Chapter 13 Steven
Chapter thirteen
Steven
When We Would Visit
Coming home used to be one of the highlights of my year. In college, I was counting down the days until I could whip down the road to my parents’ ranch and shut out the world for a while.
Lately, though, it’s the opposite. I can’t escape reality here, even if I try. The reality that comes with being here is a million times heavier than anywhere else.
“We’re here!” Emma announces as we step into the foyer.
Instantly, we’re swallowed up by the noise of family. Dad, my sisters, nieces and nephews. The annual birthday celebration for Mom is already in full swing. Happy Birthday is scrawled across a banner that is half-hung over the fireplace, a loose end flapping in the wind from the open window.
“Let me see my boys!” Tamara, my eldest sister, calls as she barrels down the staircase.
Scooping Sawyer and Easton up into her arms is a challenge for her weak knees, but the boys giggle like it’s a game when she wobbles backward.
Emma winces, but Tamara catches herself and whisks the boys away to the living room.
“Let me help you with that,” Dad says, grabbing Emma’s bags. He winks at me, silently reminding me that I can carry my own. I chuckle and follow him down the hall to our bedroom for the weekend.
“How was the drive?” he asks, hauling Emma’s suitcase onto the bed.
“Pretty smooth. Sawyer is furious we didn’t stop to see the cows, though.” I grin, remembering the herd awaiting us as we drove in.
“I’ll take him out later,” Dad promises.
“You better, or I’ll have to answer for it.”
His white beard shifts as he smiles, and I mindlessly unpack—hanging clothes, stacking toiletries, plugging in the sound machine.
I nearly forget Dad is lingering in the doorway when he chuckles and says, “You kids and your technology.”
“Have you used one?” I ask, motioning to the little machine now humming softly.
“Heck no. That’s my lullaby.” He waves at the large window facing out to the west, where the pasture stretches green and endless, colliding with the clear-blue sky, and cows scattered in the distance.
The sight softens me. It’s been years since I’ve stood here long enough to let any kind of quiet sink in.
My chest lightens as I breathe in slowly, caught for a moment by the sunlight slicing through the room, dust suspended like glitter in the heat. I let the warmth rest on my skin one beat longer before I turn back to Dad.
“Better?” he asks knowingly.
“Definitely. Where’s Mom?” I ask as we head back toward the noise of the living room.
“She hasn’t had a good day,” Tamara answers from the floor, where she’s building a block castle with Easton.
“Want me to go check on her?” I ask.
“Emma’s with her,” Jay, my other sister and Tamara’s twin, says, and I realize I hadn’t even noticed Emma slip away. “Maybe give them some space. You know Emma’s her favorite.”
“I’m well aware.” I chuckle, veering toward the kitchen.
Dad follows. “So, how’s work been?” He pulls a cast-iron skillet from the cupboard and lights the stove. “Fried?”
I nod and he drops eggs into the pan. “Feels like it never ends. Flu season’s brutal, and we’re short-staffed, so I keep covering shifts.” At this, a full-body yawn escapes me.
“But it’s good. I’m on track to be chief next year.”
“Are you getting sleep?” he asks, unimpressed by the promotion and more concerned for my well-being.
“Kind of,” I admit through another yawn.
“You’re going to run yourself in the ground,” he mutters as he peppers the eggs, the crackling heat wafting across the kitchen.
“I’ll be fine.” I shrug off his concern and focus on the bread I’m now slicing. His worry has to be saved for Mom, not me. “Besides, I’ve got four-year-old twins. Sleep is a myth.”
A laugh bursts out of him, and gratitude blooms in my chest at the sound.
It’s been months since I’ve heard him laugh.
Everything with Mom has swallowed him whole, dimming that warm light he used to carry so easily.
He isn’t quite the man who raised me anymore.
The one full of life and hope and excitement. And it’s heartbreaking.
But then we get moments like this, where he’s laughing again, patting me on the back, that familiar spark in his eyes. Not the full glow I remember, but enough. Hope is still in there.
“I remember when you were six and you went through this weird sleep phase.” He chuckles as the memory fills his mind, flipping the sandwiches onto plates.
“You’d climb into our bed every night, wiggling for hours.
I don’t think I’d ever been so tired in my life.
Even more than when you were a baby.” His laugh is bittersweet, one tangled with joy and loss.
It’s the kind of laugh that comes with the aching realization that time has passed.
“At least as a baby,” he continues, “I could lay you on my chest, and you’d fall asleep. But at six, you were wild and chatty, asking me a million questions at two in the morning.”
“They say that’s a sign of genius,” I joke.
His smile softens as he turns off the stove.
With his back turned to me, he still looks like the dad from my childhood—strong and unshakeable, dependable.
But when he faces me again, I see the truth: the weariness in his eyes, the exhaustion carved into his brow, and the weight of life settling into every line of his face.
His brown eyes flicker to mine, and I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking on my end, but it feels like he sees his own reflection. A young dad, tired but trying.
“Will you take this upstairs to the girls?” he asks, handing me two plates: one sandwich without crusts for Mom, one with extra pickles for Emma.
Something tugs at me, a small nudge to not leave him yet. “Dad, I—”
“It’s alright,” he interrupts gently. “These memories are good. I’m glad to have something to miss.” And the weight of those words follows me up the stairs.
My parents’ bedroom door is cracked, and music spills into the hallway—Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock.” As I push the door open, I see Emma dancing as she brushes Mom’s hair.
Mom is beaming at her in the mirror, her gray eyes conflicted between registering that this is someone she should know and soaking up the joy that billows off of her as she bounces around.
The sight pulls a smile across my face, and warmth spreads through me at the two women I love most being happy, if only for a song.
As the music ends, Emma collapses back onto the bed, breathless like she just ran a marathon.
I laugh at her, and they both catch me in the mirror.
“Don’t laugh. I haven’t been to the gym in months!” She pants, grinning.
I feign innocence and hold the sandwiches up as a peace offering.
Emma takes hers, still horizontal on the mattress.
Mom watches us with a smile that’s unrecognizable to me now.
A mixture of the one I grew up with and another that’s entirely foreign.
I can see it on her face, the weary forgetfulness.
The confusion that I’m clearly her son, but not the one she remembers.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, leaning down to kiss her head. Her shoulders ease at my touch.
“Steven.” Her weathered voice is bright as she turns to me, but the moment her gaze drifts to Emma, the light fades. There’s no recognition, just confusion and a flash of sadness.
Knowing Emma, she probably reminded Mom who she was the second she walked in, probably showed her our wedding photos, maybe even videos of the kids, anything to give Mom something to hold on to so the forgetfulness wouldn’t hurt as much.
She tries to hide it, forcing a perked-up smile as I sit on the bed.
But when Emma kisses me on the cheek, the smile falls. The sliver of joy she was reaching for disappears, replaced by the quiet ache of not knowing her own daughter-in-law. The wedding, her grandkids, the life we’ve built…it’s all a mystery to her.
And the weight of that truth presses hard on my chest.
I couldn’t imagine forgetting.