26. Callie
CALLIE
The house looked exactly as it had a week ago.
Wade's rental sat on a quiet street in town, with a narrow porch and white siding that needed a fresh coat. I parked on the curb and sat with my hands on the wheel, telling myself this was reasonable. He was still my husband. I could knock on his door without it meaning anything.
My pulse kicked up anyway.
I had practiced this in my head the whole drive over. I would tell him about the goat, ask if he could check on it, and leave. Simple. Easy. It didn't have to be complicated.
Except everything with Wade was complicated now, even the things that should have been simple.
I knocked before I could talk myself out of it.
Wade answered fast enough that he must have seen me pull up.
He wore jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot, his hair still damp from a shower.
Heat crawled up my neck at the sight of him dressed down like that, comfortable in a space I had stood in only a week ago.
I had thought about this house more than I wanted to since then, the sagging couch and the blank walls.
Seeing him back in it was worse than remembering it, somehow.
"Callie." His voice was careful, like I was something that might spook.
"I won't stay," I said quickly. "I just need to tell you something."
He stepped back, holding the door open wider. "Come in."
I hesitated, then stepped past him into the narrow hallway. The house smelled like him, that mix of soap and something warm I had never been able to name. It hit me hard enough that my chest went tight.
It was just as I remembered. The couch still sagged in the middle. The walls were still blank, no photographs. No boots by the door. No sign that anyone actually lived here beyond the basics. It looked like a place he was passing through, not living in, and something about that made my throat ache.
I stayed near the door, my keys still in my hand. "One of the goats at the rescue is sick. Jolene thinks it's bloat, but I'm worried it might be something worse. She's doing what she can, but she can't be there all night, and I just thought?—"
I stopped, hearing myself ramble. God, I sounded like I was making excuses, like I was apologizing for bothering him. I cleared my throat and tried again.
"I thought maybe you could check on it. Just once or twice tonight, to see if it's getting worse."
Wade was already nodding before I finished. "What time?"
I blinked at him. "What?"
"What time do you need me there?"
The question was so straightforward it threw me.
I had expected him to say he would call someone, or to ask why I couldn't do it myself.
I had expected him to wave it off and tell me Jolene had it handled and I was worrying over nothing like I always did, the way he used to say it.
"Callie, you're making a mountain out of an anthill. "
"Around midnight," I said slowly, watching his face. "And again at three or four, if you can."
"I'll be there." He reached for his phone on the arm of the couch, already pulling it up like he was setting a reminder. "Text me what to look for."
My breath caught. He wasn't asking questions. He wasn't telling me I was overreacting. He was just—listening.
"Okay," I managed.
Wade looked up from his phone. "Anything else?"
I shook my head, not trusting my voice to stay steady.
He walked me to the door, and I was suddenly aware of how close he was, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him.
My pulse kicked up again, that stupid automatic response I couldn't control.
I hated that I still noticed. I hated that it still mattered, that my body remembered things my head was trying to forget.
"Thanks," I said quietly, reaching for the doorknob.
Wade's hand came up like he meant to touch my arm, then dropped back to his side. "It's not a problem, Callie."
I left before I could do something stupid like ask to stay, like tell him I had been testing him, like admit that this whole thing had been about finding out if he would hear me the first time.
The next morning, I drove past the rescue on my way into town. Jolene's truck was there, parked in its usual spot near the barn. Wade's truck was next to it.
I pulled in without thinking about it, gravel crunching under my tires.
The barn was cool and dim after the brightness outside, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust. The goat Wade had checked on was up and moving, nosing at the scattered hay on the ground like nothing had ever been wrong with her.
Wade stood near the pen with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his forearms tanned and dust-streaked, talking to Jolene about something I couldn't hear from the doorway.
He had done it.
He had gone in the middle of the night, twice, without me reminding him or calling to make sure he remembered. He had treated it like it mattered, like my worry was something real and not just me being dramatic.
The relief hit me so hard I had to stop walking for a second.
Jolene saw me first. She said something to Wade, and he turned, his expression going careful the way it always did now when he looked at me, like he was trying to figure out what I needed before I said it.
"She's better," I said, nodding at the goat. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"Yeah." Wade's mouth kicked up at one corner, almost a smile. "Stubborn as hell, but she's eating again."
"She gave us a scare," Jolene added, brushing hay off her jeans. "Wade caught it before it got bad."
I looked at Wade, and something in my chest shifted. He had been here. He had done what I asked. He had listened the first time.
Jolene crossed her arms, her gaze flicking between us like she was deciding something. "I'll be in the office. Got paperwork."
She left before I could tell her I wasn't staying, her boots loud on the barn floor.
Wade and I stood there in the quiet, nothing between us but ten feet of concrete floor and hay dust drifting in the light and everything I wasn't saying.
"I should go," I said finally.
Wade nodded, but he didn't move. Neither did I.
I wanted to ask him if it had been hard, getting up in the middle of the night to check on an animal that wasn't even his responsibility.
I wanted to ask if he had thought about me while he was here, standing in the barn at three in the morning with a flashlight and a sick goat.
I wanted to ask if this meant anything, or if it was just him being decent because that was who he was when you stripped everything else away.
But I didn't ask any of it.
Finally I turned and walked out, my hands shaking, before the hope I had been trying so hard to ignore could grow any bigger.
