I’ve done what I needed to do for school.
Yes, I should probably make the most of my degree. Yes, the job market is small and highly competitive near Paint. Yes, I’d have much higher earning potential somewhere else.
But what good is money if I don’t have the most important person to share it with? Am I sure Darcy is the most important person in my life? No, not yet. But I think she could be, and I’ll hate myself forever if I don’t find out.
And one thought from Brianna rings in my head: “If everybody actually listened when she pushed them away, she’d never have nobody.” Then she doubted whether to use “nobody” or “anybody,” but that’s unimportant right now.
What is important is that I need to get Darcy back.
It’s 3 a.m. when I pack my bag and leave a note for Mom on the kitchen table.
* * *
Off to get the girl. I’ll bring her home to you soon.
Love you,
Jake
FIFTY-SIX
DARCY
I’m wrappedup in a quilt on the porch as the sun rises. I’m wearing what I’d call one of my house dresses, and what Rob would have called “Ol’ Meemaw’s Dressing Gown.” Fucker. I’m cute and I know it. Tiny white flowers dot the flowy sky blue dress. Why can’t I feel pretty while I relax?
Stormy’s been my constant companion through this long night.
It’s Labor Day, but you know, farms. No days off. Mouths to feed, etc.
I couldn’t sleep anyway.
First I tried starting my second draft of my book, but the words wouldn’t come. I typed and retyped what felt like ninety variations of the same sentence before self-loathing kicked in.
Was some mediocre man my muse? Ugh.
This was exactly the predicament I didn’t want to get into.
Stormy looks at me as if to say, “Don’t call Daddy mediocre,” because we both know he’s not.
He’s wonderful and life feels shitty without him.
The sun slowly lights the sky, bringing this land that I know like the back of my hand to life. It’s home. It’s part of my DNA.
But home doesn’t feel so homey without Jake. Home isn’t just a place. It’s the people, and the smells, and the food, and some sort of gravitational vortex that connects you to certain situations. Places and experiences that leave an echo inside you, and you spend your life searching for the original sound.
My eyes fill thinking that Jake was an original sound, an indelible part of what makes up home. He’s a piece of home that I’m realizing I might be willing to follow to lands outside of this one.
That fact is at once terrifying, exhilarating, and liberating.
Mostly terrifying.
I decide when I go inside to make coffee, I’ll try to call him. He’s usually an early riser, or at least he was before he left the farm. Maybe he’s a night owl now. I don’t have a good way of knowing.
The Jake I know would take my call at any hour, and that’s the Jake I’m hoping still exists.
I won’t beg for him back. I won’t pressure him for an answer because the quest I sent him on was somewhat vague.
I’ll just see how he’s doing. Hopefully, he’s not living in mental squalor like I am.
