Chapter Eight
T he next day, Buck put on his cowboy hat, a button-up shirt and a pair of blue jeans and went down to the local diner, where Marigold had said they were meeting the contractor over coffee and pancakes.
The boys were at school, and that meant Buck could focus on this project. He was also working toward getting the ranch prepared for cattle. But there was some time now between planning and when it would actually execute, so he didn’t need to worry about it today.
When he walked into the diner, he saw Marigold, sitting at a table with her red hair pulled up into a ponytail and a deeply contemplative expression on her face. She had a legal pad in front of her, which he thought was cute and old-fashioned. She was holding a pen.
He gestured toward the hostess, who had been about to seat him. “I’m with her.”
And then he went over and positioned himself across the table from her.
“Guess we’re early,” he said.
“Yeah. You want a coffee?”
“Sure. I’d never say no to that.”
The waitress came by, and he ordered coffee, waiting on food until the contractor showed up.
“So basically, you need a kitchen,” he said, a way to get her talking.
She nodded, and then started to explain the layout of the space. Buck really did think it was a great business idea.
“How did you get involved in this, anyway?” he asked.
“Well, I was cooking anyway. I wanted to be able to work from home so I could be with Lily, and I knew I was going to have to get creative because I didn’t even graduate high school.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
He knew a moment of anguish. Because her brother had died the night of his graduation. Because Buck had let his own life get derailed right after that. And it had carried back to Marigold. Who hadn’t even had a graduation. The ripple effect of tragedy was an alarming thing.
Especially when he knew he could trace his own behavior back to losing Sophia, his youngest sister.
He swallowed hard and looked down at his coffee. And just a moment later, a man approached the table carrying a large binder. “Marigold,” he said. “And you are?”
Buck stood. “Buck Carson.”
The contractor reacted to his name. And Buck evaluated the guy as about his age. He wondered if they had gone to school together.
“I’m Jackson. Delaney.”
Oh right. They had. They hadn’t really been friends, because Jackson had been a jock and Buck had been a fuckup. So. One of those had been required to maintain a certain grade point average. The other had not.
“Didn’t know you were back in town,” he said.
“Yeah. I am. I moved back a month or so ago.”
“Definitely didn’t expect to see you with Marigold.”
“Oh. Well. Jackson,” she said, reaching across the table and putting her hand over the top of his. Buck felt his hackles rise. And he couldn’t even quite say why.
Oh bullshit. You know why. You like her, and you don’t want her touching anyone else.
Sure. But that was nonsense. What did it matter?
“I really would appreciate if you kept this to yourself for now. Buck and I ended up meeting because of our kids. His boys are at the school now. And Lily and Colton are... They’re dating. So, we... reconnected.” She repeated that part. Probably because it was difficult to distill all of this. Probably because it still made her feel uncomfortable. And fair enough.
“I told Buck about my business idea, and he offered to invest. But I am not ready for that to be public information.”
“Oh yeah. Of course, but you’re sitting here in the diner with him.”
“I know. It’s not cloak-and-dagger. I just... I don’t want my parents to know yet that I am doing this with him. I’m going to talk to them.”
“Listen, I’m not going to spread around what’s happening. For a second thereabouts I thought maybe you were dating.”
Marigold laughed. Too loud and too long, and her cheeks went red. “No. Absolutely not. But you know... You know how kids are. And ours like each other. So what can you do?”
Jackson snorted. “Nothing. I mean, I know that well enough. If I was in charge of who Elizabeth dated, her roster would look a lot different.”
Buck felt the need to defend Colton, but he knew it wasn’t the time. Or the point. So they got to work discussing everything. And by the time it was done, he felt certainty in his gut.
When Jackson left, he turned to Marigold. “I’d like to talk to your parents.”
“What?”
“I’d like to talk to them about this. And I’d like to extend... I don’t know if an apology is the right word. Because being sorry about what happened is never going to change it. But I don’t want to create a situation where you have to hide, and... I need to build these bridges with everybody. I accepted that when I came home.”
“I don’t know that that’s totally fair,” she said.
“Listen, I don’t actually need absolution on the level you seem to think I do.” He took a breath. “I’ve lived in a state of self-pity for a long time. You don’t get anything accomplished. But I find that guilt, and the driving need to make up for the fact that I’m alive while they are gone, has turned me into a better person. I know that’s a double-edged sword. Because it almost doesn’t seem fair to have the chance to improve myself when they don’t. When they don’t get to grow and change.”
