“Thanks, honey. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Mom sighed, looking over at me. “Ready, kiddo?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” I shrugged as my dad and two brothers sauntered into the room. “Damn,this is the best looking all of us have ever been at the same time. I didn’t even know Dad owned a button-up that wasn’t plaid.”
I laughed to cut the tension.
Mom beamed at Dad. “Button-upanda fresh shave? Bennett Wells, you haven’t looked this sexy since our wedding day.”
“And you only get more beautiful every single day.” His towering frame moved around the island to lean in and kiss her. She held his face in her hands and whispered something that had him pulling away with a smile—something rarely seen from my father,exceptwhen it came to Mom.
Mom clapped her hands together. “Okay, we need to go, or we’ll be late.”
“Well, if there was ever a time we should be forgiven for lateness, it’s our grandpa’s funeral,” I said.
Jackson nodded in agreement. “Not like they’re giving away our seats.”
“Front row, reserved,baby.They won’t even start the show until we’re there. We may as well roll up fashionably late.” I grabbed hold of Blair’s hand, following Dad and Austin as they helped Mom out to the pickup.
She was still fighting hard, despite deciding earlier in the year that she was done with experimental drugs and clinical trials. Most of them only made her feel worse, while also forcing her and Dad to be away from the ranch more often. One night, the house was practically vibrating from the yelling match between my parents—Mom insisting she would be happiest spending whatever time she had left here with us, and Dad insisting she needed to put up more of a fight to beat her cancer. In the end, as with every fight I ever overheard my parents have, Mom won.
Blair slid into the middle seat of my worn-out 1986 Ford.Her hand found its home on my thigh, and I laid mine overtop, squeezing as we passed under theWells Ranchsign at the end of the driveway.
“How are you doing?” She tilted her head slightly to look at me.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” I briefly steered with my knee so I could manually roll down the window. The warm, hay-scented air felt a lot like a balm over the anguish in my bones. “He was healthy and then,boom,dead.”
A heart attack while we were driving the herd out to graze for the summer. The one blessing is knowing he died doing what he loved, with the people he loved, in the place he loved.
And now we were en route to honor his life at his second favorite spot on Earth: the Wells Canyon rodeo grounds.
“I’m sorry, baby.” Blair lightly kissed my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s…okay, I guess. I mean, it really solidifies my decision to stay home.”
“Your family needs you. I get it.” Her thin-lipped smile said she understood, but didn’t agree. That she had so much more to say about my choice to defer enrollment in university, but the drive to my grandfather’s funeral wasn’t the time.
“Just for the year, then I’ll be coming to you.Promise.”
“I know.” Her head found my shoulder for a long, quiet drive to town.
Thankfully, we also had reserved parking at the rodeo grounds, or we likely would’ve turned around and gone back home. Vehicles covered every square inch of ground near the arena and lined the roadways for at least half a kilometer.
Walking into the arena, Blair’s grip on my hand felt like a heartbeat with the way she squeezed tighter, then relaxed a little when she realized how close she was to breaking my hand, then squeezed instinctively all over again. Whether she knew it or not, she kept my heart pumping. Her hand inmine being the sole thing holding me together. She was the reason I took a seat next to Jackson and managed not to crumble to the floor.
Somehow, even with all the vehicles outside, I didn’t expect the stands to be packed with more bodies than I’d ever seen at a rodeo. I wiggled my nose to cut through the burn as I looked around, pulling Blair’s hand onto my lap. And I blacked out until my name was said over the speaker. With a reassuring pat on the thigh from Blair, I stood and walked through the thick dirt to where George Shaw, Wells Canyon’s official rodeo announcer, was holding a microphone out for me. It was all slow motion, and filled with an anxious gut feeling similar to the way I felt climbing on a wild bronc or bull. Except lacking any sort of exhilaration.
It fucking sucked.
I cleared my throat, making the mistake of looking at the hundreds of beady eyes staring back at me, then found my girl. Her eyes met mine, and she pressed a kiss to her hand, tossing it discreetly my way like I’d done so many times to her over the years.
“My name’s Denver, and uh, Charles is—was my grandpa. As you may know, my grandpa wasn’t a big talker, and that’s a trait he passed down to basically everyone in the family…which is why they made the reckless decision to let me talk today.” I shrugged at the gentle laughter from the crowd. “Grandpa might not have been a talker, but he still managed to impart some pretty meaningful wisdom. ‘If you’re gonna be dumb, you better be tough,’ ‘You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his horse,’ and ‘Shut up, Denny.’ Sorry, Grandpa—last one didn’t stick too well.”
Blair smiled. Dad gave me a subtle head bob. Mom winked. So I pushed on: “Grandpa’s idea of a compliment was ‘you didn’t screw that up too badly,’ but he always made it clear how much he loved us. And by us, I don’t just mean his immediate family. He loved the ranch, the town, the people,and the animals. He’d give the shirt off his back, drive a tractor twenty minutes down the road to pull somebody out of the ditch, and give anybody a job if they needed back on their feet. We’ll miss the old cowboy—may his pastures be forever green, his horses fast, and his coffee always hot.”
Licking my chapped lips, I handed off the microphone and practically sprinted back to my seat—heart suddenly racing faster than it had been throughout the eulogy. Blair was waiting, ready to grab my shaking hands and hold tight. Jackson gripped my shoulder when I sat down, giving silent approval. And Mom leaned forward to give me a small smile, whispering that I’d done a great job.
When the final words were said, the crowd trickled down through the gates to where we’d been sitting. Despite clearly feeling exhausted from the trip out of the house, Mom put on a smile for about ten minutes before Dad insisted they leave. And, with the only other outgoing family member gone, it fell on me to accept condolences. Austin tried—shaking hands and nodding along as people felt obliged to share stories about our grandpa. Jackson, too. Although he was too much of an awkward motherfucker to even engage in conversation, for the most part.
But Blair stood with her arm around my waist, keeping me grounded. She talked when I couldn’t. She laughed at my ill-timed, and often dark, jokes.
