Chapter Ten
Blue Mind Theory
Cheyenne
Before I left Sam’s house last night, Colton and I agreed to meet at the lake house this morning, just the two of us. It would be my first time back post-divorce, and Colton’s first time there in five years, so he’d suggested we do a walkthrough before he officially assumes Milo’s guardianship on Monday.
At the time, it had been dusk, the barest hint of tangerine still lingering in the western sky from sunset. I leaned against the driver’s side of my baby blue 2021 Bronco—the only material thing I got out of the divorce—and Colton stood barely a foot from me. Laughter had floated around the side of Sam’s house, making me feel lighter than I had in more than a year. Between instantly connecting with Milo and being hugged tightly by Sam, Colton’s suggestion had felt right.
Later, he texted me a picture of his dad and Hazel after Sam proposed. From my kitchen table with my shower damp hair in a towel, I smiled and sent a thumbs up. I almost added a heart, decided against it, and suffered the consequences when Colton said I text like a dad. We’ll see who’s laughing when I buy him a pair of white New Balance dad sneakers to wear while mowing the yard.
Now, though, as I turn into the driveway after brunch with my brothers, the suggestion doesn’t seem as right. Maybe because we’re no longer standing in Sam’s driveway at sunset, Colton wearing damp swim trunks and my back warmed from the door of my Bronco.
I mean, I know it’s just a house.
A two-story house with white cedar shake siding, a wraparound front porch, a baby blue door, and empty window boxes. Navy blue gables and a little circular attic window. A mailbox that’s slightly crooked on its post by the end of the driveway.
Emotionally, it’s not just a house . It’s the lake house.
The shake siding was a project during my freshman year of high school in the fall. The wraparound porch was where Mom rocked on a cushioned swing. The baby blue door was an inside joke because Grandpa thought he’d ordered navy paint. The empty window boxes burst with color when Grandma planted flowers every May. The navy gables were intended to match the front door. The circular attic window had long ago been coined the ship’s wheel window because my brothers, Colton, and I thought it looked like a spoked wheel.
“I can do this,” I say to myself under my breath. “I can do this.”
If I need to repeat the phrase a hundred times, I will. I’ll say it five-hundred times. A thousand. Because I know that I can. I’ve faced notably scarier things than a house I used to love, and when I think about doing it for Milo, it becomes easier. If only a little.
Colton pulled in just behind me, and he comes around to hold my door. Despite everything, the man is chivalrous down to his core. Maybe his mother’s constant comings and goings taught him something after all—Sam had always treated her respectfully, even when she was slipping through his fingers.
“Hey,” Colton says, gently closing my door.
I breathe in, less for the fresh lake air and more for his clean, masculine scent. Which is, arguably, one and the same when summertime comes. “Hey.”
“Are you ready for this?” he asks.
“What, being your fake fiancée?”
Faint smile lines crinkle his eyes. “I meant facing the lake house, but sure.”
Honesty is the best policy, so I say, “Not really. You?”
“Not by a long shot.”
“Good.” I nod once, then twice. A smile wobbles on my lips. “Two negatives equal a positive, right?”
Colton laughs, and the easy rumble is the shot of confidence I need. I step around him, the cement cracked under my Birkenstocks, and dig for the key in my tote bag. The striped decorative mailbox still hangs by the front door. I wonder if Colton remembers leaving letters there for one another. Meaningless ones, mostly; rarely more than meet me on the dock at 3 or do you want cheese on your burger tonight?
Not meaningless to me, though. I still have his letters, tucked on the shelf in my closet here, just paces away from the window nook. I wonder if he has mine somewhere.
The house smells stale when I step over the threshold, like it always used to at the start of spring. Even still, I smell peony and freshness hovering underneath that. Mom almost always had a candle burning somewhere in the house—in the living room on the coffee table or in the kitchen on the island. I used to become so mesmerized by the flames reflecting on the white slatwall in my parents’ bedroom at night that I’d fall asleep nestled into their covers.
I register Colton stepping inside behind me and quietly closing the door, but I stand still to take everything in. It feels like I’ve never been here but also like I never left. Like when my family closed up the lake house last summer, they didn’t fully close it; they left it suspended in a fragment of time.
