Chapter Twelve #2
Noah picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. “You can go.”
“I sure could,” Caleb said, resting his forearms against his knees. “Daisy’s been hoping I’ll spend the evening listening to her complain about the quality of the hay.”
The boy’s mouth shifted, though he kept his gaze lowered. “Horses don’t complain.”
“You just haven’t met enough horses.”
Noah pulled the thread until it broke, then rolled it between his fingers. “I don’t need anyone trying to make me feel better.”
Caleb looked toward the window, where the pasture had begun fading beneath the evening shadows. “I used to say the same thing after my parents died.”
Noah’s fingers stilled.
Caleb rubbed one thumb across the rough edge of his palm as he spoke. “I believed working hard enough would keep me from missing them. Whenever the quiet got too heavy, I found another fence to mend, or another horse that needed handling.”
“Did it help?”
“It kept my hands busy, though grief has never cared much about a man’s work schedule.”
Noah glanced toward him, uncertainty softening the stubborn set of his face.
Caleb rested his forearms on the fence rail before speaking.
"My father used to say a house ought to sound lived in.
He didn't care if somebody tracked mud across the porch or a pan clattered onto the floor.
If he could hear people laughing, he figured everything important was right where it belonged.
" A faint smile touched his mouth. "I never understood him when I was a boy.
" He glanced toward the house. "I'm beginning to. "
A faint smile appeared on Noah’s face. “Maybe they did.”
Caleb chuckled. “I wouldn’t have blamed them.”
The smile remained, though sadness soon drew it away.
Caleb let the quiet settle before speaking again. “I remember my mother laughing while she cooked, and I can still see her wiping flour from her hands before she hugged me. Her voice has faded over the years, though.”
Noah looked at Caleb fully.
He had rarely spoken that truth aloud because admitting it had always felt close to betrayal. “I used to think forgetting the sound of her meant I hadn’t loved her enough.”
The boy’s eyes filled with tears, and he lowered his face before they could fall. “I’m forgetting Mama, too.”
Caleb stayed where he was, careful not to crowd him.
“I remember what she looked like,” Noah said, dragging his sleeve across his cheek.
“I can’t remember how she tucked the blankets around me anymore, though.
Maggie says Mama smelled like roses, but I don’t know whether I remember that or only remember Maggie telling me.
” His voice broke, and he stared down at his hands.
Caleb's chest tightened. He knew what it was to spend years carrying people who no longer had anywhere to live except inside his memory. Faces blurred. Voices faded. Sometimes he caught himself reaching for details he should've remembered without effort, and the guilt that followed never seemed to lessen. “Memories change when we carry them for a long time. That doesn’t mean they’ve stopped belonging to us.”
Noah’s breath shook. “Papa’s going to fade, too.” The fear in his voice revealed the child beneath all the solemn determination. He’d spent each day trying to work like Jonah and speak with Jonah’s certainty, as if copying his father’s habits could keep him close.
“I keep forgetting little things,” Noah continued. “I can’t remember which song he used to whistle when he fixed the fences, and sometimes I wake up without remembering his face right away.”
Caleb crossed the space between them and sat beside him, allowing their shoulders to touch. Noah stayed stiff at first, though he didn’t pull away.
“Your father and I argued about nearly every job we ever shared,” Caleb said. “He believed he knew more about horses than any man alive, which was impressive considering how often they ignored him.”
Noah sniffled and glanced toward him curiously. “But Papa really was good with horses.”
“He was, though he also tried to saddle one backward when we were seventeen.”
“You’re teasing.”
“He claimed the horse had turned around while he wasn’t looking, I swear.”
A laugh escaped Noah, seeming to surprise the boy in the midst of his sadness.
Caleb smiled as he remembered Jonah standing beside the confused mare, defending himself with such confidence that Caleb had almost believed him. “He also claimed his coffee was the finest in Wyoming.”
Noah wiped his face again. “Everyone said it tasted awful.”
“It could’ve stripped paint from a wagon.”
The boy’s laughter grew warmer, and Caleb felt part of the heaviness leave the loft.
“I remember stories from before you were born,” Caleb said. “You remember parts of him I never saw because he was your father.”
Noah’s brow furrowed. “What happens when one of us forgets?”
“We’ll ask the other.”
The answer carried a certainty Caleb hadn’t expected to speak with, though he understood it as soon as he spoke.
Jonah had left pieces of himself with everyone who’d loved him, and no single person had to guard them all.
“If you forget how he laughed, I’ll remind you,” Caleb continued.
“When I forget the way he looked after a long day, you can tell me what he did when he came through the door.”
“He always checked on Maggie first,” Noah whispered. “Even when she was asleep.”
Caleb rested a hand against the boy’s shoulder. “Then we’ll remember that together.”
Noah leaned against him, the tension slowly leaving his narrow frame.
They sat beneath the fading light while the horses shifted in their stalls and the scent of hay rose through the loft. Caleb had spent years believing grief was a burden each man had to carry alone, yet Noah’s small weight against his side revealed how wrong he’d been.
Remembering Jonah wouldn’t depend on one wounded man or one frightened boy holding every detail with perfect accuracy. They could carry the memories between them, sharing the weight whenever it grew too heavy.