Colt
The thrift shop in Sheridan smells like stale coffee, musty fabric, and the type of perfume seemingly only worn by women over the age of seventy.
Racks of clothes are jammed together in a way that doesn’t exactly provide a nice flow for shopping, and you have to be on your A-game or you’ll trip over one of the many random toys, home goods, or pieces of furniture placed haphazardly around the store.
Mom’s busy juggling Fiona’s baby while the two women scour the sweater racks. And I find myself gravitating toward a section of the store I don’t usually pay any mind to: the jewelry cases. My eyes bounce over rings, necklaces, and bracelets before landing heavily on a small assortment of pins.
I remember my excitement about finding the raccoon pin at the fair, knowing it was going to bring the biggest smile to Whit’s face.
After I stumbled out of the laundry room, heart straining against my rib cage and lungs burning with the need to scream, I dropped the pin and caramel apple on the kitchen counter.
Blinking back tears, I faked a smile for Jonas’s sake and quietly slipped out of the house.
How was that merely days ago?
I lean in to look at the small collection containing mostly floral brooches.
Nothing here screams Whit, not that I know what I’d do even if I found the perfect pin for her.
Buy it just to tuck away in a drawer, I guess.
I’ve been naively hopeful that she’ll come around after a few days apart—realize how silly she was to push me away when I made it so damn clear she’s all I want.
“Colt,” Mom calls from across the store.
With a ragged breath, I leave the pins behind and weave through rows of secondhand items. Eventually I turn a corner to find my mom thrusting a baby at me, and my cousin nowhere to be found.
Dressed in a light pink sweatsuit, with her pants tucked into white socks, and a dainty white headband, the baby blinks at me. I blink back.
“I need to try on this sweater.” Mom jostles the baby, clearly indicating she’s wanting me to hold her. So I do. It’s awkward at first, but after a few seconds we settle into something that seems reasonably comfortable for both of us.
“Where’s Fiona?” Why isn’t she the one taking the baby from you?
Mom flails a hand toward the back of the store while sliding the garment off a plastic hanger with the other. “In the changing rooms trying on some things.”
I grunt to let Mom know I heard her, looking down at the chubby baby in my arms and trying to picture her being mine.
I mean…not this baby specifically, because she belongs to my cousin.
But like…picturing a different baby in my arms belonging to me.
I squint at her, scrunching my nose. She’s cute enough, I suppose.
“Looks good on you, Colty.” Fiona slips between two racks of winter jackets, tossing an armful of clothes into our shopping cart. “When are you gonna have one?”
I wince. “Oh, well…”
“Beau’s too busy with his fancy country music career.” Fiona puts a hand on her hip. “I heard you have a girlfriend now. Your mom needs some grandbabies to spoil, so that’s on you.”
Bile rises in my throat, burning and choking me out. I’m tempted to throw the baby at my cousin and bolt. I look to my mom for backup, silently begging her to shut the conversation down.
Instead, Mom raps the back of her knuckles against Fiona’s arm, and the smile she shoots in my direction guts me.
“They just started dating…. Though I’m sure Whit doesn’t want her kids to be much farther apart than they’d already be, so I bet it’s not too long now.
I was pretty adamant that he take things slow, but since he didn’t listen to me about that… ”
Fiona purses her lips. “In that case, try some reverse psychology. Colt, absolutely don’t get that girl of yours pregnant.”
I exhale through gritted teeth.
Without knowing the pain she’s causing, Mom nods eagerly. “Oh, yes. I definitely don’t want to be a grandma anytime soon.”
I’m such a fucking idiot.
I force my gaze toward the sidewalk outside the store, pretending to spot something interesting enough to distract from the way my throat feels torn to pieces. Mom’s still talking to Fiona about my future. About babies. About things I don’t want to rob her of.
My mother did so much more than simply give me life.
She taught me to read, pulled me from bed at three a.m. for meteor showers, and shaped my brother and me into some pretty damn good men, despite our father’s constant absence.
She deserved so much more from her life, and somehow still managed to give us the best of her.
I assured Whit I didn’t care about having kids of my own. And I meant it. Until seconds ago, I thought I simply had to wait for her to realize what she’d given up. I don’t think I understood what I was giving up before I heard my mom’s voice fill with excitement like that.
The life I promised Whit and the one my mom’s been hoping for all along are at odds. There’s no version of the future where someone’s heart doesn’t break. And I fucking hate that I can’t immediately tell which will hurt me less.
· · ·
Jonas adds another piece of wood to the full stack in his arms and, using his chin to keep it all from toppling, walks the few steps to the woodshed to neatly stack the split logs.
It’s another dreary day, with gray swirling clouds overhead and a brisk nip in the air.
The hydraulic log splitter does all the hard work, which means Jonas and I can split a few cords of wood by ourselves in a day.
Though chopping wood the old-fashioned way sounds like a good solution to clear my brain and work through the stubborn tension in my muscles, so I shut down the machine and grab an axe leaned up against the woodshed.
