Chapter 31 Amy
THIRTY-ONE
AMY
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” I said when the receptionist ushered me into Joy Hendricks’s office. I had gone to the grief counselor the year after Luke’s death and had thought I’d never need to return. How wrong I’d been about that.
“I’m happy to be here whenever you need to talk,” Joy said and gestured to two plush armchairs near a window where I had sat before when I’d come. “Some tea?”
I shook my head as I settled into the chair, suddenly finding myself unable to speak.
I knew that Joy would give me as much time as I needed.
Joy didn’t pressure. She waited until the patient was ready to talk.
I thought I had been ready. I’d even planned what I would say on the drive over, but when the moment came, the words all escaped me.
So I looked at my hands. I’d stopped wearing my wedding band recently.
I knew Laura had noticed, but she’d never said anything.
Removing the ring had been symbolic for me.
I’d stashed it in my jewelry box and closed the lid quickly after the first time I’d slept with Cal.
Unconsciously, I rubbed the small callus at the base of my third finger.
“I started having the dream again,” I said eventually.
“You know, the one that someone I love dies in a car accident just like the one that took Luke and Marshall.” In the months following their deaths, I had the dream often, but it was always Luke who died.
Then it had evolved into other people. Laura, Henry, my mother, Brian, and Jake.
I’d talked about all of that with Joy. With time, the dream faded into a rare occurrence, but three nights in a row now, it had been back in vivid detail.
“The person who dies is Cal Pierce. He’s new in my life.
I’ve only known him for a few weeks, but I fell in love with him. Does that sound crazy?”
“Many people fall in love in a short amount of time,” Joy said calmly. “It’s not unusual or crazy.”
“Anyway, I have the dream and it’s so intense that I wake up sweating and terrified. I want to call Cal, even if it’s in the middle of the night, but I can’t.” I had had the phone in my hand the previous night and was searching for Cal’s number when I’d stopped myself.
“Why can’t you call him?” Joy asked.
“We broke up. I mean, it sounds silly because we only dated for a short time, but it’s over and I can’t reach out to him,” I said. My greatest fear was that something bad would happen to Cal, and I’d be powerless to help him. It was bad enough losing him from my life. If he were hurt or killed…
“Love is love,” the therapist said. “It doesn’t stop just because two people aren’t together anymore.”
That was the entire problem—the love between us. It was big and deep and all-consuming, but not in the same way that my love for Luke had been. That had consumed me for a short time, like a firecracker with a short fuse. Once it blew, I’d been forced to realize how little we actually shared.
My love for Cal was a long-burning flame that, if given the chance, would last through eternity. What I felt for Cal was unconditional, and I didn’t know how to get over an unconditional love. Laura had insisted that I would find someone else, but I knew that couldn’t be true.
“Lost love is a different kind of grief,” I said. “How can I get over it? That’s why I came today. I’m hoping you can tell me what to do.”
“Let me ask this. Are you sure that getting over these feelings is the only option?” Joy continued before I could speak.
“It’s been my experience that when love means this much to someone, they don’t really want to get over it.
They want to find a way to make it work.
Ask yourself this: Is there no way forward for you and Cal? ”
I sat back in the chair and turned my gaze toward the window. The sky was bright blue and beautiful. I focused on that and thought about me and Cal. I’d told him I couldn’t travel with him, and he’d told me he couldn’t stay. It had seemed a complete impasse. Was it?
“He wants me to leave home and go on the rodeo circuit with him,” I said. “He’ll be a commentator for the upcoming season. I don’t want to live like that. I like being here, and I want Henry to grow up with a connection to the ranch.”
“Is a long-distance relationship out of the question?” Joy asked. “Or maybe something halfway in between? What about living here during the off season and on the road part of the year? Even traveling with him in the summer when Henry doesn’t have school might work.”
“I hadn’t thought of all that,” I said, feeling a little bewildered. Cal had suggested a six-month trial, but I had immediately shot it down without considering it.
“They’re just possibilities. I’m sure you can think of others. Compromises can be made if you’re both willing.” Joy leaned a little closer. “I guess the real question is, do you want to make it work with Cal? If you do, you’ll see a way around the obstacles together.”
Why hadn’t I considered that there might be another option?
Why had it been all or nothing in my mind?
Because of Luke, I realized. Life had been all or nothing with Luke.
He’d bulldozed over me often enough to convince me that there was no such thing as compromise in a relationship.
He wasn’t mean or vindictive about it. He had been the golden boy for so long that he expected everything to go his way. Our marriage had been no different.
But did it have to be that way with Cal?
For all the two men looked alike, their personalities were vastly dissimilar.
For one, I had plenty of proof that Cal knew how to compromise, to look at something from a different perspective.
When we decided to officially date and I’d been worried about what others would think, he’d immediately suggested that we’d keep it private, and we had.
And when we’d gotten into that argument about him allowing Henry to ride his pony, Cal had apologized for overstepping his boundaries instead of assuming he was the one owed an apology.
Luke would never have admitted to being wrong.
He was indeed a different man than my husband.
Even the rodeo was an example. Cal had no real stake in it when he arrived in town.
He simply did it because a friend asked him to.
And whenever he received thanks or praise from the townspeople, he was quick to share any credit with others.
He was loving and giving and forgiving. I didn’t want to lose him.
Maybe there was a way forward, a way for us to love each other and be partners in life.
It might not be perfect for either of us, but we could make it work.
The idea of being with him even part of the time sounded good to me.
I had to convince Cal that our love was worth working for and that I was worth compromising for.
And I thought I knew the first step in doing that.