The keys for Dad’s 1985 Bronco sit on the wicker entryway table next to an empty clay vase, probably because Justin forgot to hang them back in the kitchen. A laundry basket is propped against the scratched banister of the staircase to my right with one stray sock lingering in its corner. Dust lingers on white baseboards and drawn curtains keep daylight out.
I move forward and then I pause to look at the pictures on the wall. Most of them are crooked.
My brothers, cousins, Colton, and I jumping off the dock. Justin, sitting at the kitchen island in nothing but swim trunks, studying for the Bar exam with a half-eaten Nutty Bar in hand. High school graduations. Beau and Kaia nestled into the bow of the boat with an infant Tate cradled to my brother’s bare chest. Dad, his brother Ty, and Grandpa standing by the grill on the deck. Colton, age 10, shirtless, next to Dad on the dock with his three-pound walleye. A fiery sunset over a glass like lake. Me, age 14, beaming over my shoulder, paintbrush in hand, a canvas on an easel in the sunroom. Weddings—Grandpa and Grandma, Mom and Dad, Ty and Rosie, Beau and Kaia.
Mine and Stephen’s.
I pull the frame from the wall. I want to drop it in the lake, never to be seen again, but I like the environment too much to litter. It would also waste a perfectly good frame. I settle for placing it facedown on the entry table and continue down the hall.
We updated the house over the years. Stainless steel appliances in the kitchen one summer, faucets that didn’t leak in the bathrooms the next. Bigger windows to overlook the lake from the living room. Fresh paint in most of the rooms, if only for a rainy day project. Enclosing the sunroom to accommodate chilly spring mornings and crisp fall afternoons. New throw pillows when we got the new sofa, because naturally.
All of them are still on the sofas, but like the laundry basket and the keys, they’re a little rumpled. Like maybe Justin rested his head on one for an afternoon nap, or Dad’s elbow creased a different one when he read the morning newspaper.
Choose Happy , one of them reads. Orange-ish pink all caps letters ironed onto a sunny yellow background.
I lose it.
Of course, it would be the throw pillow that does me in. Not the coffee mug tree in the kitchen corner or the artwork from my childhood on the fridge or the pictures in the hallway.
The throw pillow.
For the first time in months, I cry. Real, salty tears that roll down my cheeks to drip off my chin onto my crewneck sweatshirt. I don’t even try to wipe them away. I just stand there and stare at it through blurry eyes until Colton blocks my view by folding me into his arms.
He doesn’t ask me what’s wrong and he doesn’t tell me to stop crying. He tucks my head under his bristled chin and massages the nape of my neck with unwittingly tender fingers. His other palm drifts up and down my spine between my sweatshirt and tank top, chills chasing his touch.
My fingers curl into the soft material of his Falls Lake tee—the kind of soft that means he’s worn it at least three times post wash. “I haven’t—” I choke on a sob “—I haven’t been doing that.”
Colton doesn’t miss a beat. “Doing what, sweetheart?”
“That.” I point around him, hopefully in the general vicinity of the pillow, and the tears fall harder because of his endearment. “The throw pillow. I haven’t been—” another sob “—I haven’t been choosing happy .”
In my current state—eyes squeezed closed, fingers fisted in his shirt, shoulders curling in on themselves—I feel more than see understanding sink in for Colton. It’s how he squeezes my lower back and in the soft kiss he probably shouldn’t press to the top of my head. Because despite all odds, we’re here. Together, at the lake house, if only for one last summer.
Maybe… I don’t know.
Maybe souls can be mates without their people being soulmates. Maybe that’s what Colton meant when he said we came the closest—souls, bound together; persons, not compatible.
“Cheyenne, look at me.” Colton shifts enough to make me miss his warmth, but his fingertips find my jaw. “Life has dealt you a crappy hand recently, and I don’t blame you for not choosing happy. But the thing is that you do have to; you have to choose it. Happiness doesn’t come searching for us, but it is always around us. We just have to—well, to quote a throw pillow, choose happy.”
I find a watery smile. “It should say choose happy because happy doesn’t choose you.”
“Cheyenne, that’s depressing.”
He says it with such conviction that I can’t help it—I start laughing. I’m still crying, though, so really, I’m craughing. Tears roll down my cheeks, my shoulders shake, and my stomach hurts from the unexpected laughter. I have no doubt I look like a complete and total mess.
