Chapter 26
CALEB
T he first person I see when I step inside the church is Colt. He’s standing to the right of the curved wooden doors that mark the entrance to the nave, tapping the pamphlet that lays out how the next hour will proceed against his thigh.
“Hey,” I greet.
“Hey,” he repeats, giving me a grim smile. “You doing all right, Winters?”
“Hanging in there,” I reply, grabbing a paper program from the basket.
It’s nice to have something to fiddle with when you’re nervous. Makes me glad I play baseball, not soccer.
“Is Lennon?”
“I think so.”
I actually don’t.
Lennon is far from fine. She shouldn’t be. No matter when it happened, losing her grandfather would be awful. He was the one who raised her. The only blood relative she had left.
I have no idea how she acted in the immediate aftermath of her parents’ deaths.
It was before we met. But right now, there’s no sign of the girl I know intimately.
Who I’ve shared memories and swapped love declarations with.
Lennon has shut me out—almost completely—and it’s far more heartbreaking than holding her for four hours while she cried was.
It’s also terrifying.
I thought the days of worrying how she felt about me were gone. But that’s exactly how I feel right now.
Lennon didn’t tell me she got into Clarkson. That stings. Because I thought we were totally honest with each other, and the fact that she lied has me second-guessing. And I found out right before her grandfather’s funeral, which I have to head back to Clarkson from.
“It’s got to be really tough for her,” Colt comments, watching the stream of people entering the church.
Understatement. I had to fish the suit I’m wearing out of a cardboard box because Lennon sorted the clothes I brought over from my parents’ right along with her grandfather’s things.
She hasn’t stopped moving in days. Stacking, sorting, cleaning, piling.
The bags beneath her eyes suggest she isn’t sleeping. And I know she’s hardly eating.
“Yeah,” I agree.
“You’re headed back today?”
I nod.
I don’t know what else to do. Staying this long was risky. If I wait much longer, I’ll be jeopardizing my spot on the team. You don’t miss training camp. Not as an inexperienced freshman, and most definitely not as the starting pitcher and team captain.
The days I’ve already missed required me to stare down a couple of ultimatums from the coaching staff. I’d stay—for her. Lennon is more important to me. But she doesn’t want me here. She’s made that clear. So I’ll give her space, if that’s what she needs to grieve.
Colt is silent as I watch more people walk by. Most of the pews are already full. I hope Lennon notices the large turnout. Landry may have its share of snobs, but Earl Matthews was a good man. He spent his whole life in this town, racing horses and raising his daughter and granddaughter.
“I should head in,” I tell Colt. Reluctantly. I’m dreading the service. And how I’ll have to leave, right after it ends.
“Yeah, okay,” he replies. “Luke and Jake are almost here. We’ll see you after.”
I nod, then start down the central aisle. Lennon is up ahead, standing just to the right of the altar. Her face is blank as she listens to something Eliza Gray is saying. Cassie Belmont is next to her.
Cassie spots me first. Her eyes widen, prompting Eliza to look over as well. Neither says anything as I reach them. Lennon’s friends clamming up around me used to be amusing and somewhat flattering, but right now it’s the last thing I’m thinking about.
“We’ll see you later, Lennon,” Cassie says, then pulls Eliza away.
I’m guessing they think this is a reunion of sorts, not that we’ve only been separated for the last half hour. While her grandfather’s friends have come by to help with the horses, Lennon hasn’t had anyone over since Earl died. She’s shutting everyone out, not just me.
We stare at each other for a few seconds.
“I’m sorry.” Lennon surprises me by speaking first. “For leaving without you. For lots of things.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I reply. Now isn’t the time or place for a deeper conversation.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Caleb,” she tells me, right before she steps forward into my chest.
I freeze at the unexpected contact, the first she’s initiated between us in days. I bend my head to kiss the top of hers, inhaling the familiar scent of her shampoo.
Rich organ music suddenly bellows through the church, putting a stop to any of the soft chatter that’s been taking place.
Lennon pulls back but grabs my hand. I follow her to the front pew and take the seat next to her. There’s no other family to sit alongside, but a few older men I recognize from stopping by Matthews Farm fill in the rest of the row.
One of them is Tom Stradwell, the owner of the local paper where Lennon has worked for the past few years. He gives me a nod of acknowledgement, which I return.
