10. Lo #2
“Lo-” He says my name like it’s the only card he has left.
“I need space. I need time to think. I need to figure out what to do about this baby without you standing there looking at me like I’m supposed to fix everything.”
“I could help-” he tries.
“You’ve been helping from Nashville for a year. You’ve been helping by phone and text and the occasional FaceTime when your schedule allows. That’s not the kind of help I need.”
“Then what kind of help do you need?” His voice is wrecked now.
“I need you to let me go.”
“I can’t do that.” He shakes his head, once, hard.
“You can. You’ve been doing it for months. You just didn’t notice because I was still here when you came back.”
“I always come back.” Like it’s a promise. Like it’s ever been enough.
“Do you? Because it feels like each time you’re gone longer. Each time there’s more distance. Each time I have to work harder to remember why I married you in the first place.”
“You married me because you loved me.”
“I married you because I believed you when you said you’d never be anywhere but here.” The words taste like the vow they came from. “I believed you when you said this ranch, this house, this bed - that was your whole life. That was all you wanted.”
“It is all I want.”
“Then why are you never here? Why do I spend more time with Cal and Miguel than I do with my own husband? Why do I know more about your schedule from Instagram than I do from you?”
“Because every show was supposed to be the one that bought us a future. That’s what I kept telling myself.” He spreads his hands like he’s showing me the future in the air.
“Our future is now, Jesse. Our future is this baby I’m carrying. Our future is the ranch that’s falling apart because there aren’t enough hands to run it. Our future is right in front of you, and you keep looking past it to the next show, the next city, the next opportunity.”
“I’m looking at you right now.”
“Because I’m leaving.” I lift the suitcase off the bed and set it on the floor between us like a border. “That’s the only reason you’re looking at me. If I wasn’t packing this suitcase, you’d be downstairs with Sloane, planning your damage control.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? When’s the last time you really looked at me, Jesse? When’s the last time you saw me as something other than a problem to manage?” I hear the crack in it and hate it.
“You’ve never been a problem.”
“I’ve been nothing but a problem. I’ve been the wife you had to hide. The marriage you had to deny. The inconvenient truth that didn’t fit your brand.”
“You’re not inconvenient.”
I set my hand flat on the top of the suitcase and make myself say the rest slow, so there’s no mistaking it. “I’m pregnant. I’m about six weeks along. I’m going to have a baby. Your baby. And I need you to understand something: I will not raise this child the way I’ve been living this past year.”
“I would never ask you to-”
“I won’t explain to my kid why Daddy’s always on tour. I won’t make excuses for missed birthdays and forgotten holidays. I won’t watch my child’s face fall every time you promise to be home and then don’t show up.” My hand is shaking on the handle of the suitcase.
“I’ll show up. I’ll always show up.”
“Will you? Because you’ve been saying that for a year, and I’m still standing here alone.”
“You’re not alone. I’m right here.” He says it to my back.
“You’re here now because you don’t have a choice. Tonight you’ll be on a bus to somewhere else, and I’ll be here, and nothing will have changed.”
“I’ll cancel the tour.” He reaches for his phone again.
“No, you won’t.”
“I will. I’ll call Harlan right now-”
“And then what? You’ll resent me for it. You’ll blame me for holding you back. You’ll look at me and see the woman who ruined your career.” I’ve watched it happen to other people.
“That would never happen.”
“It’s already happening. Every time you choose the tour over coming home, a little piece of you blames me for making you feel guilty about it. I can see it in your face. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I don’t blame you for anything.” But he says it too fast.
“Then why do you keep leaving?”
He doesn’t answer.
I walk to his duffel bag. I know exactly where to look. The side pocket. The one where he keeps the things he doesn’t want anyone to see.
The ring is there. Plain gold band. Slightly scratched from years of ranch work.
I pick it up.
“Lo-”
I walk back to him. I take his hand, his left hand, the bare one, and I close his fingers around the ring.
“You don’t wear it anyway.”
He stares at the ring in his fist.
“I’ll put it back on. Right now. I’ll never take it off again.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It matters to me.” His fist closes tighter around it.
“Then you should have thought about that before you took it off.”
I pick up my suitcase. I walk to the door.
“Please.”
I stop in the doorway and keep my eyes on the hall.
“Please what, Jesse?”
“Please don’t go.”
“Give me a reason to stay.”
Silence.
“That’s what I thought.” I reach for the doorknob.
“I love you. Isn’t that a reason?”
“It should be. It used to be. But love without action is just a word. And you’ve been giving me words for a year while your actions said something else entirely.”
“Let me prove it. Let me show you-”
“How? By canceling one tour? By wearing your ring for a few weeks until the next opportunity comes along?” I turn to face him one more time. “I don’t want grand gestures, Jesse. I want consistency. I want a partner who’s actually here.”
“I can be that.”
“I don’t know if you can. I don’t know if you even want to be.”
“I want to be whatever you need me to be.” He takes a step toward me.
“Then be the man who opens his hand.”
He’s crying now. I can hear it in his voice.
“I can’t.”
“You have to.” I make myself say it steady.
“Lo-”
“Let me go, Jesse.”
The silence stretches between us.
Then, quietly: “Okay.”
I walk down the stairs. Through the kitchen. Out the back door.
My truck is waiting. I throw the suitcase in the bed and climb behind the wheel.
The headlights sweep across the yard as I back out.
Jesse’s standing in the grass between the house and the barn. His hands are on his head, fingers laced together. The ring glints in his fist, catching the light from the porch.
I put the truck in gear.
In the rearview mirror, I watch him get smaller.
He doesn’t chase me.
He just stands there with the ring in his fist and lets me drive away.