Page 105 of Came the Closest

“It’s not goodbye,” Dad says. “Not when it’s a part of you. And as for putting down roots, I don’t believe anyone is truly rooted, Colton. We leave pieces of ourselves everywhere we go and in everything we do. We also take them. Maybe it’s not about being rooted so much as being grounded.”

The observation washes over me like a wave, clicking into place like a missing puzzle piece. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding stillness because I thought it translated to stuck. But hearing it from that perspective feels like a relief, like I finally have a place to belong in this world.

I pick up the papers from the porch. “I love him, Dad. I don’t know how to describe it, because I’ve never felt it before, but I can’t live life without him. Without her.”

“That, my boy, means that you have stood still long enough to feel some big emotions,” Dad tells me with a half-smile. “But even when I wasn’t still, Colton, I never stopped loving you. I never will. A father’s love can’t be broken, and I think you might understand that now.”

I do. I so very deeply do.

“I love you, too,” I whisper.

We sit still on the front porch steps of our childhood home, facing forward. Maple leaves rustle against gnarled branches, and a black ant crawls across the top of my foot.

I know that I’m truly ready now.

Ready to move forward.

But it requires one more conversation.

Kolter Ranch sports a For Sale sign beside the wooden arch heralding the land, but my trip up the driveway is wasted. Clara advises me to search for her son elsewhere and sends me back to my truck with a dozen blueberry lemon scones. Warren approaches on horseback before I reach the gate to give me more straightforward directions on where to find Tripp.

I turn into the Palmer’s Park Beach parking lot. Tripp’s elbows rest on the stainless-steel railing of the pier and his cane is nowhere in sight. He looks like the man I’ve always looked up to, wearing faded jeans and an oil-stained t-shirt. If I didn’t know what his body had been through, I’d have never guessed it to be true.

I could make small talk about the weather. I could ask him if he’s heard about the crappy customer service at the BBQ place downtown. I could ask if they’re going to take any of the offers for the ranch. It would be easy. Tripp never rushes anyone to get to their point.

But today, I come right out with it.

“I want to marry your daughter,” I say. My voice is clear, my conviction clearer.

Tripp turns to face me, expression unreadable. He stares for a beat of silence before he faces forward again. He says nothing.

My heart sinks. He’s only been back in the real world for a couple weeks, but he reserves every right to see me as unfit for his daughter. The man I’m becoming is not the man he knows me to be.

I feel like he’s never really known me as a man. I’ve lived a lifetime since I left this town at seventeen, but until this summer, until I was faced with every fear that drove me away, I still felt like a child. I ached to fill the void inside with something better, something bigger, something less painful.

I resist the urge to pull at my shirt collar. If he wants to tell me no, so be it. But I will stand here, sweating under the August sun, fingers trembling, until he tells me to go.

“When?”

I blink. “What?”

Tripp turns to face me fully. “When do you plan to marry my daughter?”

The question catches me off guard. I want to ask if it’s a trick question, but I don’t. I know Tripp better than that.

“I guess after I’ve formally proposed to her and we make all the arrangements?” I say. I wish it sounded less like a question. “I don’t want to rush her. I want it to be a special day for her, and it’s not like we’ve discussed it yet with everything—”

“Colton.”

My mouth snaps shut.

“I give you my full blessing to marry my daughter.”

Relief floods me.

“I want you to do what’s best for the two of you,” Tripp continues. “But don’t make it about the wedding, make it about the marriage. Fifty years from now, you might not remember the shade of lipstick your bride wore. You will absolutely remember if your wife felt safe enough to call you her anchor, her husband, for the rest of her life.

“My Annie has had the big white wedding, son. She doesn’t need hundreds of guests and the most expensive gown to know how much you love her. She had that, and it fell apart. A picture-perfect wedding day does not secure an everlasting marriage,” he says. “For every dance under the sunset, love her quietly at home. For every one breathtaking grand gesture, find three mundane gestures. And do you know the most important thing of all?”

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