Mostly, though, I realize that I’m feeling again.
“Sorry I…” I look at his tear-stained shirt in dismay and peer up at him. “Sorry I used your shirt as a snot rag.”
Colton mock salutes. “Happy to be of snot rag service, ma’am.”
“I haven’t cried like that since the accident,” I say quietly, fisting and unfisting my fingers so I won’t curl them in Colton’s shirt again. “I haven’t cried at all.”
Colton holds my gaze. “Then make sure you choose sad once in a while, too.”
“Colton,” I deadpan, borrowing his droll tone from moments earlier, “ that’s depressing.”
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t mean it that way. Don’t choose it to become depressed. Choosing sad doesn’t mean closing yourself off, it just means letting yourself feel the hard emotions. Because then, when you choose happy afterwards, it’ll be the purest form of happy you can find.”
For a long moment, I just let his words sink in. Turn them over in my head, trying to wring the truth out of them, trying to make them make sense.
Colton chuckles softly, and I frown. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Colton,” I say deliberately, “what is nothing?”
“It’s just…” He pauses and runs his teeth over his lip, letting them sink into the skin there. “At least we know the blue mind theory is true.”
My brows crease. “Blue mind theory?”
“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “They say that, when near a body of water, it increases your neurotransmitters, such as oxytocin.” Pink flushes his cheeks, and he smiles sheepishly at me. “Also known as the cuddle hormone.”
“What you’re saying,” I begin slowly, feeling my own face warm, “is that my outburst just now was a byproduct of the blue mind theory?”
Colton looks at me intently and shakes his head. “No. I’m saying that, because of the blue mind theory, two fake fiancés will have an excuse, if they so choose, to cuddle this summer.”
If choosing happy seems hard, choosing sad feels disturbingly easy.
Colton and I walked through the rest of the house together, and after that, I picked up lunch to take to Hazel’s flower shop, where I officially resigned. I think she knew it was coming because she’s intuitive, but still. The least I could do was thank her for taking me under her wing the last couple months, and there’s rarely a better way to someone’s heart than through food.
Now, I’m choosing sad before I start packing up my apartment later. I’m going to see my dad. My stomach turns at the thought of stepping through those sliding glass doors. Since that seemingly ordinary day, the one where I lost my baby, I have mostly avoided hospitals. If I don’t, I’ll remember the emptiness that hollowed me out and the stinging realization that I would never feel that baby’s kick against my belly.
Today, though, I will face it just as bravely as I faced the lake house. Dad is in a long-term care facility on the northern edge of Balsam Falls, and I pull into a parking stall beside a shiny white Porsche and hitch my tote over my shoulder. Walking inside, I’m hit with the contrasts of the hospital to the world outside.
Sticky June humidity becomes rattling air conditioning turned too cold. A cloudless blue sky is blocked out by sterilized white walls and tile floors. Fresh, slightly briny lake air gives way to the caustic smell of antiseptic.
I’ve only visited Dad once. It was with Justin, and I didn’t let myself get close enough to touch Dad like my brother did. Justin, being Justin, didn’t comment on my distance. He just quietly accepted it, talked to Dad like they were sitting on the porch together, and then blared Pitbull on the drive to lunch at The Pier.
I approach the nurse’s station before I can talk myself out of it. “Hi. I’m here to see Tripp Kolter. I’m, uh, his daughter.”
The nurse—Mindi, according to the nametag clipped on her teddy bear print scrubs—looks up from her computer screen with a welcoming smile. “Sure, hon. Do you know your way, or do you want me to walk you up there?”
“I know the way but thank you.” Instinctually, I touch my wave necklace, the curve of the sterling silver familiar beneath my fingertip. “Do you, uh…” I wet my lips. “Do you know if there’s been any improvement?”
It’s a pointless question. We’d know if anything had changed, good or bad. But I’m stalling.
Mindi’s face softens. “Not that I’ve heard today. Having you here will be the best form of healing for him, though.”
I don’t know about that. Mom’s been here every day for the last four and a half months. Surely, his wife’s presence would revive him if he were to be revived. But I nod like I agree and cross to the shiny silver elevators. It can’t be more than a couple hundred steps from the nurse’s station to Dad’s room. It feels like twenty miles, uphill, in sheets of slanting rain. When I reach Room 1203, I pause and stare hard at the silver doorknob.
