Chapter Forty-Five
By February, everyone in Harlow Creek had an opinion about my marriage except me.
Tessa believed I was already back with Beckett and objected only to the administrative delay.
Luis believed paperwork was irrelevant because I had started making enough food for two on Thursdays.
Carmen believed I should wait until Beckett survived one full year of behaving like a person.
Paige believed adults were ridiculous. She was probably closest to the truth. I had begun spending one or two nights a week at the Halvorsen house. I still kept most of my clothes at Harlow Creek. Beckett had a toothbrush in my bathroom.
I had a toothbrush in ours. Neither of us called either arrangement temporary. Dr. Albright called it “living inside ambiguity without forcing resolution.” Tessa called it “two houses and twice the laundry.”
Then Beckett got sick. Not dramatically. No hospital. No collapse. Influenza.
He called me at six in the morning and sounded like a gravel road had learned to speak.
“Cancel dinner,” he said.
“Obviously.”
“And don’t come here.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m contagious.”
“You own a house with fourteen rooms.”
“Twelve.”
“That correction is why I’m considering letting you die.”
He coughed.
“Stay there.”
I hung up. Then drove to the pharmacy. I left medicine, electrolyte drinks, soup, and a thermometer outside his bedroom door while wearing a mask. He texted from inside. THIS IS UNNECESSARY. I replied:
SO WAS THE DIAMOND HORSE brACELET YOU BOUGHT ME IN YEAR FOUR. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES. A minute later: I THOUGHT YOU LIKED THAT brACELET. I DID. IT WAS STILL UNNECESSARY.
I stayed in the guest room. Not because he needed nursing. Because I wanted to. The difference mattered. At midnight, I heard him moving down the hall.
I found him leaning against the bathroom counter, shivering.
“Temperature?”
“Fine.”
“Lie.”
“One hundred one.”
“Bed.”
“You sound like June.”
“June sounds smart.”
I changed the sheets because he had sweated through them. He tried to help. I pushed him back onto the mattress.
“You are terrible at being sick.”
“I don’t practice.”
“That is not how immune systems work.”
He watched me fit the clean pillowcase.
“My mother used to send staff.”
I stopped.
“When you were sick?”
“Mostly.”
“Even when you were a kid?”
He shrugged.
“She checked on me.”
The defense came automatically. I recognized it because I had used the same tone defending him.
“I’m not criticizing her.”
He let that stand.
He lay back.
“I’m trying to understand why this feels strange.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Someone changing sheets?”
“Someone doing it because they want to.”
My heart hurt.
“You know I did things like this before.”
“Yes.”
“A lot.”
“I know.”
“And you didn’t notice.”
His eyes closed.
“Not enough.”
I almost regretted saying it while he was sick. Then I decided truth did not become cruelty merely because the listener had a fever.
“I don’t want you to turn every kind thing I do now into evidence that you’ve changed.”
He opened his eyes.
“Okay.”
“Sometimes I want to take care of you because I love you. That doesn’t erase the years when I did it alone.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He thought about it.
“I’m trying not to make your care a verdict.”
Exactly.
“Good.”
I stood. He caught my wrist lightly.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
I squeezed his fingers.
“Go to sleep.”
He recovered in four days. I became sick on day six. This was obviously his fault. I woke at Harlow Creek with a throat like sandpaper and every joint aching. Tessa took one look at me and backed out of the kitchen.
“No.”
“What?”
“I love you. From over here.”
“Coward.”
“I have horses to run. Go to bed.”
At nine, Beckett arrived. I heard his truck and shouted from upstairs, “Go away!” He came up wearing a mask.
“Hypocrite,” I said.
“Correct.”
He put a tray beside the bed. Tea. Toast. Medicine. A notebook.
“What’s that?”
“Your ranch schedule.”
I sat up too fast and immediately regretted it.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. Tessa texted me a photo because she knew you’d try to work from bed.”
“Traitor.”
“She said you’d say that.”
He opened the notebook.
“Luis has morning turnouts. Paige is doing medication logs with Tessa checking. The vet consult is moved to Thursday. County inspection can wait until next week.”
“You reorganized my ranch.”
His eyes widened.
“No. Tessa did. I wrote it down because your handwriting is criminal and hers is worse.”
I stared. He pointed at the page.
“I am not in charge of anything. I have been specifically instructed to keep you upstairs.”
“By whom?”
“Everyone.”
I lay back.
“I hate everyone.”
“Drink tea.”
He stayed for two days. He did not answer Harlow Creek’s phone. He did not speak to vendors. He did not sign anything. He carried trays, changed water, fed the barn cat, and once spent twenty minutes searching for the exact brand of throat lozenge I insisted was the only one that worked.
On the second night, I woke to find him asleep in the chair beside the bed. His neck was bent at an angle that would punish him in the morning. I watched him breathe. This was what I had wanted for years. Not a billionaire changing the world.
A man in a chair. Present. Nothing to solve. Nothing to optimize. I started crying.
Quietly, because fever made me pathetic. His eyes opened.
“What hurts?”
“Nothing.”
He stood immediately.
“Mara.”
“Sit down.”
He sat on the bed. I wiped my face.
“I hate that this is enough.”
He went still.
“What is?”
“You being here.”
His expression softened but he did not look pleased. Good.
“It should have been ordinary,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t feel grateful for ordinary.”
“No.”
The lack of defense broke something open.
“I needed you.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
“And I taught myself not to.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be that woman anymore.”
He took my hand.
“Then don’t.”
I laughed through tears.
“Great therapy.”
“I’m not charging.”
I pulled him toward me. He resisted.
“You’re contagious.”
“You infected me.”
“Fair.”
He lay beside me on top of the blanket. I put my head against his chest.
“Beckett?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I want to come home.”
His entire body stopped. I felt his heart slam beneath my cheek. He did not speak for several seconds. Then: “When?” Not are you sure.
Not finally. Not thank God. When. Choice as logistics, not pressure.
“Not yet.”
His hand moved slowly over my hair.
“Okay.”
“I want to know I can leave again if I need to.”
“You can.”
“I want Harlow Creek to stay mine.”
“It is.”
“I want separate accounts for the ranch permanently.”
“Yes.”
“I want one night a week where neither of us schedules anything without checking.”
“Yes.”
I lifted my head.
“You can’t just say yes to everything.”
“Those are all reasonable.”
“I could demand a llama.”
“We have room.”
I laughed so hard I coughed. He handed me water.
“We’ll talk about it when you’re not delirious.”
“Coward.”
“Possibly.”
I slept with my hand on his chest.