Jolene's house smelled like coffee and the lavender soap she made in batches and sold at the farmer's market every Saturday. She let me in without a word, took one look at my face, and poured me a mug I didn't ask for.
"Sit," she said.
I sat at the kitchen table, and wrapped my hands around the warm ceramic.
"He checked on the goat," I said.
Jolene sat down across from me, cradling her own mug. "I know. I was there when he showed up at midnight like you'd asked him to."
"I didn't think he would." The admission came out quiet.
"But he did."
I stared down at the coffee, watching steam curl off the surface. "He didn't even ask me to repeat myself. I told him once, and he just—he listened. He didn't wave it off. He didn't tell me I was overreacting or making something out of nothing."
Jolene's mouth softened, and I knew what she was thinking before she said it. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing." The word came out too fast, too defensive. "The divorce is still going ahead."
"Callie."
"What?" I looked up at her, my chest tight. "What do you want me to say? That one sick goat fixes everything? That I should just forget the last ten years because he finally listened to me once?"
Jolene didn't flinch. She just sat there, waiting.
I set the mug down harder than I meant to. "I handed you the rescue. I gave it to you when I married him, and I told myself that was fine, that I didn't need it anymore because I had the ranch and the family and him. I told myself I was part of something bigger."
My voice cracked, and I hated it, hated that I couldn't say this without falling apart.
"I wasn't part of anything. I was just there, doing the work nobody saw and getting none of the credit for it.
And I was so afraid to say it out loud because saying it would mean admitting I'd made a mistake, that I'd given up the one thing that was actually mine for a life that didn't have room for me in it. "
Jolene reached across the table and gripped my hand hard enough that I felt it in my bones. "You're saying it now."
I nodded, blinking hard against the sting in my eyes. "I'm saying it now."
"And the rescue?" Her voice was gentle.
"It's still mine," I said firmly. "I'm helping again. I'm there. You don't have to carry it alone anymore, the way you've been carrying it."
Jolene's eyes went bright, but she didn't look away. "I never wanted to carry it alone either. I just didn't want you to feel like you had to choose between it and him."
"I know," I said, squeezing her hand back.
We sat there for a moment, the silence comfortable in a way it hadn't been in weeks. The coffee was cooling between us, forgotten.
"Shelby called yesterday," Jolene said suddenly, her voice going flat the way it always did when that name came up.
My stomach dropped like a stone. "What did she want?"
"She didn't say. Left a message asking me to call her back, like we're friends or something." Jolene's jaw tightened, her mouth going hard. "I deleted it."
I should have told her to call Shelby back, to find out what she wanted, to not let her get under her skin like that. But I didn't. I just nodded, grateful beyond words that Jolene was there.
"You let Wade in," I said after a moment, changing the subject before I had to think about what Shelby might want. "To nurse the animals."
Jolene raised an eyebrow. "Yeah."
"Why?"
"He asked." She tilted her head, studying me like she was trying to read something I hadn't said. "And he meant it. Why?"
I looked down at my hands, at the bare place on my finger where my wedding ring used to sit.
"I'm glad you did. I think—I think he's actually listening now.
Not just hearing me and then doing what he was going to do anyway, but really listening.
And I know it might not last, and I know one sick goat doesn't fix ten years of him putting everything else first, but?—"
I stopped, pressing my lips together to keep the rest of it locked inside.
Jolene waited, patient as stone.
"I can't help it," I said finally, and my voice broke on the words. "I want to believe him."
"Then believe him," Jolene said simply.
"What if I'm wrong?" The fear tasted bitter. "What if this is just—what if he goes back to how he was, and I let myself hope for nothing?"
"Then you'll know." Jolene leaned back in her chair, her expression serious. "But, Callie, you've spent ten years being wrong about what he could give you. Maybe it's time to find out if you're wrong about what he can't."
I looked down at my mug, at the coffee I still hadn't touched. My wedding ring was gone, my finger bare, and the divorce papers still weren't ready, and the lawyer's office in town had said another week. Nothing had changed. Everything was exactly the same as it had been a week ago.
Except Wade had listened to me the first time I asked.
He had shown up at midnight without being reminded.
He had done what I needed without me having to beg for it or explain why it mattered or convince him I wasn't just being dramatic.
"I don't know what to do," I admitted, the words scraping out of me.
"You don't have to know yet," Jolene said gently.
I wanted to argue. I wanted to say that not knowing was worse than being sure, that hope was more dangerous than anger because anger kept you safe and hope left you wide open to getting hurt all over again.
But I didn't say any of it, because sitting there in Jolene's kitchen with the sun slanting through the window, I knew it wasn't true.
The hope was mine, and so was the rescue.
"Okay," I said.
Jolene squeezed my hand once, hard, and let go.
I stayed until the coffee was cold and the sun had moved all the way across the kitchen floor, turning the wood gold.
We talked about nothing important after that—the farmer's market, the lavender that was coming in thick this year, the rain we desperately needed.
We didn't talk about Wade again. We didn't talk about Shelby or the divorce or what came next.
We just sat there together, two women who had been friends longer than I had been married, and for the first time in weeks, I let myself feel something other than afraid.
When I finally stood to leave, my legs stiff from sitting, Jolene walked me to the door.
"He's listening, Callie," she said quietly.
I nodded, my throat too tight to answer.
I believed her.