Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mark’s discussion with Rusty about the viability of dating someone long distance haunted him as he continued on about his daily life. Like an echo of his warning about the viability of such thing, his friend’s words drifted to him constantly. Every time Mark ached to wrap his arms around her or even to snatch the merest whiff of her rain-like fragrance, in fact.
The odds aren’t exactly in your favor, but what else can you do? The question might as well have been written on his brain.
When he’d suggested it to Val, it’d seemed like a step forward, like sliding a placeholder into a spot on a wall to filled with a real portrait later. Only Mark didn’t know when that portrait might ever get painted. Or even if it might be.
It was precarious place to be in a romance.
He hadn’t told her the other part Rusty had unraveled, the part where Mark had fallen in love with her. Val deserved to know, but he had his reasons for not sharing. One, such a vital piece of information should be given to the one he meant it for in person, not over the phone or even a Zoom call. Two, he didn’t know how she’d respond to such a declaration. And three, it might be jumping the gun.
How could he possibly confess to having such an intense and binding feeling toward someone when their lips hadn’t even met? Who even his hugs had been briefer and more fleeting than he would’ve liked? Those embraces had also been utterly platonic, a friend in need leaning on another friend. That was all.
But things had gone so far beyond that point since then. Or he wanted to believe that, anyway.
In spirit, he and Val might be together, but when it came to reality, they weren’t. They’d agreed upon this arrangement six weeks ago now—an anniversary of sorts—but they had no legit way of celebrating the milestone, minor as some might consider it.
He went to work, completed his various duties, visited his mom and sister, and came home. That was his routine, one that hadn’t altered much at all not only since meeting Val but in years. Maybe if that wasn’t the case, if something about their circumstances had fundamentally altered how they conducted their lives, he would’ve felt more fulfilled and less lonely, but he didn’t.
Unless he was literally speaking to Val and hearing her voice, he missed her, and there was no escaping that.
She continued performing, and as a method to ease their separation, she’d started to send him videos someone else had taken of her events, probably her assistant. Once, the videos included a ceremony where Val’s ride had been award-winning, enabling her to take home the top prize. But he never got to be there to celebrate with her. Not once so far.
It nagged at him like a toothache.
Especially since he’d tried yet again to get away, but to no avail. Blair’s car had broken down across town right as he’d been getting ready to leave, and since their mom didn’t drive—she didn’t even have a license and never had—Mark felt duty-bound to go pick her up.
And yes, his sister apologized profusely once she’d realized the inconvenience she’d caused. Blair was aware of Mark and Val’s situation. But that didn’t undo it. By the time he’d brought his sister where she needed to go and spoken to the mechanic himself to make sure she received a fair deal like any good brother should, the opportunity had vanished. Disappeared like smoke.
It’d been a longshot anyway, but still.
He couldn’t be mad at Blair—and he wasn’t—but he could spit nails at how fate kept yanking his chain. Was it taunting him? Leading him with a carrot on a string that would be forever out of reach? Was that what Val would always be? Out of his reach?
It was beginning to appear that way.
This morning Mark had gone ahead and visited Fred’s skilled nursing facility since he found out he had a three-hour window before he’d have to turn around and go back. But as soon as he arrived, he discovered that while Val had been there at her homestead two hours previous, she’d since gone. Departed for one of her rodeos.
It came as such a huge blow that he didn’t plan to tell her today. Maybe not ever. Mark had intended it as a special surprise anyway and didn’t want her disappointed. He even swore her dad to secrecy. It would be no use for her to feel as letdown as Mark himself did.
“Mark,” Fred said, as his nurses watched him get into bed. He was doing it just fine on his own now, but the place required supervision. “You went to all this trouble. I feel terrible.”
Internally, Mark thought, Tell me about it .
He just couldn’t seem to win for losing. So, left with no other choice, he did a one-eighty and returned home. Once there Mark did his best to focus on the constituents of his town. He continued to make safety his priority. He came up with busywork projects so he couldn’t concentrate on what had happened.
Yet the following day Mark realized that he had literally now spent more time with Fred Bernard than he had his daughter. His acknowledgement of that made it difficult to get through the rest of his day. How could such a scenario work out for he and Val in the end?
Mark didn’t know that it could.
On their next phone conversation, he tried to contribute, but he was losing heart. He kept offering her these long, drawn-out silences to the point that she finally said, “Well, you sound tired. Guess we’d better hang up.”
So they did, and he doubted things would ever improve.
His mom invited him over for dinner, and though he didn’t want to go, he did so out of obligation.
“Honey,” she said as he picked at his food, his chin in his hand. “You look terrible. Won’t you tell us what’s wrong?”
Mark delayed answering. He’d been the man of the house for so long, and giving his family cause to worry about him wasn’t what he was supposed to do. But then, as he slumped there almost despondently at the kitchen table, his mom rested her hands on his shoulders. Blair even seized his forearm.
“This is about Val, isn’t it?” his sister ventured. “About how you’re not often together.”
“We’re never together,” he blurted, louder than intended, so loudly in fact that it made his throat hurt. That wasn’t the only thing that hurt, either. His chest, his stomach, his head. It all hurt. Any time he missed her. Which turned out to basically be all the time. “I guess…” He didn’t have any desire to say this, but it’d become too much. “I guess I should split up with her.”
His mom squeezed his shoulders. “Did I ever tell you what your father and I used to do when we were dating?”
