socks, Alex had completely outgrown every bathing suit he owned, and I needed some gorgeous sandals. Combine that with a phone interview for the book, a cocktail party with signing, paying the bills for both houses, and picking out tile, and this momma was starting to feel tired, tired, tired.

When I walked through the door, Scott was already sitting, looking rather dismayed. I took a moment to savor the white tiles, white marble counter, and glass shelves. One of my favorite things about Zibetto was how meticulously clean it was. If you could keep glass shelves and white grout sparkling, you could certainly keep a cappuccino machine to my standards.

Scott stood up to kiss me, pout still firmly in place. I rubbed my expanding belly and said, "What is the matter, my little love?"

Scott fiddled with the spoon on his cappuccino plate and said, "Don't you think two daddies would be better than none at all?"

I thought of my father, the slow smile that was warmer than the inside of Scott's coffee mug, the soothing smell of pipe tobacco that floated wherever he was. "Honey," I said, "if I'd had two dads and no mom I can't even figure how much I would have saved in therapy bills. It would boggle the mind."

"Then why hasn't anyone picked Clive and me to be parents?"

I gasped, wiping the foam off my mouth. And it shocked me to realize that, while it was good, I would take the soy latte down at Queen Street Deli in Kinston any day of the week. The first time I met my sweet daddy there for coffee, I ordered my one-pump white mocha. He said, "You know, I'll take that same thing."

I whispered to the man behind the counter, "Just put it on my tab." My daddy is the kind of man who brews his own Folgers in the morning because eighty-nine cents at the Rightway is too expensive.

But Daddy said, "Now, you know my girl isn't paying."

I grimaced as he pulled out that ten-dollar bill and couldn't believe it when he didn't say a thing about the price. He held his tongue the entire half hour we were down there catching up. But the minute we got back on the sidewalk, he hiked up his pants and said, "Lord, Khaki. I thought I was meeting you for coffee, not putting a down payment on the building."

We both laughed, but those coffee dates have become a regular thing for us now. And Daddy always says, "Now, darlin', just you don't tell your momma I'm spending money on coffee. It'd ruin my reputation."

I smiled again, thinking that daddies really were the best. Then I said, "You and Clive are going to have a baby?"

He shrugged, his shirt so starched that when his shoulder went back down, the fabric above it stayed in place. Of everyone I'd ever known, Scott couldn't tolerate a wrinkle. I didn't know how he was going to take aging. With a vial of Botox and a jar of Creme de la Mer, I assumed.

"We got on some adoption lists, but nothing has happened yet." He sighed. "So I need to ask you something."

I could feel the panic rise through my body. He was going to ask me to carry his child. I loved Scott, and he had been one of my best friends for years. But I couldn't bear the thoughts of forming a nine-month bond with a child and then being separated. Praise God, my sister and Charlie-for whom I would have carried a child-already had children and didn't want them, respectively.

Scott smiled. "Does hubby have any other teenaged, knocked-up, alcoholic cousins we could help out?"

I laughed, the tension melting away like the fluffy top of my drink. I took another sip and said, "Unfortunately, the rest of the childbearing-aged family is free from addiction." I thought back to my conversation with Daniel a few months earlier and added, "Daniel told me surrogacy is really in right now."

Scott ran his finger through his hair, and said, "Yeah. That's Plan B. But we both feel very strongly that one of our callings as a couple is to love and nurture a child that needs a home and a better life."

I could feel the tears rise to my eyes, when, fortunately, Scott pointed to my belly and added, "Maybe we could take one of yours off your hands. Poor kids won't get any attention."

We both laughed, but, through my laughter, I thought of you, my bright-eyed, beautiful little angel. I leaned over and patted Scott's hand. "All I know, honey," I said, "is that when you least expect it, God will bring you the rest of your family." I winked at him. "And then you'll understand why I'm so crazy."

Jodi

ALWAYS.

If I had my pick a' things, you can bet your bottom dollar I'd pick somethin' fresh over somethin' canned any day of the week. Most of my regulars at the farmer's market, they'd get to agreeing with me-'cept when it comes to green beans. Green beans, they sell canned two to one over fresh.

That got me to thinking that maybe I'd be able to keep going to that market dern near all year long. Mostly, once October hit and it started getting right colder, we had to pack it up. But thinkin' about all that time to myself, not having much a' nothing to do, it got me to worrying. I was feeling pretty good again, not wantin' to drink so much all the time. I didn't want nothing to get in the way a' that-'specially not me having too much free time.

I couldn't sleep one night, just staring up at the water ring on the ceiling, worryin' about fall crops and Graham not planting none and me not having nothing to do all that long, cold winter 'cept hole up in the trailer with a bottle. So I just got on up real early, pulled on my rain boots over my pajama pants, and got to walking. I didn't have to wonder where Graham was. That tractor was whirring in the distance, loud and clear like a train announcing its return to the station. It weren't Graham I got to first, though; it was Buddy. I wanted to run away and hide looking a mess like I was, not a stitch a' makeup on, not so much as a brush through my hair.

He waved, turned off the engine, pulled his glasses off, and ran his hands through that fine, thick head a' hair. He coulda been in a Pert Plus commercial. Or John Deere. It were a deadly combination for a country girl. And it got me to thinkin' that wanting to do the farmer's market all year round had as much to do with Buddy as with my drinking.

"You miss me while you were in New York?" he asked, winking.

