Page 48 of Not Our First Rodeo
I’m a lot like him in that way. I’ve always been the one to give people the space to cool off, to not press when things are getting heated. I’m only just now starting to realize there are times I need to push, people who need pushing. I think he’s known that for a long time, because I’ve seen him do it with my mom and sister when they retreat into themselves. Cooper, of course, has never retreated. He wears his every thought and feeling on his face and sleeve for the entire world to see.
Somehow, Dad has always known just what each of us needs. I hope when my baby gets here, I’ll have figured that out too.
In the distance, I hear a meadowlark chirp, and the grasses beneath us swish in the wind. It’s calm, the kind of day I always wish for when it’s raining. I want to lie down right here and take a nap in the sunshine. Or go get Elsie and bring her right back here for a picnic.
“How’s Elsie?” Dad finally asks, breaking the silence. He keeps looking ahead, eyes on the horizon, but I know he’s attuned to my every move. That he can read me like a book. It’s actually kind of comforting.
I think about his question for a long time. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have known how to answer it. I think that’s why he didn’t ask me then, when I came to him and asked if I could move into one of the cabins on the property that we rent out to people looking for a ranch stay while they’re visiting out west. I remember he asked then if Elsie was going to be safe alone, and I knew he meant safe from herself more than from some unforeseen threat. And I knew the answer was yes, that as bad as things might be, Elsie was a fighter first and foremost. And then he asked if I was going to be safe alone, and I told him that I would be. That seemed to be enough for him.
He never asked how we were doing, if either of us were okay, because I think he knew we weren’t, and that neither of us was ready to talk about it. But I am now, and he knows it.
“Better,” I answer, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my worn-out jeans. There’s a flower in my pocket that Ruby gave me when she saw me in the pasture with Sugar after her riding lesson. I twist the stem between my fingers, feel the dampness against my fingertips.
He looks at me, catching my eye. “Really?” He doesn’t sound incredulous or disbelieving, just like he wants to make sure I’m honest, holding nothing back.
I nod, feeling more sure with the movement. “Yeah, she is.” Turning back to face the mountains ahead of us, I say, “She’s not her old self again, but I don’t think she ever will be.”
He makes a noise of agreement in the back of his throat, his eyes finding the horizon. “No, I doubt she will be.” He pauses for a moment, then asks, “Do you think you can love this new version of her?”
I stop in the grass, and he does too. His eyes are the same dark brown as mine, and right now they’re both serious and piercing.
“I never stopped,” I tell him, and it’s the truth. Even when we were both at our worst, my soul never stopped trying to find its way back to hers.
He holds my gaze for a long moment, as if searching for something in it. “Good.”
My shoulders sink, relieved, and we start walking again.
“I don’t need to tell you that marriage is hard,” Dad says, voice echoing through the pasture, brushing against the grass and lifting in the slight breeze. “Your mom and I have had our fair share of troubles over the years.”
I look at him, disbelieving. My parents are opposites in so many ways, but similar in all the ones that count. My mom is fierce and loyal and stubborn as an ox. Dad is easy-going, wise, and steady as the mountains our ranch was built around. They complement each other, like opposite sides of the same coin. I’ve rarely ever even seen them argue. Sometimes they will havethese intense discussions with just their eyes, saying things only the other can decipher, and then a decision will be made and us kids will marvel at the way they made it. I know they have to have had hard times, but I’ve neverseenit. They’re steady, solid. Unwavering.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Dad says with a laugh that’s raspy from the years he spent smoking when we were kids. It wasn’t until his father died of lung cancer when Cooper and I were preteens that he finally quit. I remember the day he threw the cigarettes in the trash can in the kitchen and vowed he would never touch one again. How he made Cooper and me promise we wouldn’t either.
“Iamsurprised,” I tell him.
He shakes his head, looking at me with the bemused expression he used to wear when I was a teen and thought I had life all figured out. He was right; I did regret those nipple piercings that Cooper somehow talked me into.
“Son, you aren’t married for over thirty years without having your problems.” He’s quiet for a moment, eyes trained on the mountains ahead. “Your mom almost left me when she was pregnant with you and Cooper.”
I stop dead in my tracks, and when Dad realizes I’m not following, he does too. He pushes his hands into his pockets and stares at me, like he’s gathering his courage. “I wasn’t always a good father. Hell, sometimes I’m not now, but back then, I definitely wasn’t.”
I want to interject, tell him that when I lie awake at night, worried that I’m not going to be a good dad, it’s because I’m not sure I can live up to him and the example he’s been for me, but before I can say something, he speaks again.
“I was an alcoholic, or I was on my way to being one, at least. The ranch wasn’t doing the best at the time, and your mom and I were already arguing a lot about it. She thought we should sellsome of the cattle, scale back, and I thought we shouldn’t sell the only thing making us money. Then she got pregnant during our worst performing year, and I started drinking more. I would get up earlier than usual and work myself to the bone and then drink myself into a stupor at night. I wasn’t kind to her. I didn’t take care of her how I should.” He sighs at the big Montana sky. “She was carrying twins, for heaven’s sake, and I wasn’t pulling my weight around the house at all.”
I swallow, heart twisting in my chest.
“She fell one day,” he says, his eyes taking on a pained look I’ve never seen on him before.
Not at his father’s funeral, although that wasn’t that surprising, since they didn’t have the best relationship. Not when I asked if I could move home. Never.
“She fell,” he continues, voice rougher, more resigned, like he’s slipped back into a memory in his head. “And I was at the bar in town until late, and she couldn’t get a hold of me. She broke her ankle and had to call an ambulance to get her. I didn’t know until I got home and found the note she left me.” He scrubs a hand beneath his eyes, and my heart moves up into my throat at the sight of it. “When I finally got to the hospital, she told me I had to quit drinking or she was leaving.”
His eyes finally settle on mine, glowing with intensity. “I quit drinking that day, haven’t touched a drink since. How could I, when losing the best thing to ever happen to me was on the line?”
His words pierce me, the same ones Elsie and I said to each other just a couple of weeks ago, and I know how he must have felt then, faced with losing my mom. I always knew my dad didn’t drink, but growing up, when we asked him why, he just said there were things more important to him than drinking.
I nod, unable to form words against the lump in my throat. It’s thick and heavy, and I can feel tears pricking at the backs of my eyes because of it.
