Chapter 2 #2
Rogue's voice comes back two degrees lower than usual. "Had a late lunch."
Thunder is grinning at his plate.
I can hear it in his voice. I can hear Thunder grinning even with my back to the room.
I scrub the pan harder.
The brothers clear out around seven.
Banshee says something to Spur about the western fence and the two of them head out together.
Blight goes off to do whatever Blight does at night, which I've decided not to ask about.
Blaze and Thunder take the prospects out to the kennel because Diesel needs to be put away for the night and somebody promised Nash he could help.
Nash kisses my cheek before he runs out with Thunder.
"Mama, can I help with the dogs?"
"Stay where Thunder can see you."
"He's gonna let me hold the leash for Diesel."
"Then you’d better hold it tight."
Nash flies out the screen door, and Thunder gives me a small nod over his shoulder that means I got him and the door bangs shut behind them.
The bunkhouse goes quiet.
I'm wiping down the kitchen island when I realize Rogue hasn't moved.
He's still at the head of the table. Brisket gone. Coffee cup empty. White hat back on his head, which he must've put on when I wasn't looking.
He's just sitting there. Watching me.
"You need somethin' else, Rogue?"
"No."
"Coffee?"
"I'm good."
"Pie?"
"No."
I keep wiping the island. He keeps sitting there.
The screen door bangs open and Marlena comes in with Cal on her hip and a tupperware container in her free hand.
The air in the room shifts just enough that I exhale without meaning to.
"Hadley, I'm returnin' this 'fore you start huntin' me for it." She holds up the tupperware. "I washed it twice. Cal got into the cornbread one and I'm not sure it's ever gonna be the same."
"You can keep it if you need it."
"I don't need it. I just needed an excuse to come see you."
She glances at Rogue at the head of the table. Rogue tips his hat to her without standing up.
Marlena tips her chin back at him and walks past to the kitchen island, where she sets the tupperware down and shifts Cal to her other hip.
"You all right, sweetheart?" she asks me, low.
"I'm fine."
"You look tired."
"I made brisket."
"That's not what I asked."
I look up at her.
She has Phantom's quietness about her—the way she can ask you a thing without pushing it, the way she can leave space for you to answer or not answer.
She's the closest thing I've got to a friend on this ranch, and I've known that since week three when she walked me through how the bunkhouse pantry worked without making me feel stupid for not knowing.
I don't say anything and she doesn't push it.
She bounces Cal on her hip and looks at me and says, low enough that the man at the head of the table can't quite hear it, "You know that man would die for you, right?"
I open my mouth and close it quickly. "Who?" I say. Stupidly. Buying time.
Marlena gives me a flat look. "Hadley."
I put down the dishrag.
She steps closer. Cal puts his chubby fist in her hair and yanks.
She doesn't even react. "He talks about you to Phantom more than he knows. Doesn't say much, never has—but Phantom can read him better than Rogue thinks. You're allowed to be happy, sweetheart. Whoever that man at the end of that ring is, he'd be the first one to tell you so."
My hand goes to the gold band on my finger before my brain catches up.
"How do you—"
"Same answer. Rogue told Phantom what your husband's name was and Phantom tells me everything."
I look across the kitchen at the dining room.
Rogue is still at the head of the table.
He's staring at his coffee cup.
I'd bet money he can hear every word.
Marlena pats my arm. Soft. The way a sister would. Then she takes Cal and the empty tupperware and goes out the screen door, and the screen door bangs shut behind her, and I'm alone in the bunkhouse with Rogue at the head of the table staring at his empty coffee cup.
He stands up.
He puts the hat on, adjusts it, picks up his cup, and brings it to the kitchen island, and he sets it down on the counter beside me.
Not in the sink. On the counter. Like a man who didn't quite know what to do with his hands.
"You did good tonight, Hadley."
"Thank you."
"The brisket was somethin' else."
"Thank you."
He stands there for another second. Then he says, "Boy seems happy."
"He is."
"That's a good thing."
"Yeah."
He doesn't move.
I'm not looking at him. I'm staring at the empty coffee cup he set on the counter.
"Hadley."
I look up.
He's closer than he was a minute ago.
I don't remember him crossing the distance.
The white hat is shadowing his face the way it always does, but I can see his eyes under the brim—pale, sharp, watching me the way they've been watching me for two months.
"Yeah?"
He opens his mouth. He closes it. He nods once and touches the brim of the hat. "Evenin', Hadley."
He walks out of the bunkhouse.
I stand at the kitchen island and I listen to his boots on the porch and on the gravel and across the yard until I can't hear them anymore.
It's almost nine o'clock by the time I get Nash home, bathed, brushed, and read to.
Charlotte's Web.
Two chapters tonight.
He fell asleep with Stitch under his chin halfway through the second one, and I sat on the edge of his bed and looked at him for a long minute before I turned off the lamp.
I wish Garrett was here. He’s the spitting image of his papa.
Same dark hair. Same long lashes. Same way his mouth opens when he sleeps.
I don't cry.
I haven't cried in eleven days, which is the longest stretch since the funeral.
I go to my bedroom and stand at my dresser.
Garrett's ring is still on a chain around my neck.
It has been since I moved here. I don’t know if I’ll ever take it off permanently. It’s the last memory I have of him.
* * *
I take the glass of sweet tea I never finished out to the porch.
The yard is dark. The bunkhouse windows are gold. Somebody's playing a guitar—quiet, slow, a song I don't quite recognize.
Across the yard, Rogue's cabin has the front room light on.
The window with the monitors.
I sit on the porch swing.
I think about Marlena. About what she said. That man would die for you.
About how she knew Garrett's name. About Rogue talking to Phantom about me.
About me, Hadley Marie Cross, who has done nothing on this ranch in two months except cook, raise her boy, and try not to fall apart.
I think about Thunder making Nash laugh tonight. About the open-mouthed belly laugh I had given up on hearing again.
I think about Rogue's face when he saw me laughing with Thunder.
I think about Garrett. Not the memories. Just the present-tense ache that lives behind my breastbone every night.
Fuck, I miss him. I don't know what I'm doing without Garrett. But he isn’t coming back.
Across the yard, Rogue's window is still lit.
I grab the ring on the chain around my neck and hold it in my palm.
The metal is warm. Whenever I think about Garrett, I grab his ring. It’s the only thing that anchors me to him now, besides our beautiful little boy.
I just sit on the porch swing in the dark with my dead husband's ring in my hand, and across the yard, the light in Rogue's window stays on.
I'm not ready to move on, but I'm closer than I was this morning.