Chapter 12 The Letter
The Letter
Jackson
* * *
The cookbook sits on my passenger seat the whole drive home, wrapped in paper that's starting to wrinkle at the corners. I tracked it down from a collector in London. I thought it would mean something.
She wanted an answer. I brought a book.
I pull into the ranch and sit in my truck after I kill the engine. The main house is dark except for the porch light. Mom's place glows warm across the east pasture. I think about driving over there, but I already know what I did wrong. Maren told me. She told me clearly, in plain words.
Why did you assume I wanted to fight?
I grab the cookbook and head inside. The house smells like nothing. No dinner on the stove, no coffee in the pot. I set the book on the kitchen counter and stare at it.
Two years ago, she kept going back to that estate sale table. She'd pick up the cookbook, flip through the pages, set it down. Pick it up again. I watched her do it four times before I understood what I was seeing: Maren wanting something and talking herself out of it.
I thought finding it would prove I paid attention. I thought it would show her I remembered.
She doesn't need me to remember what she wanted at an estate sale. She needs me to answer the phone when she calls.
My phone buzzes. Mom.
Saw your truck. You okay?
I type back: Fine. Long day.
Her reply comes fast: Come by if you want to talk.
I pocket the phone and walk to my office. There's paper in the desk drawer, the good stationery Maren ordered for thank-you notes. I pull out a sheet and find a pen.
Maren,
You asked why I assumed you were calling to fight. I've been trying to answer that question honestly.
I was annoyed. I saw your name on my phone and my first feeling was irritation, because I expected you to complain about Shay, and I didn't want to hear it.
Somewhere along the way, I started treating your concerns as problems I could dismiss.
When you called that night, I made a choice.
I chose to ignore you because I didn't want to deal with what I assumed was another argument.
It wasn't an accident. I saw your name and I decided my comfort mattered more than whatever you had to say.
I'm sorry. For ignoring those two calls that night.
For deciding before I even answered that whatever you wanted could wait.
You called me twice while you were locked in that room, and I chose not to pick up.
That was wrong. Will you forgive me? You don't have to answer now or ever if you don't want to.
But I needed to say it plainly: I am asking for your forgiveness, and I will wait as long as it takes.
Jackson
I read it over twice. It's ugly. It makes me look selfish and small. But it's true, and I think that matters more than making myself look good.
I fold the letter and slide it into an envelope. I write her name on the front, and the address of the hardware store apartment. No return address. She knows who it's from.
I leave the letter on the counter where I'll see it in the morning and go upstairs. Our bedroom feels too big without her. The closet door is open, showing the empty hangers on her side.
She said I made her into a nag in my head. She's right. I did that. I took the woman I married and reduced her to an inconvenience, someone whose feelings I could dismiss because listening to them was uncomfortable.
I don't know how to unmake that. I don't know if I can.
But I can stop pretending I didn't do it.
* * *
The next morning, I drive to the post office before I can talk myself out of it. Carol is working the counter, and she looks at the envelope in my hand with poorly concealed curiosity.
"Just need to mail this." I slide it across the counter. "Regular postage."
She weighs it and stamps it and takes my money without asking questions, but I can see her noting the address. By noon, half the town will know Jackson Wilder sent a letter to his estranged wife.
Let them talk.
Mom's truck pulls up beside me in the parking lot as I'm climbing into mine. She rolls down her window and raises an eyebrow.
Mom takes in my creased shirt, the same one I wore yesterday. "You look like you slept in your truck."
"Didn't sleep much." I lean against my door frame. "What are you doing in town this early?"
"Errands." She says it too casually, and I notice she's wearing earrings. Mom doesn't wear earrings to run errands.
"Errands." I let the word sit there. "At seven in the morning. In your nice turquoise."
She narrows her eyes at me. "Jake asked me to breakfast. Not that it's any of your business."
"Breakfast." I grin, and it feels strange on my face after the night I had. "That's what the kids are calling it these days?"
"Jackson Wilder." But she's fighting a smile. "You're thirty-three years old, don't you dare give me grief about having coffee with a man."
I lean down to her window, enjoying having something to give her grief about. "You want me to chaperone? I can sit at the next table, make sure he treats you right."
"I will end you." She points at me through the window, but she's laughing now. "I changed your diapers. I have stories that would make Maren blush."
I give up threatening her; she has far more ammunition. "Maren's heard all your stories. She likes the one about me and the electric fence."
Mom's expression softens at Maren's name. She looks at me for a long moment, and I know she wants to ask how the visit went. I haven't told her about the letter.
I step away from her window before she can ask. "Go have your breakfast. Tell Jake I said hey."
She nods and rolls up her window. I watch her drive away toward the diner, then start my own truck and head back to the ranch.
The letter is out of my hands now. Maren will read it or she won't. She'll forgive me or she won't.
What I can control is being honest about who I've been.
* * *