CHAPTER TWENTY COEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
COEN
That night, she’s quiet as we lay together and listen to all the sounds around us. A coyote yaps and sets off a distant storm of responses. A loon shrieks over the lake. Doves rustle along the line hanging low over the bathrooms. Then, there’s her soft breathing at my side. And a sniffle.
“You alright, baby?” I ask.
She smiles, turning her head to look at me. “You don’t have to say it all sexy like that.”
“Like that?”
She drops her voice. “Like…you alright, baby…like you’re John Wayne or something.”
I laugh softly. We both sober.
“Are you okay?” I ask again.
She turns to face the ceiling, fingers twined together. I let her sit and think for a while, and the longer she thinks, the more serious she gets. Finally, she rolls to face me, curling up in a little ball and propping her cheek on her folded hands. I turn and brush her hair back.
“What, baby?” I ask, keeping my voice soft. I don’t want to push her away.
She blinks, lashes wet. “Can I tell you a terrible secret?” she whispers.
My stomach clenches, and a number of awful scenarios run through my head. Keeping my face impassive, I nod.
“Yeah, of course.”
She clears her throat, and her jaw works. There’s a second when I think she’s going to lose her nerves.
“My parents split up because my dad cheated on my mom,” she says.
It takes me a second to absorb that. Out of all the things she could have said, this isn’t the worst, but it’s the most surprising.
I kind of assumed if there was infidelity, it would have been the other way around, given that the girls live with Bill.
Granted, I don’t have a lot of experience around fathers myself.
Mine was a no-show for the entire thirty-six years of my life.
When I finally tracked him down, he was dead.
“Really?” I say.
She nods, giving me a humorless smile. “Yeah. It was when Serena was about four. I was seven. I had just had my birthday.”
I wait, watching her eyes go in and out of focus as she thinks.
“You want to talk about it?” I ask.
“I—I don’t know what there is to say about it.”
I prop myself up on my elbow and brush her hair back, tracing her cheek with my thumb. “What happened?”
She looks up at me, eyes wet again. “She was working with the city, and she had to travel sometimes. Dad had some…problems when they first married, with settling down. He was real wild, that’s what Mom said. One night, when Aunt Eugenia had us, he went out to a bar with the wranglers.”
“Just like that?”
She clears her throat, tears brimming. “Just like that.”
“Wow,” I say, unable to hold back. “Way to throw it all away.”
She smiles that same lipless, grim smile.
“It was with a random woman at a bar. She didn’t know he was married because he never wore a ring.
One of his friends had an accident once on his ranch and degloved his finger, so Dad never wore one.
When the woman found out he was married, she tracked down Mom, ratted him out. ”
I’m speechless. She laughs shakily.
“The woman Dad slept with, Cherie, she’s Mom’s sister-in-law now. They’re friends—well, family,” she says. “How weird is that?”
“Not all that weird,” I say. “That woman did her a solid.”
“I don’t know who was more pissed, looking back—Cherie or Mom.”
I smile, and we sit in another long moment of silence. She’s different when she’s sad. Her sudden, out of character fragility makes me fiercely protective.
“What’s so weird is…he loved Mom. Even then, even as a little kid, I could tell he adored her. But he still cheated on her… He fucked everything up for our family.”
I clear my throat. “You know, working in the industry I do, I see a lot of that. If I had a dollar for every man who’s head over heels in love with his wife but somehow manages to trip and put his dick in another woman…well, I’d have a boatload of money.”
She pushes herself up on her hands. “Can you hold me?”
Of course, I can. Sitting, I pull her into my lap and run my fingers through her hair. She sinks against my chest, and a powerful sense of wanting to protect her blossoms in my chest. She’s so fragile right now.
“I feel so guilty,” she says.
“Why? You didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t understand it when it happened. I was just really mad at Mom for wanting to leave Dad. And I wanted to stay on the ranch. So, I decided to stay with Dad in the custody arrangement, and, of course, Serena stayed because I did.”
“You were little.”
“I know, but that must have hurt Mom so bad. Now that I’m grown, I think about that. All the time.”
Gently, I stroke her hair, my chin on top of her head.
There are a lot of things I carry around with me, and most of them, I still blame myself for, even though they weren’t my fault.
At least, not all my fault. Before my mother passed, I kept telling myself I was going to text and call, but Jamie and I were on the road.
My career was moving so fast, doing anything but work felt like putting my feet outside a car going a hundred miles an hour.
I kept telling myself I was going to call, until she wasn’t there to pick up the phone anymore.
I was young, barely twenty, but I blame myself for that every day.
“Have you ever said that to her?” I ask softly.
She sniffles, lifting her head to look up at me.
Her eyes are big and glassy, beautiful but a little heartbreaking.
“No, she’s never brought it up. Me and my mom don’t have the closest relationship.
I only saw her once a year for a few months.
It’s not a bad relationship, just not as personal as it could be.
I do sometimes wish I could just be honest. I just know she’d have something to say about how it’s not my fault. ”
“It’s not.”
She points at her chest. “It feels like it is.”
“Let me ask you something,” I say. “You know anybody with kids? Like about age six or seven?”
She thinks, brow creasing. “Yeah, one of the wranglers, Clive. He has a little boy who’s eight.”
“And do you look at him and think…that kid could be held responsible for any kind of choice like that?”
She’s very quiet. Finally, she shakes her head.
“I get it, but…it’s harder when it’s me. I just feel like I should have known better.”
Instead of answering, I let her sit and feel for a while. I’m starting to learn that, sometimes, sitting with things is a big part of figuring them out. After a while, she sits up and wipes her face.
“Sorry, that’s a lot to dump on you at once,” she says.
“Nah, not really,” I say. “But I’m sure it was a lot for you.”
She nods, and the conversation dies out.
“You done talking about it?” I ask after a bit.
She sighs. “Yeah, I think so.”
Her voice isn’t upset. It’s soft…maybe a bit peaceful.
“That’s fine,” I say.
She smiles and snuggles closer. “Thanks for not pushing me. And for listening.”
I want to tell her I’ll always listen whenever she feels like talking. Instead, I hold her while she closes her eyes.
Tonight feels important.
At least to me, who’s dying to know more of her, it does.
After a while, her breathing deepens. I’m perfectly still as the tenseness in her body begins to loosen.
All these things swirling in my head are complicated.
I don’t expect either of us to fix them in some big, climactic arc by the end of the trip, but it’s good she felt safe enough to tell me.
It makes a lot of other things clearer. I wonder if Jamie knew this, or if Scott never told him.
Bill and Scott were pretty close, way back in the day.
I think about all these threads leading from now to ancient history.
How one choice followed her twenty-five years.
How it ended up right here in this tent with me.
I wonder if Bill ever wishes he could go back and never go to that bar.
Has he ever followed all the threads back with regret and sat with the seriousness of what he did?
Looking to the side at his daughter, I think he might have.