Page 45 of Untruly With You

“Until?”

“Until I met my Maggie.” My father’s earnest tone takes me off guard. “She grew up on a ranch in Texas. I went to work there the winter I turned nineteen. Even though she swore to herself she wouldn’t end up with a cowboy, we were inevitable. But Magnolia had big dreams of being a dancer. She even had plans to move to New York City. And before long, I had plans to join her. I told her I would give up anything to be with her. Even though I knew deep down, as a Davis, that might not be possible.”

My face contorts. How did I live with my parents for eighteen years, yet they never told me these details? And how is Laine so good at making people feel comfortable enough to share things like this? I try to picture my father in the city, but I come up blank. It’s like trying to imagine a new color.

“What happened?” Laine asks after a pause long enoughthat it’s clear Hank wouldn’t keep talking without being prodded.

“My father passed away from a heart attack. It was my duty to return home and continue his work.” Hank’s voice is harsher now, and I know the next words that are coming before he says them. “I only wish Sutton had that same loyalty to the family.”

Bitterness coats my mouth. I try to swallow it down.

For a while, neither one speaks, but Laine eventually breaks the silence. “Sutton dreams of being an editor.”

“Crazy dreams are for children,” Hank says gruffly. “It’s time for him to grow up.”

“I know you don’t believe that,” Laine says, and I can perfectly imagine the smile on her face. “Sutton has worked hard to be an editor, and he’s nearly there.”

“He’s not living in New York to chase dreams. He’s in New York to run away from his real life.”

Laine sighs. “He’s been happy being back, you know. It’s like he’s whole, able to be Montana-SuttonandNew York-Sutton. Editorandrancher. And I think if you give him the space to do a little of both, you might see more of him around here.”

“And what makes you think I want him here now?”

Laine ignores him, pivoting the conversation. “You said you’ve been running Silver Ridge since you were nineteen. What's that? Fifteen years now?”

My father laughs.Reallylaughs. I can’t remember the last time I heard it. Not since Duke passed away, surely. “Just about that, yeah,” he says.

“Nineteen years old? You were still a kid. That’s a lot of stress for someone that age.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“And you always expected to take it over. Imagine Sutton,never thinking he would have that responsibility, thinking it would be Duke’s to run. And then, as he’s still mourning the loss of his brother, Sutton is asked to uproot the life he had been working toward. At nineteen years old. Just a kid.”

My father doesn’t speak for a long time, and I wonder if he’s glaring Laine down. He’s not someone who is used to being contradicted. But then he says, his voice softened with a strange amusement, “Is this why you wanted to interview me? So you could defend Sutton?”

“That wasn’t the plan,” Laine says, chuckling. “He’s pretty amazing, though. And I’d hate for you to miss out on enjoying that firsthand.”

“Do you love him?”

Laine lets out a sharp breath. “Sutton?” After a long pause, she relents. “Your son is hard not to love.”

Laine’s words, though obviously embellished for the sake of upholding our fake-dating story, are like a soothing balm to the knot in my chest. From my vantage point under the window, I hang on every word exchanged between my father and Laine. Their conversation shed light on hidden corners of my family's story that I never had the chance to explore.

There's another silence, and I can imagine my father studying Laine, his brows likely furrowed in contemplation. “You're not like most city folk I've met,” he finally says.

“Oh?”

“You've got a way of understanding without judgment, of getting people to open up. And you do it without being nosy. At this point, you might know me better than my own children do.”

“Maybe you should change that,” Laine says.

He harrumphs.

“Maybe you’re like me,” she continues. Hank must make a face, because Laine laughs. “I know, I know, that’s a weirdthought. But sometimes I feel like I’m a pointillism painting, those ones made up of thousands of tiny dots. I think those I keep at a safe distance will like me, because they’re seeing a big, overarching picture of who I am. But anyone close to me will see that I’m just a mess when it comes to the details.”

“You're saying I’m a mess?”

“Not any more of a mess than me, if that’s any consolation.”

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