Page 71 of Grown-Up Second Chance

Right now I wanted to be anywhere but here, standing at the edge of a boiling, steamy hell that reflected the emotions churning on my insides.

“Whatever you say, Joe,” I told him before walking to the truck and climbing into the passenger side.

“Don’t do this,” he said when he got behind the wheel. “Not again. Don’t shut me out.”

“I’m not sure who is shutting who out here,” I told him. I begged my adult self to take control from the wounded teenage angst driving me.

“I’m not. I swear to God, I’m not,” he said. “Is it so wrong to want to take things slow?”

“There isn’t a lot of time for slow at our age,” I said. “I would think you would get that by now.”

The pain I’d caused was reflected on his face.

Damn my uncontrolled words.

Finally, the adult took over.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “It was a lovely day. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined it.”

He patted my hand. “It’s okay. We’re good. Although we could use a goofy bear about now.”

I laughed.

As if on cue, a bison walked from a nearby copse and sauntered in front of us. He stopped when his massive head and shoulders were midway across the front of the truck and turned his beady eyes toward us.

We stayed perfectly still.

After a few agonizing seconds, he snorted, then continued on his way.

And so did we.

~ ~ ~

I didn’t contact Joe at all the next day.

The more mature voice in my head pointed out that I was repeating my teenage behavior, but I ignored her. Instead, I threw myself into the logistics of our trip, checking and rechecking that I’d made the reservations I needed, especially in the more popular parks, calculating the distance between stops so that we could enjoy the drive without taxing ourselves, and making sure we had time to rest and recuperate at a park that had a laundry and a full-service grocery store nearby.

Once I’d triple-checked, I made sure my client work was caught up, then killed some time on Facebook. An advertisement for a camera caught my eye, and I clicked through to the item’s page. I realized I had no idea what half of the terms on the page meant, so I went down the rabbit hole of research.

Before I knew it, an hour had passed.

I wasn’t sure I was any clearer about all the functions of the camera, but I had an idea of the possible brands and models.

I could start with something basic, couldn’t I?

For what you use a camera for, a point and shoot is all you need.

Larry’s voice echoed in my brain, much louder than the protests of my tiny creative soul. I’d been to therapy before and after the divorce, and made progress, but I’d gotten tired of the process before the therapist thought I was ready.

I’d cancelled an appointment. Then another. Then the rest.

The world was geared toward the practical. Much like it had been at the end of the nineteenth century, workers worked and those who had money or were a little bit crazy did art.

I’d always felt Liz fell into the latter category.

She seemed to make money with it, enough to live on. Kathleen told me the ranch fund was actually greater than it had been when we inherited from our parents. Both Liz and I had put in money, while Kathleen had managed our property and business conservatively. The operation covered its expenses and made a small profit every year.

The manager she’d hired several years ago when Michael’s health began to fail had been left in charge as we took our trip. Even though we’d sold the cattle, the fields of wheat and alfalfa needed tending. When we got back, we’d decide if we wanted to sell part of it, or get easements from something like the Nature Conservancy. One thing we were determined to do was keep it intact. It wasn’t going to become another development of large look-alike houses stuck out like a treeless junk heap in the middle of the prairie.

---