It’s heavy in my hand, and I adjust my grip on the well-worn grooves in the wood handle for the short walk toward the wood pile.
I kick a solid round with the side of my boot, pushing it over where I want it, and stand it on end for a splitting block. Then prop another round on top of it.
“Did you do 4-H when you were a kid?” Jonas drops another bundle of wood.
I glide my hands along the handle and lift it overhead. “Yeah. It was a lot of fun.”
The axe cuts through the crisp air, whooshing past my ear and biting into the log with a thud.
The impact reverberates up into my hand, and it takes a bit of wiggling to free the splitting edge from its deep groove.
Ever since I was a kid, the act of pulling an axe from the wood it’s wedged in always makes me picture myself as Arthur in The Sword in the Stone.
Jonas stops working to watch me split the wood, tucking his jacket tighter around his neck. “Auntie Blair told me I should do it.”
The axe hits the log, splitting it in half, and I look over at Jonas. This kid bitched relentlessly at the start of the summer about having to muck stalls—gagging and plugging his nose the entire time he shoveled horse crap. And I can’t help but smile at the thought of him becoming a 4-H kid now.
“I think you’d have a lot of fun, and you’ll make some new friends.” Not like those assholes you play video games with even though they treat you like shit at school.
Jonas nods, tilting his head to study me as I rearrange the split wood so my next swing creates smaller chunks.
Bending to grab the firewood to toss it closer to the woodshed, I say, “You wanna give this a try? I can teach you.”
“Mom’s going to kill you if she finds out you let me use an axe.”
Since the first time I looked into Whit’s cheerless, moss-green eyes, all I’ve wanted is to bear her burdens. If she wanted to kill me—if I thought for even a second it would make her life easier—I’d hand her the axe.
I spin the tool in my hand and jut the handle toward him. “Give it a try.”
Taking the full weight of the axe, his shoulder drops, and he lets out a muffled groan. I grip an imaginary axe for a slow-motion example of what to do, giving him time to follow along with a couple practice swings.
“Don’t watch the axe,” I say gently.
“But how am I supposed to stop it from hitting my legs or something when I swing it?”
Wrapping my hands around his, I guide the cutting edge down to the block of wood, and when Jonas lifts it back up, there’s a small indent.
“Watch that line there.” I point to it. “If you swing just like I showed you, it’ll hit in the exact same spot. Focus on where you want the axe to go, not what it’s doing up in the air.”
He gulps, eyes trained. And when he swings, it lands exactly where I told him it would. Not with enough force to do any damage, but he exhales a sigh of relief and there’s new confidence in his next attempt.
Sure, it takes three times as long for him to split the wood as it would me, but I don’t mind. When two freshly cut pieces fall to the ground, I’m standing there with a bottle of water for the kid. Pride beams through me the way it always seems to when Jonas learns something new on the ranch.
“Nice job, dude.” My hand claps against his back. “You do that a few hundred more times, and you’ll be the most jacked kid in the sixth grade.”
He tightens the lid on his water bottle before letting it fall with a clink on the gravel at our feet. And he gets right back to it, splitting another log.
So I grab another axe and set up next to him.
Our swinging arms fall in unison, creating drumming thuds of metal on wood.
The rippling crackles when it breaks through, splintering logs and leaving them scattered below us.
A formation of geese honk loudly overhead, and the cold no longer stands a chance against the burn of working muscles.
We both have shit to work through. The kind of heartache that’s only going to be resolved by taking out our pain on a cord of logs.
When we stop for another water break, Jonas runs a hand through his hair, making the golden strands stand on end—the closest thing to sunlight on an overcast day.
I chug my water and crane my neck to stare up at the clouds, trying to picture a son of my own to do this kind of thing with, though every imaginary kid ends up looking and sounding like Jonas.
“Theo’s going to raise pigs in the spring,” he mumbles into his water bottle. “If…if I wanted to do that, would you help me?”
“Hell yes. I’m your guy.” My brain instantly whirs to life, forgetting about silly baby daydreams and churning out ideas of where we can keep the animal and who we should buy the piglet from. “I raised both swine and sheep when I was a teenager. You’re gonna have the best damn pig around.”
Jonas laughs. If he’s at all put off by my eagerness to help, he’s getting better at hiding his embarrassment.
“Can we give it a ridiculous name?” He quirks his lip. “Like Baconator or Pork Chop?”
“Piggie Smalls?” I suggest and am met with pure confusion. “Your mom needs to teach you more about music than just the punk bands she listens to. Baconator’s a good one, though.”
“You’re sure you can help?” He eyes me up, waiting for the other shoe to drop. This kid is so used to being let down, he doesn’t even look like he’d be upset. Exactly like Whit—keeping that hand close to the detonator so nobody can hurt his feelings but himself.
“Absolutely I can.”
“Mom said you might be too busy with work.”
“For you? Never.”