“The truth is, you didn’t cause that accident. The truth is, if you had been riding in the car, you would also be dead. The truth is, you didn’t make anybody drink.”
“Yeah. That is the truth. But the truth doesn’t serve anybody. Not half as well as a villain does. It doesn’t even serve me as well.”
“So you just... You’re just happy to be the scapegoat because it does something for you?”
“It makes me worth a hell of a lot more. And I can’t deny that it matters.”
“Let me... Let me call them.”
She got up from the table and went outside. He watched, as she wrapped one arm around herself and put the phone up to her ear. She bit her thumbnail as she waited, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She said hello, chewed her bottom lip. Beyond that he couldn’t quite tell what she was saying.
She looked upset. And then resolved. Grim. She nodded her head. Then she hung up her phone and walked back inside.
“Okay. We’ll go over there.”
“All right.”
The thought didn’t scare him. Because the worst-case scenario was that her dad would shoot him. And if that happened, he would be upset for his boys, but his family would take care of them. Support in any scenario was one reason it had been important that he give them this whole network. He didn’t want his boys’ happiness, their security, hinging only on him.
So really, even the worst case didn’t much worry him.
He felt like he had been living on borrowed time for the past twenty years. Also, he didn’t sincerely think her dad would kill him.
“Should we go together?”
“Sure,” she said.
“I’ll drive my truck.”
He remembered their house. A small, modest place right in town that had always felt quintessentially warm and familial to him. There was something about the smallness of it. It gave off a sense of togetherness. They were a nice family. They always had been.
“I don’t know... My parents and I have never really talked about any of this. They didn’t want to upset me. You know my mom was there when I confronted you...”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. I don’t need you to protect me from whatever they feel. They’re allowed to feel it.”
She nodded. “I actually want to protect them.”
“I get that too.”
They got out of the car, and walked up to the house together. He let her knock. When the door opened, both her parents were standing there. Jim and Nancy. They’d been the nicest people. Always welcomed the whole group of them into their house. Fed them, laughed with them.
It felt appropriate to say nothing. He didn’t know why. When he looked at them, it was with all the awe and reverence he felt when he walked into an old church. A hushed quietness and a sense of something he couldn’t quite define.
This really was staring down the past. Nancy was looking at him like she wasn’t sure what to make of him. And then she took a step forward and reached her hand out. Her fingertips connected with his face, softly. She traced a line on the side of his mouth. And her eyes filled with tears. “He would be your age now.”
He felt that, like a punch to the gut. A real, profound connection to that grief. As if it was fresh and new.
He nodded. “It’s been a while.”
“He would probably have some gray hair,” she said.
“Maybe so.” He could hardly speak around the lump in his throat.
And then she did something he didn’t expect. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. “Just let me hug you,” she said. “For a second.”
Buck had been through a lot. He’d cried about the loss of his friends. He’d cried when he got drunk and fucked-up on dark nights after that. But he’d not cried since he’d gotten sober. He had stopped indulging in self-pity. But this time, when he felt tears sting the backs of his eyes, it wasn’t self-pity. It was the bittersweet ache of knowing he was giving her a chance, just a moment, to feel like she was hugging her son. It was realizing he was an emblem of the past in this moment in a different way. One he never had been before.
When she released her hold on him, he looked over at Jim. The man didn’t say anything. But he nodded twice.
“Come on in,” Nancy said.
They walked into the house and took a seat on a blue faded couch that he was fairly certain was the same couch that had been here twenty years before.
“What is it you have to say, Buck Carson?” she asked.
“I moved back to town about a month ago,” he said. “I thought it was time. Time to stop running. Time to reconnect with my family. I adopted three boys, and they’re teenagers.”
“Lily is dating the oldest,” Marigold said.
He waited for them to get upset about that. But they didn’t react. Then he explained the business partnership. And how it had come up.
“But mostly, I wanted to say what I couldn’t say back then. I’m very sorry. For what happened.”
Nancy shook her head. “Nobody should bear the blame for that, Buck. Nobody. You were all too young to know how your actions could hurt you. It was a terrible thing. It still is. I grieved all the things my son could’ve had. But those eighteen years, that was his life. And I have also worked very hard to look back on that life as a wonderful, joyful thing. He had friends he cared for very much, and you were one of them. You were part of why his life was good. You weren’t just a part of the end of it.”
Buck sat there, completely astonished. This wasn’t just forgiveness. It was something else. It turned him into someone with the capacity to heal and not just hurt. It changed all the memories. Everything he had ever thought about that relationship.