That red was running right up my cheeks, giving me away. Weren't a damn thing I could do 'bout it. Pull it together, Jodi. I wanted to be real clever and quick on my feet, fire something back kinda flirtatious and tough all rolled into one. But the best I could come up with was, "You miss me?"

He grinned. "Always."

I put my hand up to my forehead like I were shading the early-morning sun. But I was really hiding my ruby slipper face.

"Puh-lease," I said. I was like a grade-school girl again, my first crush leaning against my locker making my heart get to flutterin'. "I just need to see Graham."

"Well, climb on up, darlin'," he said.

My mouth kinda dropped.

"What? I didn't figure you as too prissy to ride a tractor."

I fluffed my hair. It didn't do no good. Never, ever walk out of the house again looking like a hag.

I got to climbing on the tractor, near about fallin' out when Buddy held my hand to help me. Oh my Lord, I prayed so hard he couldn't smell my dirty hair. I got to figuring the fresh grass clippings and diesel fuel was smelling stronger than me.

He cranked the engine right hard, wrapped his arm real tight around my waist, and whispered, "Don't worry. I won't let you fall."

Too late. That tan arm all tight 'round my waist, it were too much for any girl not to fall, really. I was so far into my fantasies of Buddy and me splashing in the ocean, lying in the sand, reciting vows . . . When I could make out Graham in the distance all my worries 'bout them fall crops had floated on by like a bubble in the wind.

"Thanks for the ride," I said. I climbed down real slow.

Buddy, he didn't let go a' my hand when my feet hit the ground. He grinned. "I took the long way."

"You damn well better stay away from my cousin," Graham called over the roar a' his tractor. He killed the engine, his earplugs dangling 'round his neck.

"Whatever you say, boss," Buddy called back, winking at me.

As he drove away, Graham said, "So, something going on there I need to know about?"

My brain, it couldn't stop my mouth. "Oh my Lord, I hope so."

We both got to laughin' like our hearts ain't never been broken. "He's always giving me a hard time, that's all."

I waited a long minute, crossing my fingers that Graham would say Buddy must really like me. But he just nodded.

"Anyway, I'm here 'bout the fall crops."

Graham looked skeptical because we both know fall crops ain't really his specialty. He smiled. "Well, then looks like this'll be a pretty short conversation."

"Just hear me out, all right?"

He nodded.

"I was just thinkin' that the way I been selling so many a' them cans, maybe it'd make sense to keep going through the fall. If we could just plant some onions and cabbage and cucumbers and maybe do some lettuces and collards and kohlrabi, we could still have some fresh stuff to sell at the market. And maybe the Piggly Wiggly'd be interested since they buy our stuff in summer. But then I could make pickles and sauerkraut and fermented vegetables and all that good stuff."

Graham's face got all twisted up like he ate some bad oysters or somethin', and I started to realize how hot it was getting. "Jodi, you know I'd do anything for you, but . . ." He jumped off his tractor, dust flying out from under his boots. "I'm just not sure we can justify that. It's a lot of work taking care of all this land."

I nodded. "I know, I know. But we could just plant a little bit, and I can help you. I'm right good at plantin' and such." I cleared my throat. I didn't want him to feel guilty, but I said it anyhow. "Look, Graham, girls like me, we gotta stay busy."

He smiled and patted my shoulder, finally catching on. "Well, you and Buddy get that all worked out and I'll help how I can." He winked at me, and I could feel that red rising again just talking about Buddy.

"Hey, look," Graham said. "You doin' okay, Jodi? I mean, with all of it. The drinking, giving up Carolina. All that?"

I swallowed right hard. "Yeah. I mean, it's made it right easier for me to get to be around her. It's hard and it hurts, but Khaki, she always treats me like . . ." I paused, 'cause I could feel them tears getting into my eyes. I swallowed, and I tried not to get choked up but I couldn't help it. "She treats me like I'm Carolina's momma still too."

In his deepest voice, Graham said, puffing up his chest, "Honey, Carolina might need two mommas, but I'm cowboy enough for two daddies." He tipped his hat to me.

We got to laughing again. Graham, he always knew the right thing to say to make you feel better right off. Couldn't nobody dream up a better daddy for their baby.

"All right, well, I guess I'll just have to talk Buddy into my new fall plantin' scheme if I want to keep working."

Graham squeezed my arm all supportive like. He hopped back into his tractor seat. "Yup. But I have a feeling you could talk Buddy into dern near anything." He cranked the tractor, getting back to the long day a' work ahead. "You want a ride back?"

I shook my head. It weren't that far. Plus, I felt like skipping and dancing and twirling around all the way back home, just thinkin' that Buddy might like me too. And I tried to lie to myself about it, but me and God and all them saints, we knew the truth: I was hoping to run into a different cowboy.

Khaki

AMAZING GRACE.

The thing that no one ever tells you about being a mother is how unfathomably guilty you feel all the time. I felt like I had committed a crime and ruined your youth by being locked up in prison every time I left to pick faucets or approve a blueprint. I reasoned that if I were a doctor or a humanitarian, I would feel like my work was necessary, like I wasn't leaving you and Alex for some fabric swatches.

But now I know it doesn't matter what you do. You feel guilty for leaving your children and going to work. You feel guilty for spending too much time with them and making them spoiled. You feel guilty for letting them learn to cry it out in their crib. You feel guilty for letting them sleep with you and never training them to sleep on their own.