“Gross, Mom,” Blair objected, and their mother smacked her on the hand.
“When we met, I was just a girl. A fifteen-year-old girl. And my family was extremely old-fashioned. They didn’t believe in their daughter leaving the house with a boy until the age of sixteen. At that point, that was nine months away, so Alec and I, we wrote letters.”
His mother disappeared, and after a moment, returned with a massive cardboard box. There was nothing about the outside that identified it as special, but she held it like she might something irreplaceable and precious. She opened the top and inside were dozens of letters separated into two batches and tied with ribbons. On them, Mark could detect—how was that even possible after all these years?
“Is that Dad’s aftershave?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “He never changed it. Not ever.”
“Ooh, what’d he write?” Blair wanted to know, but Mark wasn’t so sure. Particularly not when his mom went so far as to slip one out as if to read it. Aloud .
How could that possibly be a good idea?
“Isn’t that private?” he asked. This felt like crossing a line somewhere.
“Yes,” his mom said, undaunted. “But they’re also quite innocent.” She proceeded to read about the passing fancies of a teenage girl from decades ago, discussing subjects like which songs were her favorite on the radio and which magazines she liked to buy. “In my day, magazines used to be made of glossy paper with pictures and perfume inserts rather than being online.”
“Paper?” Blair pretended to look baffled. “Never heard of it. Must be from the Dark Ages.”
Mark rolled his eyes at her, another throwback to his own days long gone by. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d rolled his eyes at his sister. Maybe when he’d been a teenager.
Seemed their mother’s nostalgia was bringing out theirs, as well.
“What are you saying, Mom?” he asked. What was the point of this? “I should write Val letters?”
“Yes. I think you should. Is it as good as spending time in each other’s company? No. But is it an upgrade over all this cold technology?” She indicated his and Blair’s cellphones, both of which had been left on the table by their plates. “Absolutely.
“There’s something about the tactile feel of a piece of paper or stationery you know someone you care about has taken the time to handwrite their thoughts and feelings on. It’s a different manner of getting to know someone that has largely been lost in today’s society. But I highly recommend it.”
Mark’s inherent skepticism reared its head big time. As a sheriff, he was about proof, evidence, witnesses, and facts. And frankly, he didn’t see how communicating via snail mail would provide any benefit. It took longer and cost the money of pressing a stamp on the corner, too. Not that he couldn’t continue to call and text Val. He just doubted this would help them keep whatever affection they had for each other kindled.
But what other options did he have?
Stopping by the Sip ‘N Shop on his way home, he located a spiral notebook like students still used. The main thing was that it had those tiny perforations along the side that would allow him to rip the paper out with having all those messy, tangled edges. He had enough messes and tangles in his life already.
Then, there was the matter of the pen. Did he go with a regular black ink pen or get something with more flare? Blue ink seemed almost as standard as black, while red seemed like overkill. What would Val think of receiving a letter from in written in red ink? Wouldn’t that be over the top?
He stuck with the blue.
Mark wished he had the talent to draw her a little picture or something, but that had never been a skill he’d been able to hone. In school, he’d been decent at math even if he hadn’t had much interest. His true love had been riding horses—a hobby he’d let go of when his dad died—and as a law enforcement officer, keeping order.
Once back in his vehicle, he scratched at the spot under the brim of his hat where it laid on his forehead. Had his life really become that dull?
Well, no. Not when it came to maintaining the safety of his community. But who was he kidding? How often did a small town like Rocky Ridge have huge and adrenaline filled events like ninety mile an hour car chases or fifty vehicle pileups? That was a good thing, of course. Something he was immensely grateful for. As a sheriff, quiet and boring was the dream.
What about his other dreams, though?
Mark thought back to when he’d been that calf roping teenage boy, participating in rodeos not only because he could do the task and do it well, but because it’d been fun. Enjoyable. His current job required so much time and seriousness that he rarely had fun. He didn’t let himself have fun. He had more important priorities.
What Val did for a living was fun for her. Despite all the complications of previously being involved with the wrong man, he knew she had a fabulous time when out there in that stadium on Maybelline. He could see it in the light in those amber eyes of hers when she talked about it. He could hear the pure elation in her voice when she nailed a particularly difficult stunt or when she’d been honored with yet another award to add to her collection.
That was the difference between him and Val. She was living her dream while he was living his responsibilities.
Not that he minded. Honestly, he didn’t. He was doing the right thing and gained a lot of satisfaction in that knowledge. Mark knew his dad could see him, that he would approve of how he’d stepped up to that plate.
It was simply that sometimes, Mark felt a little hollow. Not about his work or family life. Never those. But when he came home to an empty soundless house every single time. When his kitchen remained precisely how he left it, whether with old coffee in his coffeemaker or completely pristine, because no one else was there to use it, that hollowness reared its nasty head.
Sure, that meant less cleanup, but what would it have been like to enter his front door and smell Val’s rain-like perfume? Or to step into his shower stall and see her bottles of hair care products? To see her lotions and things on his vanity rather than nothing but his plain white terrycloth towels? To know that even if she’d gone temporarily away, she’d be back?
Would that ever happen?
When he’d met Val—despite the negative circumstances surrounding it—she’d blazed across his night sky like a comet. He’d been in this rut for years, and while he mostly liked that rut, he had this hole in his life. Even with this thing being long distance, Val had started to fill it. Filled his heart and warmed his spirit.
With that in mind, Mark set his pen to the paper and began.