Chapter 33
Ava
Kip stood at a file cabinet near the kitchenette. Terry sat on the corner of Kip’s desk, coffee in hand, chatting with August. The ceiling fan whirled, spinning the cobwebs into dizzy dance partners. The exact picture I’d imagined.
Until all motion stopped and three sets of eyes fell to my mandarin boot. Maybe I should’ve picked something more discreet?
Terry spoke first, popping off the desk. “What the heck happened to you?”
A dozen delicate responses mingled, but the straightforward one shot through the fray. “I totaled my truck.”
“Well, shit.” In the seven years I’d known him, I’d never heard him cuss. He put his cup down. “Glad to see you’re in one piece.”
“Yup, thanks to a metal plate and eight screws.”
“Ouch,” Kip chimed in with a grimace.
“That’s more hardware than I have on the main gate,” Terry joked half-heartedly, moving in to give me a side-hug.
“You can have them when I’m done.”
“They rated for all weather?”
“I have no idea.”
“Terry, stop it,” Kip scolded, swatting his arm as she passed.
But his teasing lifted my confidence. Actually, more like hauled it up by its suspenders and told it to stop letting fear make my choices for me. “As much as I enjoy showing off my new boot,” I didn’t, not even a little, “I’m here for something else.”
I leaned into my less sore armpit and tucked a loose hair behind my ear. August offered a nod of support. But he thought I planned to deliver a closing argument, not a white flag.
In the spirit of straight deliveries, I said, “You were right, Terry.”
He beamed, glancing at Kip. “You heard that, right? You wanna jot that down?”
Kip rolled her eyes. “You might want to check where this is going before you start bragging.”
Terry smoothed out his mustache with weathered fingers and turned back to me. “What was I right about, hon?”
“This place. It-it isn’t meant for me.”
“Ah.” His slow nod told me he was neither surprised nor disappointed.
Still, I felt I owed him an explanation. “I hate that I’m breaking my promise, but it’s too much. Nina’s still so little. And I’ll always be comparing it to how it used to be before ... You know. And I think I was just trying really hard to keep Jason alive.” Out came the tears.
“We just want you to be happy,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders again. A year’s worth of unrequited hope spilled out in salty waterfalls. A final farewell to the life I’d never end up living. But it made room for relief.
I curled into Terry’s shoulder and cried for Jason, for Hidden Meadows, for Nina, and then finally, for myself.
I cried until my throat ran dry and my nose plugged up.
Past polite tears and into ugly, body-raking sobs.
I’d been trying so hard to hold everything together, to appear confident and in control when in reality, I’d been ignoring the tear as it ripped wider.
Kip appeared behind Terry, holding a box of tissues.
“Th-thank you.” I took one, then another, blowing until my head floated with the clouds.
Terry stepped back to stand with August. Kip remained, handing me another tissue.
“I really wish–” I paused to wipe my eyes. “I wish this didn’t mean Steven won.”
Terry laughed. “He sounds like a bit of a twerp.”
“I had a more colorful term in mind, but yes.”
I tossed my wad of snotty tissues in the trash.
I felt better. Exhausted, but for the first time since I can’t remember when, I didn’t have that constant urgency straining against the inside of my skin.
With a sniff, I told Terry, “You deserve every bit of that offer. Buy yourself something ridiculous.”
He shrugged. “You gonna be okay? You need help gettin’ around? Or figuring stuff out?”
My nose twitched with the threat of another outpouring. “No, I’m good. I just … it still feels like I’m deserting him.”
Terry clicked his tongue, lifting his eyes to the fan overhead, and watched it spin. Then he gestured to the room. “Jason isn’t here.” He pressed his palm to his chest. “He’s here.”
“I know.”
Kip handed me the tissue box and crossed to the kitchenette. “How about a cup of crappy coffee, fancy pants?”
Caffeine? This late?
I glanced at the can of cheap bulk grounds on the folding table. “Actually, yes. That sounds good.”
Terry knocked back the rest of his cup and moved towards the door. “While you do that, August, I need your help with something.” His eyes flashed with mischief.
“Sí. Of course.”
The door thwacked shut, leaving just me and Kip.
“I’m proud of you,” she said, handing me a chipped mug with black coffee, then turned to dump three packs of sugar in hers. I was the only one who took cream, so they wouldn’t have any.
“Thanks.” I braved a tentative sip. The bitterness honed my focus down to a single pushpin on a map. If I were emotion, Kip was logic, so I asked, “What do I do now?”
“What do you mean?” She turned to me with her own cup.
“I’ve been working towards Hidden Meadows for years. I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s easy. Do whatever you want.”
