Page 31 of My Life with the Walter Boys
Back in New York, after my breakdown, I taught myself how to control my feelings. It was vital to my future success because I could never lose myself like that again. So I built a wall inside my mind to keep back my flood of emotions. But here, it was harder to maintain. The Walters’ house was like nothing I had ever experienced before: disorganized, rowdy, and unpredictable. Without a proper foothold, some type of steadiness, I was losing myself in the chaos. Lee’s comment had put a crack in my wall, and I felt like the whole thing was going to shatter.
“Jackie, you can’t listen to Lee,” he said in calm, clear-cut voice, the kind people use to convince you of something. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just ignore him.”
I nodded mechanically as I stared past him. Sure, I understood what Cole was trying to say, some sympathetic form of assurance, but it didn’t matter what he told me. It was kind of like when people apologized to me at my family’s funeral—it was just words, a script that they all were required to recite. They said they were sorry, but in reality they could never really comprehend what I was going through. So it didn’t matter if Lee was only being mean and I should disregard him, because he was speaking the truth.
And then it was almost as if Cole understood what I was thinking. “Hey,” he said, putting both of his hands on my shoulders. He gave me a little shake, forcing me to look back at him. “I’m really sorry my cousin is being such a jerk. Let me make it up to you.”
***
“These are the horse stables,” Cole said, holding the door open for me. He’d offered to give me a tour of the ranch, and I agreed. I needed someone,anyoneto take my mind off things.
I could see the stables from my bedroom window. When I noticed the main building from afar, I presumed that it was just a barn, but now as I stepped inside, I realized that it was much bigger. The first thing that hit me was the smell of animals and hay. It was overwhelmingly pungent—the kind of smell that was so heavy you could feel it in your lungs when you breathed in.
We were standing at the front of a long row, stalls on either side of us. A few were empty, but huge animals occupied the rest, snorting and swishing their tails. They varied in color from dark brown to soft gray, but to me, they were all equally daunting. I could feel Cole directly behind me, and for some strange reason, I found that reassuring.
“Besides the horses,” he told me in an easy voice, “the best thing about this place is the loft.”
He coaxed me forward, his hand a guiding pressure on my back. As we made our way to the other side of the stables, Cole pointed out the different horses, telling me each of their names. In one of the stalls, a man was brushing down a black mare that Cole called Raisin, and when he heard us, the man glanced up and nodded in our direction.
“Who’s that?” I whispered as we continued walking.
“Just one of the stable hands,” Cole told me. “My dad has a lot of employees. It takes quite a few people to run a ranch, and my brothers and I can’t always be there to help him with the work.”
By the time we reached the end of the stalls, I’d counted twenty-four horses in all. Cole had stopped in front of a wooden ladder and I craned my neck, trying to see what was on the second level. Stepping onto the first rung, he started to climb. About halfway up, he looked at me over his shoulder.
“You coming, Jackie?”
I climbed up after him, which was harder than it looked in my pencil skirt. When I reached the top, Cole offered me his hand and pulled me into the loft. The boys had clearly redone the space. I hadn’t known what to expect—maybe bales of hay—but instead there was a shabby blue rug on the floor, two couches, an old TV on a coffee table, and one of Katherine’s ever-present murals decorating the walls. A pile of board games was stacked in the corner, but judging by the layer of dust on top, the games hadn’t been touched in a long time.
“We used to hang out here a lot when we were younger,” Cole said as I rotated around the room, taking everything in. One of the beams holding up the ceiling was covered in Sharpie with different ticks, dates, and the boys’ names marking their different heights as they grew.
When he saw what I was looking at, he ran his finger over one with his name written next to it. “I remember I broke my leg that day,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s add you.”
He grabbed a marker. It was hanging from the string that was nailed into the beam, waiting patiently to record a new height. I stepped up against the rough, wooden height chart, and Cole’s hands brushed the top of my head as he drew a line. He scribbled my name next to it when I stepped aside, and I realized that the little black mark wasn’t just a testament to how short I was compared to most of the Walters, but a memory.
“There,” Cole said, glancing over his handiwork after hanging the marker back up. “Now that you’ve been inducted permanently into the loft, let me show you why it’s so awesome.” He crossed over to the ledge and leaned over, his hand fishing in the air for a rope that was hanging from the ceiling.
“Cole, what are you doing?” I demanded as he hoisted himself up onto the banister.
“Watch this,” he said and grinned. With one big step, Cole swung through the air like some crazy jungle man, shouting at the top of his lungs before dropping into a huge pile of hay.
I rushed over to the edge, hands gripping the railing as I peered over to see if he was okay. At first, I couldn’t see him because the pile of hay had swallowed him up. But before I could freak out, Cole popped up, sending pieces of dried grass everywhere. “Your turn, Jackie,” he shouted up to me. “Just grab the rope.”
“Like hell,” I said, backing away. I swiveled to the right, moving in the direction of the ladder. “I’m coming down like a normal person so I don’t end up in the ER.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” I heard Cole say below, and before I could reach the ladder, I saw the top of it shake, then disappear, leaving me trapped in the loft. I stared at the empty gap in the banister for a few seconds before I realized the ladder was gone. The sight was strange, like a missing tooth in someone’s smile.
“It’s not funny, Cole,” I finally said, trying to stay calm as I peered down at him. “Please put the ladder back.”
“Nope.” The ladder was still in his hands, but he was easing it down onto its side, far out of my reach.
“If you actually think I’m going to jump out of this loft, then you’re crazy,” I informed him, in my best I-mean-business tone. It was a ludicrous idea.
“Come on, Jackie,” he responded with a whiny-please voice. “It’s not that far of a fall and I promise it’s safe. We used to do it all the time as kids.”
But I was having none of that. “If you don’t put the ladder back up right now—”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” he asked, cutting me off. His arms were crossed over his chest as he craned his neck to look up at me.