Choosing sad doesn’t mean closing yourself off, it just means letting yourself feel the hard emotions.
With Colton’s words in my head, I take a fortifying breath and go inside. When I was here with Justin, he announced both of our arrivals. As if we’d walked into the garage at the lake house while Dad was working on his Bronco and he couldn’t see us, so we had to tell him who was there.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked him over my basket of fried shrimp at lunch.
Justin looked at me evenly, shrugged his shoulders, and said , “ Would you rather I’d told him about the tubes in his arms instead of telling him his eighteen-month-old grandson is almost as adorable as his middle son?”
“Well,” I said, “no. I guess not.”
“He’s still our dad, Cheyenne,” my brother told me softly. “It’s okay to act like it.”
“Hey, Dad.” My voice comes out thin now, as I walk into Dad’s room. I clear my throat. “It’s Cheyenne.”
I know I won’t get a response. I do. It doesn’t stop the sting when one doesn’t come.
“Mom was just here not too long ago,” I continue. “She brought your fishing rod spatula. It’s sitting right here by the window. You know, in case you want to grill something for supper tonight.”
A sob tears through my chest, and I press my fist to my mouth to muffle it. I sink onto the chair by Dad’s bed. It’s not a standard issue hospital chair. Beau brought a cushioned table chair from the ranch so Mom would be more comfortable. So that if Dad came to, it’d be familiar.
Not if. When . It had to be when.
I take Dad’s hand. It doesn’t feel cold or lifeless like I expected it to. His palm is warm and his fingers seem like they should grip mine with his normal strength. He breathes on his own, and his lashes rest gently on his weathered cheeks. Someone must’ve shaved his face recently, maybe a day or two ago. Stubble is filling back in. His dark hair is combed away from his forehead, and his gold wedding band is cool on my palm.
“I went to the lake house today,” I tell him. “Colton, too. That’s a story for another day, but I did lose it over a throw pillow while we were there. Can you believe it? It was that yellow one you bought Mom—the one that says choose happy . That’s really hard to do sometimes, you know?”
I’m crying-laughing again while I talk, and that’s when I realize it. I chose sad, and contrary to its definition, it lightens me. These hard emotions I’ve locked up inside for months, maybe even years, feel good. I don’t know how to navigate them, and a majority part of me still doesn’t want to.
But I am. I did.
I sit here by my dad’s bed, holding his hand, and I tell him every last happy thing I can think of. I don’t talk about the sad things, or the depressing things. I tell him about the joy that lit up Jolene’s face last night when she started getting the hang of 10 Point Pitch. I pull up a picture on my phone of the sunlight slanting into my apartment and hold it up, even though I know he can’t see it. I tell him, laughing, about how I accidentally placed an order for double the number of hydrangeas at Hazel’s flower shop last Monday.
Slowly, over the course of a one-sided conversation, I realize that choosing sad has turned into choosing happy.
TEXTS BETWEEN CHEYENNE & COLTON:
Cheyenne: I did it. I chose sad. And guess what?
Colton: You did? What??
Cheyenne: I did. You’re supposed to guess.
Colton: You won’t ever listen to me for advice again??
Cheyenne: Good guess, but no.
Colton: You decided you don’t want to be my fake fiancée because of my pointless blue mind theory joke about cuddling?
Colton: That’s a joke. I didn’t say that
Colton: Don’t say yes to that
Colton: PLEASE don’t say yes to that
Cheyenne: No, that’s not it.
Colton: Okay I give
Colton: What is it?
Cheyenne: I went to see my dad.
Cheyenne: And you were right. Somehow choosing sad turned into choosing happy.
Cheyenne: *picture of a chocolate glazed donut with sprinkles*
Cheyenne: This also helped significantly on the happiness front.
Colton: I’m proud of you.
Colton: Insanely proud.
Cheyenne: Thank you ??
Cheyenne: I’m insanely proud of you too.
Colton: For??
Cheyenne: Milo.
Cheyenne: That’s you choosing hard, not sad or happy, and I’m insanely proud of you for it.
DELETED TEXT FROM COLTON TO CHEYENNE:
You’d be less proud if you knew how badly I wanted to kiss you in that kitchen this morning.