Page 2 of Roads Behind Us
Fine.
Swirling my misogyny cape around me once again, I imagined it whipping Bax in his smug face as I turned. “Okay, cowboy, but I hope you came prepared to have your sweet little ass handed to you by a girl.”
We hadn’t even started playing yet, but I figured the score had already been skewed in my favor: one point for me, negative 367 for Bax Lee.
Chapter One
Bax
Present Time
Forget the rest.
Remember the good times and forget the rest?
I’d been trying, but losing my wife, best friend, and the mother of my daughter had been… soul bending. And so fucking hard. Sometimes, it felt like it had only been three days and not three years. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but every morning when I opened my eyes, I looked at the ceiling in my bedroom and asked, “Why’d you leave us?”
If I could avoid it, I never thought about the baby boy she’d been carrying when Candy died seven months into her pregnancy. His memory triggered a shield and a hardening to descend down around my heart the instant I tried to imagine what his laughter would sound like.
Who was I if I wasn’t Candy’s husband? She’d been my world for twenty years, and she gave me the best gift I’d ever been given when she gave birth to Athena. If I hadn’t had our daughter to look after when Candy and the baby died suddenly, I probably would’ve dissipated into the ether, would’ve ceased to exist anymore.
Fortunately, having a kid on the precipice of her prime teenage years meant I had to get up every morning, had to shower and cook and interact with the world because if I didn’t, there’d be hell to pay. How in the world was my daughter about to turn fourteen? In my head, she was still a little girl with sticky fingers, dragging her dirty tiger stuffie around the farm.
The grown-up sound of her voice now shook me right out of the memory. “Daddy, I need new shoes. I told you last week.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, Road Trip. I forgot. Here.” Teetering precariously on one foot and trying not to let my crutches fall, I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and snagged three twenties.
One damn day I’d been in this stupid, full-leg cast, and it had already become the bane of my existence. Until my incisions had healed enough to be covered with a cast, the brace the doctor had me wearing right after surgery let me maneuver through my house easy enough. I still hadn’t tried to venture upstairs to my bedroom. I’d been sleeping on my living room couch, but now that the rigid, plaster monstrosity was in place, it was bulky and unforgiving. And it weighed a ton. I was exhausted just thinking about trying to lug it up there.
I handed the money to Athena, but she held the bills up next to her sweet face. She’d braided her hair this morning, and she looked like she used to when she was little and Candy would French braid a twist down either side of her head. Candy had tried to teach me how to braid our daughter’s hair more than once, but I’d proved useless with that kind of stuff. Besides, I was busy with our farm, and I never thought I’d need the skill.
The regret I still felt every morning for that stupid thought ate at me. What I wouldn’t have given for a second chance to learn. YouTube could only show me so much. What I wanted— What I missed was watching the gentle glide of Candy’s fingers through Athena’s silky hair as she sat, patient and relaxed in front of her mama at the kitchen table, and the quiet way Candy would ask Athena what she’d dreamed about the night before or how excited she was for the day. They’d plan dinner together in soft voices, sleep still evident in Athena’s eyes and voice.
Holding the cash in front of my face, Athena asked, “What am I s’posed to do with this?”
“Buy shoes?”
Athena laughed. “Okay, Daddy. Should I walk to the store? In Idaho Falls? These are special shoes. They cost twice that much, and we’d have to go to, like, a whole other state to get them. You know that, right?” When I shrugged, she stuffed the money in my back pocket. “Check your texts, old man. I sent you a link. Just order them—women’s size seven—but if they offer rush shippin’, do that.”
“Okay. Thanks. What kinda shoes are these?”
“Trainers. Remember, I told you I joined cross country this year? We’ve already started, but the shoes I have aren’t cuttin’ it. The soles are practically nonexistent.”
“Right, yeah. No, I remember.” Athena turned to head out the kitchen door. Hopefully she hadn’t figured out that I’d completely forgotten. What kind of shitty parenting was that? “Wait. Didn’t you tell me you needed somethin’ else too?”
She stopped with her hand ready to push open the door. “Yeah, but don’t worry about it. I’ll have Aunt Abey take me to get new riding boots. At least those we can get in town, and she said she’d get them for me for my birthday.”
“Okay, cool. You know you’re expensive?” I smiled, but she already knew I was kidding. It didn’t matter what she wanted; Athena had me wrapped around her little finger since the moment she was born.
She scoffed. “It’s not my fault I keep growin’. It’s kinda yours and… Mama’s.”
It broke my heart that she felt she had to be careful with me when she brought up her mom. It was getting easier to hear, but I still avoided the subject. I knew I needed to let go of some of the pain, but the loss had changed me, and I clung to it like a best friend.
I’d have to remember to thank my sister again for basically being a fill-in mom these last few years. I really needed to stop depending on her. I thought I’d lose my mind after the funeral when Athena announced to a room full of family and neighbors that she’d started her period. For a split second, I thought God was coming straight for me. Sometimes I still thought that. Like a week ago, when a bull tried to kill me but broke my femur instead.
Thankfully, Abey knew all about PMS, sanitary pads, and tampons, and she’d tried to educate me. Unfortunately, at the time, my mind held onto only every fifth or sixth word she’d said. She had to explain it all again the next month.
But my baby sister had her own life. She was engaged to be married to her girlfriend, Devo, they were building a new house half a mile away from mine, and she’d recently become the deputy sheriff of our small town. She had enough to deal with.
