Chapter 8
I made my choices, and I accept them. But the ghosts in this house loom large. Not only his late wife’s spirit. He is the living ghost that haunts these halls. Neither I nor his own children can reach him.
C arson was doing his level best not to reflect on the conversation he’d had with Perry the other night.
It had never been his intention to tell her about his marriage. In fact, he had fully intended to keep all that to himself. Those were the jagged, late-night thoughts that kept him up. The terrible alligators that swam beneath the surface of his internal swamp.
Nothing that needed to be said out loud.
Because there was no untangling the problem. There was no making it better. There was certainly no point trying to go over what had happened. Not when the other person involved was gone. He could never make it right.
He’d brought Alyssa here, married her, and realized too late he didn’t understand what the fuck love even was. Let alone how to give it to another person. The more she’d tried to dig into him, the more he’d locked himself up.
He’d started to resent her. She wanted vulnerability from him; he didn’t even know how to give that to himself.
What makes you cry, Carson?
Nothing. What’s the point of tears?
That conversation, when she’d asked him that question in an exasperated tone, lived in his head. Now he wished he could tell her: losing you made me cry.
That was true, at least. But talk about too little, too late.
He hadn’t meant to suck at being married. He’d been so sure he knew the basic rules. Don’t drink too much, don’t cheat ever. Give her babies if she wants them, take care of those babies. He’d felt ready for that.
You’d be a terrible father! How could you ever give kids what they need? I live alone in this house with your body in it!
She’d felt distance because there had been distance. He couldn’t deny what she’d said. He couldn’t even be angry about it.
There were other things too, things he hadn’t told Perry. The last fight he’d had with Alyssa had been such a blowout that the next day he’d gone out on the ranch without talking to her. Then come home and found her on the bathroom floor.
He didn’t know what love was. He knew that losing her hurt, though.
He knew that he was filled with regret, what-ifs, rage.
Because whatever would have happened to their marriage, even if they’d become just one in the long line of broken Wilder marriages, she’d deserved a longer life. A happier one.
Did he not love her, or did he just not love anyone enough?
Did he just not know what love was?
Was it easier to turn his marriage over in a new light now that he wasn’t actually living in it than it was to live with having lost some deep, great love?
All he knew was that everything inside him felt dark, dirty, and awful. And had for far too long.
He had to get Perry moved into the cabin today. She couldn’t live in a mostly empty house. That was the biggest item on his agenda.
He had texted her this morning, just about the move.
He didn’t want to get into everything else.
He had gone over to Austin’s and done all the chores that needed doing, and now he was in town picking up some things for dinner and waiting for Perry to close up shop.
The town was vibrant today. The weather was nice, the sky blue, and the air clear.
It was early enough in the summer that there wasn’t any threat of wildfire yet.
Wildflowers were blooming everywhere, small yellow dots in bright green fields, poppies on the side of the road, Oregon grape in bunches, and purple shooting stars curving elegantly around the bases of trees.
There were tourists pouring in and out of the different boutiques on Main Street, iced coffees in hand, sunglasses in place to shield their eyes from the emerging Pacific Northwestern sun, and smiles plastered on their faces.
Maybe if he were a different sort of man, it would lift his heart to see people enjoying this place he loved.
Instead, he felt as if he was standing on the other side of a plate glass window, staring at something he couldn’t afford.
It wasn’t a feeling he could break down easily and examine. Because he’d always had that feeling. It wasn’t new. Wasn’t unique to the experience of having been married and lost a potential future with his wife. There had always been a distance between himself and groups of happy people.
That was one thing he valued about Perry.
You should have married her . She’s the only person you actually seem to care about.
The words Alyssa had hurled at him during that last fight were sharp, as sharp as always.
But with Perry it wasn’t necessary to share feelings, and Alyssa hadn’t understood that. Perry had been there for him. She’d watched his life unfold. She understood without any words.
Perhaps because neither of them had been given the gift of a happy family.
It was sort of terrible to be bonded by dysfunction, he supposed. And to be grateful for the bond. But neither of them had chosen to grow up the way they had. He wouldn’t have. It just was. You couldn’t fight reality. At a certain point, you just had to accept it.
