Chapter 7 #2
“Don’t you get bored? You know, just recordin’ and not talkin’, because I love talkin’ and I don’t ever want to be quiet!” Sadie says, and at that, Quinn laughs.
“Oh, sweetheart, you and I are gonna get along just fine,” Quinn says.
Quietly I place the spatula on the side of the pan and turn to Sadie. “Go get your socks on and bring your hairbrush down. We only have a few minutes before the bus comes, and you still need to eat.”
“But, Daddy,” she whines, “I wanna stay here with Miss Quinn and you!”
I stroke my fingers through her hair, then touch my thumb to her lips the way I always do when I want her to turn her frown into a smile.
“Magic tap,” I whisper, and her lips immediately curve into a grin.
“After you’re home, you can hang out with Miss Quinn while she works, and remember, tonight you’re sleepin’ over at Petunia and Alice’s house. ”
She nods, eyes lighting up at the mention of all the good things she has in store after her half day of school.
“That sounds good, don’t it?”
She nods again. “Yeah.”
“All right then, get up those stairs and get that brush and your socks on.” I bring my lips to her forehead, and keep them there the way I always kiss her in the morning when she’s grouchy.
Over the top of her head, my eyes catch on Quinn, who is watching the exchange intently, almost with bated breath, her lips parted, a hand resting over her chest.
Sadie gets up, whispering something into Quinn’s ear on her way, passing me an adorable toothless grin before taking the first step upstairs.
Quinn watches her, and my eyes slide over her chest, at the two stiff peaks lifting the yellow font that spells Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sadie says something to her when she reaches the top of the stairs, and Quinn nods, smiling, and it gives me the five extra seconds I need to adjust myself.
Upstairs, Sadie’s closet door hits the wall with a resounding thud, and Quinn’s gaze snaps to mine. Scratching the stubble along my jaw, I keep my voice low as I prepare to deflate her a little. I don’t want to, but I have to do what’s right for my girl. “It’s Sadie.”
Her brows pinch, the camera facing me, the green light still on. “What?”
“Her name. It’s Sadie. It’s not sweetheart, it’s not anything but Sadie.
” My heart races as the words shake free, jumbled up in a rush as I shove them out.
It’s not personal lingers on my lips, ready to soften the sting, to explain why I’m saying what I am but…
I keep it inside. Instead, I add, “I just don’t want her gettin’ attached. All right?”
She closes her mouth and blinks at me for a long moment that makes my stomach sick and my neck hot, then quietly says, “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Sweat slithers down my back, sinking into the top of my Levi’s.
The air is thick with discomfort, because boundaries can have that effect, but I push through, unwilling to linger in any of this.
This ain’t some big emotional chat, and she isn’t anyone to us but a filmmaker during this season of our lives.
That’s all. “I train in the barn in the mornin’ and I start at four. ”
“Okay,” she nods, standing straighter as she lifts her camera. “I’ll be here for that tomorrow. Thank you for letting me know. Your training is crucial to the comeback story, so I appreciate the tip.”
Sadie leaps off the third step, clattering onto the ground with her boots on and her hair a mess. “Ready!”
Quinn looks between us, then smiles. “I’m gonna head outside and start recording with my camera,” she says, holding it up, the green light still on. “I’ll see you this afternoon and I hope you learn a lot at school today.”
Sadie runs her hand beneath her nose and stomps her foot, and I think about the way Quinn stomped her foot in the barn earlier. “I don’t wanna go to school. I wanna stay here and show you all the stuff you have to put in your movie. Like Daisy. You have to put Daisy in there, okay?”
She nods her head and instinctively reaches out, spreading her fingers over the top of Sadie’s curls, smiling. “Of course,” she says, then stiffens as she cautions a glance my way and takes her hand back. “Bye for now, Miss Sadie.”
Sadie watches as Quinn walks through our house and out the back door, disappearing into the pasture, behind the barn.
I point to her eggs on the plate while I pull the hairbrush out of her back pocket. “Eat, partner, and I’ll do your hair.”
She eats and I fulfill her request for a side ponytail that turns into a braid and has a horseshoe barrette at the bottom. I hit YouTube tutorials pretty hard once she turned two and had a full head of hair. Thank heavens for YouTube.
After I watch her climb onto the bus, her hand tight inside of Petunia’s, I say good morning to Love, talk to Tate for a minute, then head inside to the office, one piece of mail on my mind.