It changed everything.
“Just one minute,” she said.
She got up off the couch and walked out of the room. And no one said anything in her absence. When she came back, she was holding a baseball glove. He recognized it right away. Jason had played for the school. He had loved it.
“Lily doesn’t play baseball. But you said you have three sons. Do any of them play?”
“They haven’t really had the chance yet. They... They all had it pretty tough.”
“Do any of them want to learn?” Jim asked.
“You know, they might.” It hurt to speak.
“Because I miss...” Jim cleared his throat. “I miss that. Throwing the ball around.”
“Well, I’m no good at it,” Buck said. “So if you want to...”
“Yes,” Nancy said. “That would be wonderful. Take this glove and tell them they can use it.”
She handed it to him, a precious, sacred object. And when he touched it, his throat went tight. “Thank you. I will take very good care of this. So will the boys.”
“Well, they don’t have to be too careful with it. They’re kids. And a baseball glove is meant to be played with.”
He saw that with clarity all of a sudden.
That they were kids. No matter that they were teenagers. They were so, so young.
He’d been young at eighteen too.
“Thank you.”
When they walked back out of the house, he didn’t know what to say. It was as if a weight had been lifted off him. One he had been clinging to for a long, damned time.
Marigold didn’t speak at all, and when they got into the truck, he noticed there were tears sliding down her cheeks.
He looked over at her. “I didn’t expect that,” he said.
“Neither did I,” she said. The tears fell fast. He had to fight the urge to reach out and wipe them off her face, because he shouldn’t be that familiar with her.
“You thought they were angry with me.”
She nodded. “Because I was. Because so many people in the town were. But... She’s right. You were a good part of Jason’s life. And you haven’t gotten to see yourself that way, and that’s not fair. He was more than one tragic accident, one bad choice. And if he’s more than that, then why can’t you be?”
He felt something calcified inside of him crack, fall away.
“You’re a good dad to those boys. I could see that last night when we had dinner. I could see how much they love you. You know, my brother had a great family. A wonderful life. Too short, but wonderful. I don’t let myself feel happy for that often enough. When you told me about poor Reggie... He’s a kid who hasn’t known enough happiness. I’m glad he’s knowing it now.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I have to tell you, I didn’t expect this when I came back here.”
“Did you want people to condemn you?”
“A little. My brother punched me in the face. I thought that might set the tone.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. It’s... It’s getting better. He carried a lot of very specific resentment about being left to be the oldest. To carry all the responsibility.”
“Well, we all fall victim to that, don’t we? Making other people the bad guys in our story.” She laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if Lily’s father was never as much of a villain to me because I already had one.”
“How can that guy not be a villain?”
“I think because he didn’t matter. Anyway, my parents are... They’re wonderful. And they’re great grandparents. My dad has been a fantastic father figure to her. She didn’t need the loser that I had sex with one time. And I didn’t need to be tied to him for the rest of my life. I’m grateful, in some ways, that he and I had a clean cut. Yes, some things were harder. But being with someone you don’t care about, that’s not going to make it easier.”
“I don’t know. The more I sit with that the more I just think maybe your family has a supernatural capacity to bend around a person’s limitations and create as kind a story as possible.”
She smiled. “That is an interesting way to put it. I appreciate it. And now there are no secrets. I have to remember that I shouldn’t try to protect them. We didn’t talk about you all this time because I was trying to protect them and they were trying to protect me. I think it would’ve been better if we had just been honest.” She let out a long breath. “Holding on to anger is exhausting. It’s a relief to let it go.”
He wasn’t so sure about letting go of guilt. Because it had been such a key, driving force for him.
Guilt was a comfort, really. It had been the thing that had ultimately pulled him out of the pit. Maybe that was a messed-up truth, but he had often felt that there were certain things some sorts of people had to be extra careful of. There was a reason he didn’t drink now. Not even in moderation. It was, in his opinion, a crutch he was prone to leaning on far too much.
Not everybody was so careful.
Maybe guilt was a crutch too. But he wasn’t going to wake up face down in a ditch because he had overindulged in guilt. So there was that.
But what had just happened in Marigold’s parents’ house was one of the more profound things he had ever experienced. So maybe there was value in being changed by it. In moving forward differently than he had been. Maybe.
Right now, they were starting something new. Something fresh.
For the first time, it really did feel like something good was growing from all that charred earth. And he had Marigold to thank for that.