My laugh was more of a desperate exhale. “What if I don’t know what I want?”
There were things I wished I had, but they lacked the bigger picture. They were effects of a lifestyle. Time. Love. Togetherness. Not items on a checklist.
“What makes you happy?” Kip asked me.
“Nina.”
“And?”
“Horses?”
“And? What else?” Her question forced me to dig deeper.
I thought about how the past few weeks had infused color back into our lives. Joyful meals at the dinner table with people I cared about. Teaching Marley to cook. Saturday morning pancakes. Terry’s hugs. Kip’s rare smiles. Eli’s unwavering support.
She gave me one of those hard-earned expressions then. A smile. “I see you’ve discovered something.”
My isolation had always been self-inflicted. “I have a family.”
“Well, of course you do!”
Without business plans, loan paperwork, and confrontations with Steven, I’d have the time and luxury to reconnect with people. They were my roots. All I needed was a home base and a table big enough to feed everyone. I could do that. Though my heart clenched thinking there’d be one face missing.
Kip sipped her coffee. “What made you change your mind?”
I stared down at the toes that stuck out of my cast, now dusty from all my trekking.
“I drove into a commercial truck a few days ago. It was my fault. My mind was in a million places, and I was tired,” I shook my head.
“I could’ve hurt someone. Or worse.” What was I trying to say?
“I just … I realized I’ve been so busy I’m missing everything.
What if something happens to me? What memory would Nina carry?
That her mom was so obsessed with a dead man’s promise that she was never around?
I’d hated my mom for leaving me. How is what I’m doing any different? ”
Kip’s face softened. “A lot to think about. You didn’t ask, but my two cents?”
“Hit me.”
“You made the right choice.”
I nodded, expecting immense sadness, but saying goodbye to Hidden Meadows felt more like releasing a wild bird I’d been caging inside of me.
I loved it, but it clawed at me because it was never meant to be mine alone.
And with its release came freedom. Time to meander, to appreciate what I had, and maybe spend an entire weekend in my pajamas–wherever we ended up.
I sipped my black coffee, letting myself explore where our new home might be. Oddly, every version had rusty mountains framed in a forget-me-not sky, and a kitchen with black countertops.
“What will you do when he sells?” I asked Kip.
She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly through her nose. “I think I’ll join the bocce league.”
My brow shot up. “You play bocce ball?”
“No, but I’ve always wanted to try.” She shrugged in an unusual show of uncertainty. “Maybe I’ll travel. Who knows?”
“Where would you go?”
Her eyes drifted to the window, and I got the distinct impression she wasn’t seeking something, but someone. “Don’t know.”
Let her have her secret. “I should probably get going. I’m sure Nina’s getting hungry. Once I’m more settled, would you like to come over for dinner?”
“Depends, whatcha making?” She gave me a wink.
“Thank you, Kip.”
“For what?”
“For being patient with me.”
Her eyes rolled in exasperation. “Stop it. I’ve been saying it all along. That’s what family does.” At my wobbling smile, she added, “Go on! Get. Feed Nina. We’re not going to sell this place overnight.”
We? “Yeah, okay.” Instead of goodbye, I said, “See you soon.” I had feared a farewell, but this turned out to be a reunion.
The boys were waiting by August’s truck for me. A potted tree sat strapped in the bed.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Terry landed his hands on his hips like a proud dad. “It’s a mesquite sapling. Grew it from a cutting before they all got sick.”
“Oh, my gosh!” I rushed up to inspect it. A baby legacy! “Where’s it going?”
“Home with you.”
“What?”
“Plant it somewhere special.”
“Oh.” A jagged fissure raced through me. I really wanted it, but, “I-I don’t have a–”
“You will.” When my waterworks sprang again, Terry came in for another hug. “Make sure she hydrates when she gets home,” he told August.
I was sobbing over a tree. A tree. Water was good, but a beer would be better.
August drove us under the iron arch that marked the entrance to Hidden Meadows. “It changed,” he said.
I twisted to watch it shrink in the rear window. “Yeah. Losing someone does that to you.”
He glanced across the cab at me. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you. I got out of this truck intending to buy a ranch.”
“Mijo, you don’t need to explain to me.”
On a heavy exhale, I slouched in the passenger seat. “I miss him.”
“I miss him, also.”
“He’d probably be furious with my choices lately.”
“Some, yes,” August agreed.
I stared out the window at the winding road that cut through the rocky landscape.
It must’ve added thirty minutes to the drive, cupping each bluff, following the natural grooves in the mountain.
But a straight shot would’ve been too steep, impossible to traverse. I, too, had taken the long way around.