The envelope I received yesterday.
Just thinking of it makes my palms sweaty.
I’m underwater on a lot of bills. I owe the bank a lot of money after taking loans out against the property to pay for experimental treatment for Amelia.
And when it rains, it fucking hails, because after leveraging everything I had to save her, I lost her, and then the ranch started falling apart.
Two of our mares got sick, and I opened a line of credit with Elena to get them better. Eight grand I spent, and they didn’t make it.
The siding on the house is in desperate need of replacement, the chimney needs to be fixed, the flue needs to be cleaned, the water heater needs to be replaced, the fencing on the chicken coops has been repaired so much it looks more like quilt than anything else, the pasture is in desperate need of permethrin and pyrethrins but I haven’t been able to catch up on routine insecticides in over a year.
Big Bertha ain’t the only one sick. I don’t have the heart to tell Sadie, but Daisy has been colicky for some time, and Elena is concerned there’s more there.
I leave the office door open and sink into the old wooden chair, the leather of the seat completely split from wear and age.
The manila envelope eyes me from the center of my desk, and the longer I stare back, the bigger the sick foreboding in my belly grows.
Resting my hat on my knee, I stroke my hand through my hair, take a breath, and open the envelope.
My heart plummets, and my jaw burns with impending sickness as my brain takes in the first word I see.
Custody.
Custody, that’s something that’s argued about when two people can’t make their marriage work. That’s not what happened to me. I loved Amelia, and she loved me, and I adore Sadie. She’s my whole world, my sun, my sky, the blood in my veins, my reason to breathe.
My hand comes to my mouth as I scan the letter.
Mr. Vaughn,
I represent the Montgomery family, who has expressed great concern in your ability to care for your biological child, Sadie Ruth Vaughn.
Public records indicate a lien on your properties at 1398 Shetland, including but not limited to: Vaughn Horse Ranch, the structure at this address, as well as the barn(s), stable(s), coop(s) and livestock.
The primary residence is dilapidated and in desperate need of vital repairs, and therefore not a safe or ideal environment for a child.
Your financial woes, paired with the rigorous training schedule set forth for the upcoming rodeo, and without another parent or adult at home, we do not believe you can provide the familial stability that a young child needs.
The Montgomery family, on behalf of their late daughter Amelia Montgomery Vaughn, are seeking sole and primary custody of the dependent, Sadie Ruth Vaughn.
I stop reading.
My throat clogs with thick, spiky heat and my eyes sting like hell. I’m on my feet, hat on my head, out the door, tearing through the house until I’m outside, running toward Tatum’s with the papers bunched in my fist.
The Montgomerys never liked me. They didn’t think I was good enough for Amelia, and I don’t know.
Maybe they were right. After all, I couldn’t get her into enough trials or find the right treatment to save her.
I have to live with her loss every day, and look at my baby girl and feel that loss forever.
That’s enough pain. I’ve been through enough.
I am not losing the one thing I have left.
Big Bertha squawks as I run by, and the leaves from the oak over the coop lick my cheek as I duck beneath them, not slowing down for even a second.
A memory flashes behind my eyes, our wedding day. I had a gift I’d wanted to give Amelia before we went down the aisle, so I went to her dressing room to slip it to her. Instead, when I approached, her parents were in there, offering her a four-million-dollar gift to not walk down that aisle.
“This cowboy lifestyle is ridiculous and juvenile,” Marnie said, blotting at the corners of her eyes as if her own son was about to leave for war.
“And that ranch, Amelia, you do not want to live in that old ranch house,” Charles added, reminding her again of their secondary property in Dallas, the mansion, which they’d allow her to live in, free of charge.
Dallas socialites who want nothing more than a Barbie doll daughter and Ken son-in-law, that’s what they were.
They never cared that Amelia loved me deeply, that she wanted to be part of the Vaughn Ranch legacy.
She wanted to watch me ride, she cheered me on and stood in the bleachers with tears of pride in her eyes every time I mounted a bronc.
They acted like I was holding her captive just because I wasn’t wealthy.
I wasn’t dirt poor and in debt the way I am now, but I used to do okay for myself.
The ranch did well. Well enough to build a new stable around the time Amelia got pregnant, and add some new fencing along the property.
We were even able to purchase two new stags.