So he’d accepted that he felt distant from other people. It had been harder for his wife to accept, and that felt like his own failure. His blind spot. He hadn’t realized that holding something back could hurt someone. It felt like protecting her.
He felt grateful he had at least one person who wasn’t a member of his own dysfunctional family who seemed to get it too.
What he did not feel distant from was the iced coffee.
He decided to head into the coffee place on the corner to get one for himself.
And just as he crossed the crosswalk and put his foot on the sidewalk, none other than Jessie Jane Hancock walked out of one of the knickknack stores on Main and nearly collided with him.
Her eyes widened, and she pushed her dark hair off her face, her arm full of bracelets jingling with the motion.
“Carson,” she said. “I see you so rarely without Flynn. We never talk.”
They didn’t. Flynn did not like Jessie Jane. Jessie Jane didn’t seem to be a big fan of Flynn’s either.
Though he didn’t know why that would prevent her from talking to Carson, or why she would want to.
Jessie Jane smiled and put her hands in her back pockets, thrusting her breasts forward. He suddenly had a small worry about why she might want to talk to him.
“Can I do something for you?”
He wished he had asked a less loaded question.
But Jessie Jane just laughed and took one hand out of her pocket, waving it in the air, creating a chorus of singing bracelets with the motion.
“Actually, yes. It has come to my attention that it was you and Austin who restored that Conestoga wagon that Cassidy has been driving around town.”
“It was,” he said.
“My family has one. It’s been in the family for generations, I assume like yours. My dad has a hankering to restore it for the Wild West Show.”
Interest rose up in him, along with a healthy dose of reluctance. Helping the Hancocks out with anything was forbidden in their family. Butch Hancock was the traitor responsible for the death of the original Austin Wilder.
Some families kept a Holy Bible with their written lineage inside. Others passed down furniture, porcelain figurines, or beloved toys. Their family passed down grudges as deep and bitter as they came.
The Hancock family was nothing but trash as far as the Wilders were concerned.
He had often thought as a boy that it was a funny thing they hadn’t bonded together. Seeing as the whole town saw them as the same sort of trash. Outlaws with a tradition of bad behavior that was as old as the town itself.
But no.
That was not the case. The Wilders held a grudge against that whole family, always and forever, because Butch had given false testimony to Sheriff Lee Talbot, which had ended in three of the Wilders being executed for murders they didn’t commit.
Logically, though, Carson knew that Jessie Jane had nothing to do with that. Any more than he and his siblings should bear responsibility for the crimes committed by their ancestors.
Nonetheless, Austin definitely hated the Wild West shows. They were historically inaccurate, and that bothered the hell out of Carson’s older brother.
“And?”
“I couldn’t ask Austin about restoration,” Jessie Jane said. “He hates us.”
Carson couldn’t argue with that.
“You want me to restore the wagon?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t mind. I mean, we’ll pay you for it, of course.
Maybe we’ll even dedicate it to you. The Carson Wilder Covered Wagon Spectacular.” She fanned her hands out like she was doing a jazz routine.
“I don’t need that,” Carson said. “But I would definitely consider restoring the wagon.”
“Great. I can get it up on the flatbed and bring it over to your place if you want.”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling somewhat hesitant.
“I could do that.” The thing was, this was exactly what he wanted to do.
He wanted to take on more jobs like this.
He wanted to involve himself in restoration.
He had loved doing the work that they did on his family’s wagon.
Getting the chance to work on another one for a different family felt like a pretty incredible opportunity.
It was his version of restoring history.
He was never going to write a book like Austin.
Your hands contain life.
Perry’s words echoed in his mind.
He … he wanted that to be true. He wanted to build more things than he broke down. Maybe that was why this project felt important. Maybe it was why he felt so drawn to Jessie Jane’s proposal.
“Yeah. Bring it by the ranch any time in the next few days. If I’m not up there, I’ll take a look at it when I am, and I can let you know how much work I think it will take.”
“Great. I’ll just give you my number.”
Jessie Jane grinned, and reached into her pocket, taking out a business card for Butch Hancock’s Wild West Show with her name on it.
Manager and performer. Blacksmith.