Chapter 3 Thursday Dinner
Thursday Dinner
Maren
Thursday dinner is ours. Has been since we got married, since Jackson's mother sat me down in this very kitchen and told me it was the only thing that kept her sane when his father worked eighteen-hour days during calving season.
She put her hand over mine. "Pick one night.
Guard it like your life depends on it. Because some weeks, it will. "
I took her advice. Five years of Thursdays, rain or shine, calving season or auction week.
Some nights we eat takeout on the porch because I've been catering all day and can't face another stove.
Some nights Jackson falls asleep on the couch before dessert.
But we show up. We sit down together. We remember that we're married to each other, not to the ranch or the business or the endless list of things that need doing.
Tonight I made roast. Not because I'm trying to prove anything, just because I had the time and the good cut of beef and the weather finally turned warm enough that the kitchen windows could stay open while I cooked.
The smell has been filling the house for hours, rosemary and garlic and the particular magic that happens when you leave meat alone long enough to do its work.
By the time I give up waiting, the roast has cooled. I eat alone.
I don't call him. I think about it, phone in my hand twice, but something stubborn in me refuses. He knows what day it is. He knows what time dinner is. If he's not here, it's because he chose not to be, and I'm not going to chase him down like I'm the one who forgot something important.
The roast was really good. I ate it at the kitchen island with a glass of wine and my laptop open to recipe notes, pretending I was doing something productive instead of waiting for my husband to remember I exist.
Jackson walks in at nine with a sheepish smile and dust on his boots. "Hey. Sorry I'm late."
I close my laptop. "Dinner's over, Jackson."
He offers the explanation before he takes off his jacket, as if it should settle everything. "Shay's car broke down on the county road south of town. Had to go get her."
I can still see the place I set for him at the table. "That road is an hour away. There are tow trucks."
He pulls his keys out and leaves them beside my unopened dinner napkin. "She doesn't have money for a tow truck."
She's living rent-free in our guest house.
She's earning wages. She's had two weeks of paychecks now, and somehow she still doesn't have money for a tow truck.
But I don't say that because I'm tired and the roast was really good and I ate it alone while my husband drove two hours round trip to rescue a woman who could have called literally anyone else.
There are people he trusts with cattle worth more than her car. Why couldn't he trust one of them with a lift? "You could have sent one of the hands."
"She was upset. The car died in the middle of nowhere, she didn't know what to do." He opens the fridge, pulls out the wrapped plate I left him. "This looks incredible. Did you already eat?"
I glance at the empty wineglass beside my laptop. I had wanted to wait for him. "Two hours ago."
He has the grace to wince. "I should have called."
I don't want an apology for a phone call. I want the evening back. "You should have been here."
"Maren." He sets the plate down, turns to face me fully. "Her car died. She was stranded. What was I supposed to do, tell her to figure it out?"
I keep my voice low because I want an answer, not a fight about my tone. "Thursday is our night. You could have sent help. At least call me when you're not coming home, so I don't sit here wondering if something happened to you."
"You're right. I should have called. I'm sorry." He says it like it's simple. Like calling would have fixed the problem instead of just warning me about it.
The promise had mattered to me. Apparently I need to remind him of it. "You promised me this would stop, Jackson."
He stops pulling at the foil over his plate. I hate having to explain something he was there for. "What do you mean?"
I make myself look at him while I name it. "You promised me after the Friday dinner. You said it wouldn't happen again. Her crisis, your attention, me waiting."
His chair stays tucked under the island. Even now, he hasn't settled in with me. "That's not fair. Friday was a phone call during dinner. This is a genuine emergency."
I almost soften it. Then I remember eating at this counter by myself. "And whenever she needs you, whatever I need can wait."
He's quiet for a moment, studying me with an expression I can't quite read. Then he pulls out a chair and sits down across from me at the island. "Tell me what's really going on."
My laptop is closed now. He has my attention, just as he always does when he asks for it. "I just told you what's really going on."
