he noticed how sad she was. Setting the bucket of fish food aside, he sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “There is something nice about the cows, I agree. Something nice about this whole place. It would be hard for me to let go of it, too. So what does your family do to make ends meet?”
“Daddy works as a mechanic on farm equipment. He uses the big shed down that way to work on the machines.” She paused to point behind them. Sure enough, off in the distance he could see a large structure that he wouldn't have thought of as a shed. Maybe an airplane hangar or tractor barn.
“That's pretty cool. I like to work on cars,” he confessed.
“A plow is a lot different from a car. It’s more complicated. He does house calls too, since towing can be a pain in the butt. Even then, that business is starting to die off. More people are selling off their land as the city starts to expand. A lot of ours was purchased by rich families wanting to build fancy mansions as investment properties. The more people who build, the higher the value of the land starts to go and the town can grow. Which is a good thing.”
He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. “I sense a ’but‘ coming.”
She exhaled slowly. “It's that whole death of rural America thing. I'm not sure how to feel about it. Daddy complains about it a lot. How the next town over is getting big box franchise stores. Yet as much as he gripes about the whole thing, he shops there anyway because it's convenient and cheap. It's only a matter of time before more of those kinds of things come here, too.”
“And eventually, the small town flair will disappear.” Bryce could connect the dots. It startled him how passionately Arial talked about the whole thing — and how much sadness she expressed as well. “Don't tell me you blame yourself for all of this.”
Arial laughed, though it sounded rather sour to him. “I'm not that arrogant to think I've destroyed an entire town. Granted, my getting famous did get the world to realize it even existed. The occasional media attention it receives must do something for it. Expansion is a good thing as well, because while the small town flair is cute and charming, Gloriana could stand to catch up to civilization a little bit.”
“I meant your parents’ place,” he said in a smooth, calm tone. “Do you think if you had stayed, he wouldn't have had to sell so much of his land to the developers? That he'd have been able to realize his dream of being a successful farm owner?”
“Having to pay for my manager and agent did not help the financial situation. The money I was offered for my projects compensated a lot for all of that and then helped put the food on the table back home. My path has also kept my parents away from their own plans for a long time. You can't tell me that was fair of me to do.”
“They support you because they love you,” he said. “There was once a time when I wondered the same thing — if I was being more of a hindrance to my family than a help. After all, we had thousands of dollars’ worth of medical bills to pay on top of getting me set up. I may have not hit it big, and all that would have done is plunge my family deeper into debt.”
She gazed up at him, and her eyes were filled with tears. How was it possible for someone to have such a big heart? Even though he had a tragic tale on his journey to fame, not many had been moved to the point of tears by his stories.
Taking in a deep breath to shake away his own emotions, he continued. “The point I'm trying to make is that life is unpredictable. We never know what will happen. It's part of what makes life interesting, don't you think? Your family knows this, and they also know that just because their dreams didn't pan out like they expected, that doesn't mean yours can't. So even if it may have put them under at first, made things hard, it's got to be worth it to them. Otherwise I don't think they would have put so much effort into helping you succeed.”
“I know. Even if it