“I think we could find another way if we tried. Thank you, Joy.” I got to my feet. “Thank you. I know what I need to do now.” I was out the door before the therapist could say more, plans forming in my head.
On my drive home, I contacted a real estate agent and set up an appointment for Saturday afternoon to see available houses.
Saturday afternoon found me standing outside the house I’d most wanted to see.
“It’s pretty,” Henry said, getting out of the backseat of my car.
“It sure is,” I agreed. I studied the old farmhouse with its wraparound porch. The house was painted a soft green with deeper green and pale yellow on the gingerbread style trim and the porch spindles. It was sort of magical looking under the old oak trees that shaded it.
Henry bounded up the steps and dashed across the porch while I shook hands with the realtor.
“The house comes with just the property on this side of the road, a little more than three acres,” Sophie Lawrence explained. “I’m glad I finally talked the family into splitting the parcel. They’ve listed the barn and acreage on that side of the road separately.”
I looked across to the large white barn that was surrounded by several outbuildings and included fenced-in pastures. “How big is that part?”
“Two hundred acres. I’m still hoping to find a taker for that, but I’m hopeful that at least the house will sell now that it’s offered separately. No one even nibbled at the property as it was, and it’s sat on the market for more than a year.”
I knew that. I’d driven by the house often enough.
It wasn’t on the way from town to the ranch, but I sometimes detoured to go past it.
It called out to me because it felt homey and warm.
Only in the past two days had I seriously considered buying it.
I’d received life insurance money from Luke’s death, plus I’d been banking my salary for the past three years since I didn’t have to worry about paying rent.
It added up to a nice nest egg. A chunk had been set aside for Henry, but I had plenty left for a down payment, now that the house was priced to sell.
Money hadn’t really been what stopped me from leaving the ranch in the past. The biggest barrier had been fear of the unfamiliar and fear of hurting Laura’s feelings.
But I was tired of walking on eggshells around the memory of a man who had made me unhappy.
And Cal could never live at the ranch without tripping over Luke’s presence.
The only times Cal had shuttered his emotions in front of me had been when Luke’s name was mentioned.
I couldn’t imagine how complicated it would be for him to live with my in-laws.
So I had found a solution to that problem by seeking a place of my own. I was more than ready to move on and find my happiness with Cal. I needed to show him that I was willing to compromise. Moving off the ranch was one way to do that.
“Ready to see the inside?” Sophie asked. She held an old skeleton key in her hand. “It may need a little updating, but the house has good bones.”
We entered through the front door into a formal parlor with hardwood floors that only wanted a buffing to shine, and intricately carved molding around the windows.
Pocket doors separated that room from the next—a family room that looked both comfortable and beautiful.
I mentally began arranging the room. Soft textiles, overstuffed furniture.
Next we explored the dining room, again formal and lovely, before entering the large kitchen. Butcher block counters above cabinets painted forest green stretched along two walls. The appliances were old, but I loved the layout of the kitchen.
“Can we go down there?” Henry asked opening a door that appeared to go to a basement. He’d been running from room to room, pointing things out that caught his attention.
“Later. I want to see the upstairs first,” I said.
We climbed wooden steps worn smooth on the edges by generations of feet. Upstairs contained a communal bathroom and four generously sized bedrooms, each with big windows to let in light and air.
“The plumbing could use an update, and I was thinking you could convert this closet into a master bath.” Sophie opened a door that led to a walk-in linen closet just outside the largest bedroom. “If you closed off this entrance and opened it to the bedroom side instead.”
I leaned my head in and could see the possibility. With every minute, my excitement about the house increased, but I needed to see how Henry felt about it. He’d happily explored with us, dashing from room to room, but that didn’t mean he liked it enough to live there.
“Let’s take a look in that basement,” I suggested, knowing Henry had a fascination for exploring such places.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll meet you outside.
I don’t like basements.” Sophie walked back to the kitchen with us and left us to go downstairs without her.
The space was exactly what I expected. Exposed-beam ceiling with stucco walls and a dirt floor.
It wasn’t elegant, but it was dry and Henry was enjoying looking in the nooks and crannies.
I could already see how it could become a nice rec room—a place for Henry to spend time with his friends as he got older.
“Henry,” I said after he’d seen enough, and we returned to the kitchen. “What do you think of us living in this house?”
“That would be cool, but…” His exuberant smile faded.
“You don’t want to leave the ranch?” I guessed, getting a nod. “We wouldn’t be far away, and you’d see Grandma and Uncle Jake whenever you wanted.”
“Okay, but what about King?” he asked.
“King would stay with them, but you could visit him a lot, too,” I confirmed. “You can still ride your pony.”
Henry looked around the space. What was still gnawing at him? I went to him and placed my hands on his shoulders. “Don’t you like the house?”
“I like it lots, but,” his chin started to tremble, “what if Uncle Cal can’t find it? It took him so long to find the ranch.”
I smoothed his hair back from his face. I didn’t tell him that buying the house was part of my plan to make Cal part of our lives permanently. Henry didn’t need to worry about that. I just needed to reassure him. “I promise you Uncle Cal will find his way here.”
“In that case, I say buy it.” Henry grinned up at me, and I returned his smile.
“Good. Let’s do it. We’ll take it,” I announced to Sophie when we joined her on the porch.
“Are you sure?” Sophie’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “I planned to show you more houses. There’s nothing else available in town, but if you were willing to drive a bit?”
“We want this place. Let’s start the paperwork,” I said. I just hoped that what I’d told Henry about Cal coming back and finding us didn’t turn into a lie.