"You're upset about more than dinner. Talk to me." And the thing is, he sounds like he means it. He's leaning forward, giving me his full attention, doing all the things I've been wanting him to do for weeks. But I'm too tired and too frustrated to appreciate it.
I hear the hurt in my own voice and wish I could hide it better. "I ate alone on our night. You didn't even call. How many times do I have to tell you that hurts before you believe me?"
His answer comes quickly, but he leaves the apology there without asking what might help. "I do believe you."
I don't enjoy keeping a list. I hate that I have one. "Thursday dinner. The Friday celebration. You laughed when she said you always liked brunettes."
He lowers his voice, the way he does when he wants a disagreement to end. "I was trying to keep things friendly."
I can still picture the two glasses sweating in my hands. "For her. I was standing there with the drinks while you two walked off."
He runs a hand through his hair. "I wasn't trying to leave you out."
The opal rests against my collarbone. I leave it there instead of touching it for reassurance. "But you did. Then I told you she picked up my grandmother's necklace without asking, and you told me to cut her some slack."
He offers her the benefit of the doubt again. I wonder when it will be my turn. "I still don't think she meant any harm."
"I wasn't asking you to decide whether she meant it. I was asking you to listen to me." The words hang in the air between us. Jackson's face does something complicated, surprise and hurt and something that might be guilt.
He keeps his eyes on me now, earnest enough that I want to believe him. "There aren't sides, Maren. She's an old friend who needs help. You're my wife. Those aren't competing positions."
I indicate the seat I left empty for him. This ought to be simple. "They feel like competing positions when you're driving an hour out of town on Thursday night instead of sitting at this table with me."
He reaches across the island for my hand. I let him take it, but I don't squeeze back. "I'm sorry. I mean it. I should have handled tonight differently. I should have sent Jake or called a tow service and covered the cost myself. I wasn't thinking."
His fingers are warm around mine. I can want that touch and still be angry. "You were thinking. You were thinking about her."
"Because she was upset. Because helping people when they're upset is what I do.
It's what you fell in love with, remember?
The guy who shows up?" And that's the part I can't argue with, because he's right.
I did fall in love with that. The man who drove three hours to help a neighbor dig out after a blizzard.
The man who sat with his mother for six weeks after his father died, handling the business from her kitchen table so she wouldn't have to be alone. The man who shows up.
I just didn't realize showing up for everyone else might mean not showing up for me.
I push back from the island. "Eat your dinner. It's still good cold."
He catches my name just as I leave the island, and I stop despite myself. "Maren..."
"I'm tired, Jackson. I don't want to fight anymore tonight. Eat, and then come to bed." He watches me for a long moment, like he's trying to decide whether to push. Then he nods and reaches for the plate.
I leave him in the kitchen and go upstairs alone.
* * *
The Saturday barbecue has been a ranch tradition longer than I've been a Wilder.
Every other week, weather permitting, the hands gather at the main house for good food and cold beer and a few hours of not working.
Delilah started it when Jackson was a kid.
I took it over three years ago when she said she was tired of cooking for crowds, added my grandmother's brisket recipe, turned it into something I actually look forward to.
Shay is there because of course she is. She's been on the grounds crew for two weeks now, which makes her one of the team, which means she gets invited. I can't exclude her without looking petty, and I refuse to give her the satisfaction of thinking she's gotten to me.
The brisket has been smoking since midnight. Fourteen hours of low heat and careful attention, the bark forming exactly the way it should, the meat tender enough to fall apart at a hard look. I've made this recipe dozens of times and it never fails me.
I'm slicing at the main table when Shay comes up for her plate. She watches me work for a moment, then takes a bite before I've even finished serving her.
Jackson is beside the napkins when she lifts her fork toward me. "Real good. For someone who didn't grow up here."
The conversation around us stutters. I can feel people glancing over, trying to figure out how to react. "I grew up forty miles away, Shay. Not on Mars."
She shrugs, still chewing. "Just saying. You learn this from a cookbook or something?"
I keep the carving knife resting on the board while I answer her. "From my grandmother. Who also grew up forty miles away."
"Huh." Another bite. "Guess some things translate."