Lennon’s staring straight ahead at the minister climbing the few stairs to the altar. She’s still holding my hand, and grips it tighter once he starts speaking.
I listen to the sermon, but I’m not absorbing any of the words being spoken. My knowledge of what is planned during this service is limited to the little I overheard on Lennon’s end of phone calls over the past few days.
I have yet to open the pamphlet I’m clutching in the hand Lennon isn’t holding.
Instead, I’m thinking about the conversation I had with Lennon at my grandfather’s service.
When she told me what she had or hadn’t contributed at her parents’ funerals, I never imagined I would be the one sitting beside her at her grandfather’s.
As a teenager lusting after Lennon Matthews, I pictured the easy moments. Taking her to prom and getting to second base at one of Marcus’s field parties. Not the hard ones, like watching her say a final farewell to the man who raised her.
Lennon’s fingers slip free from mine, and she slides out of the end of the pew. Her spine is straight and her steps sure as she heads straight for the pulpit.
I’m not sure what she’s doing.
I get my answer as soon as she reaches the microphone.
The familiar strains of Kentucky’s most famous melody pour out of the organ, soaring through the air to collide with the sloped ceiling and stained glass.
Nostalgic notes vibrate the wooden pews and floor as Lennon starts to sing, her clear voice blending and weaving with the instrument’s accompaniment.
I’ve heard this song dozens of times. Most of them, I was slouched in a seat in my family’s private box at the track, counting down the minutes until we could leave and I could take off a stiff suit.
This time, I’m listening the girl I love pour her heart and soul into the sound. The lyrics hit differently as I picture Earl in his rocking chair on the front porch of the farmhouse each time Lennon sings my old Kentucky home .
I don’t see a dry eye in the church.
Mine aren’t.
The last note dies. Lennon descends the steps to return to my side.
As soon as she’s back in her seat, she grabs my hand again.
The action loosens the fist that’s been squeezing my chest ever since I saw that ambulance.
Assuages some of the fear that things between Lennon and me might never be the same.
A few words from the minister concludes the service. Our pew is the first to empty. I follow Lennon to the back of the church and outside into the heat.
Free from the echoey interior of the church, conversations pick up as attendees exit the building. Earl’s friends are the first group to reach Lennon. I step away, giving them space to talk to her alone. A middle-aged couple I don’t know are the next to exit, followed by one I do .
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask my parents when they reach me.
I told my mom about Earl’s passing when she called me a couple of days ago, but it never occurred to me she’d come to his service. Never mind my father. I think it’s been a full year since he’s set a foot in Landry.
“We wanted to pay our respects,” my mother replies, sweeping a hand across her brow to catch any stray blonde hairs. People are staring as they leave the church, and my mother’s worst nightmare is being seen looking anything but her best.
“Why?” I know my parents too well to think this is a selfless gesture. With them, there’s always an ulterior motive.
“We were visiting Landry for the Cup next week anyhow,” my father says. “Your mother suggested we move our arrival up. Louis tells me the filly has a real chance.”
I scoff. My father is a lot more interested in the money Winters Stables rakes in than the horses that garner it. He lets Louis, the trainer my grandfather held in higher regard than any of his blood relatives, handle everything related to the thoroughbreds.
“Lennon has a nice voice,” my mother states. I know what she’s doing, trying to shift the attention off the tension that’s swirled in almost every conversation my father and I have had for the past decade. “I had no idea she could sing so well.”
“Maybe if you’d ever put any effort into getting to know her, you would,” I reply.
“Caleb. Don’t speak to your mother like that.”
My jaw clenches to the point it’s painful.
“When are you leaving for Clarkson?” my mother asks, breaking the stiff silence.
“Soon. I have a weight session at four.”
“I can’t believe your coaches were all right with you staying in Landry after camp started,” my father comments. “It could look very irresponsible, Caleb.”
My mother jumps in. Probably sensing how close I am to losing my temper. “It was very thoughtful. Your father and I are just worried about how rash decisions might affect your future.”
My father doesn’t dispute her words, although we all know his definition of future is different from the one my mother’s referring to.
There are two clear paths waiting for me after graduation next spring: baseball or business. My mother wants me to play. My father wants me to join his company.
“Her grandfather died , Mom.”