Jackson steps away from the napkins, plate in hand. "Everything okay over here?"
"Fine." Shay smiles at him, sweet as pie. "Just complimenting the chef."
I wait for him to say something. To acknowledge that what she said wasn't actually a compliment, that it was a dig wrapped in politeness, that he heard what I heard. His family's name is on every building on this property. His word carries weight. One sentence from him could end this.
He takes a bite of brisket. "This is incredible, Maren."
Then he turns to Shay. "Have you tried the potato salad? Delilah makes it, it's the best in the county."
And just like that, the moment passes. Shay wanders off toward the potato salad. Jackson squeezes my shoulder and goes to talk to Jake about something equipment-related. I'm left at the table with a knife in my hand and the distinct feeling that I've been managed.
He didn't defend me. He didn't even acknowledge that there was something to defend.
Delilah appears beside me, refilling her plate. She raised Jackson in this house, and moving to her own place on the east side of the property hasn't made her any less willing to tell him when he's wrong.
Delilah lowers her voice so the conversation stays between us. "That girl's got a mouth on her."
I keep slicing rather than look across the yard for him. "Jackson thinks she's just awkward."
Delilah snorts, stabbing a piece of brisket with her fork. "Awkward is forgetting someone's name. That was target practice."
I shouldn't laugh, but I do, short and surprised. "Target practice?"
"She's testing the fences, seeing what she can get away with." Delilah takes a bite and makes an appreciative sound. "This is perfect, by the way. Don't let her make you doubt yourself."
The food is good. I know that. His silence is what bothers me. "I'm not doubting myself."
"Good, because you've got nothing to prove to anyone, least of all her." She pats my arm, her hand warm and rough from decades of ranch work. "And if my son can't see what's right in front of him, that's his problem to fix, not yours to carry."
She heads back toward the main group, and I watch her go, grateful for the solidarity even as the ache of Jackson's silence settles deeper into my chest.
I turn back to the brisket, slicing another portion for the line that's forming again, and I'm so focused on the work that I don't notice Jackson until he's right beside me.
"Give me that." He reaches for the knife, and when I look up, his attention is on me instead of the crowd. "You've been serving everyone else. Where's your plate?"
I stay where I am, reluctant to let him take care of me when I'm still angry with him. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine, you're stubborn." He takes the knife from my hand and nudges me away from the table with his hip, the gesture so familiar it makes my throat tight. "Go sit down. I've got this."
I look toward the waiting plates. "There's still a line."
He lays out another plate and slices the brisket across the grain. "Which is why I'm standing here with the knife. Your chair's beside mine. Go."
I go, because my feet hurt and my back aches and because something in his voice sounds like the Jackson I married instead of the stranger who's been standing in his place.
Once the line clears, he brings over two plates, settling into the empty chair beside me and handing over a plate arranged exactly the way I like it, brisket in the center, potato salad beside it, coleslaw separated from the beans so they don't get soggy. He remembered the extra pickles.
I inspect the plate because looking at him is making it too hard to stay annoyed. "You forgot the cornbread."
"Ran out." He pulls a piece from his own plate and drops it onto mine. "Emergency rations."
I break the piece in half and return some to his plate. "Your sacrifice is noted."
"It's the least I can do." He shifts in his chair, and his knee presses against mine, warm and solid. "You know, you used to make me bid for a place beside you."
I turn toward him, trying not to smile. "That was a charity auction."
"Fifteen thousand dollars." He looks at the narrow space between our chairs. "And today all it took was extra pickles."
My laugh escapes before I can stop it. "The pickles have never asked me to admire a pair of orange boots."
He glances down at his perfectly ordinary work boots. "I retired those for you. That should count."
I let my shoulder rest against his. "It does. More than you know."
I take a bite of brisket and stay against his shoulder. The sun is warm on my face and the food is good and my husband is beside me, present and paying attention, and for a moment I can almost forget the last few weeks.
There he is. I've missed this idiot.
Jackson reaches over and steals a pickle from my plate, and I let him, and we eat together in comfortable silence while the ranch goes on around us.