My father had resumed marking the palings, so he whipped out his measuring tape and lined up his wood. He pulled a black marker out of his top pocket and marked it. “Why wouldn’t she? Not like it was your fault that the guy was here.”
My father shot me a look, daring me to confirm his statement. A feeling of guilt deep down left me feeling like it was partly my fault. I had to make a call to Amber.
“No, it’s not. She’s a good girl. She’s a social worker.”
“No such thing as a good girl. Did I ever tell you about the time your mother got caught with a pound of weed back in the day? This was in the seventies…”
The dread which loomed earlier transformed into storytelling between father and son. I found it hard to concentrate on what my father was saying. Amber was rattling around in my brain, looking for a place to land.
“Pop, I have to handle a few things. I’ll be down in the barn, okay?”
My father trotted to the next paling. “Okay, son.”
His look told me he understood what I was about to do next. I strode to the barn and found Bella talking to the horses. My special girl was humming to the horses, keeping them company. I scuffled up the dry dirt from the ground, making it past the barn. I wanted privacy.
“Hello,” a soft, delicate voice answered the phone.
“Amber, hi. Baby, are you okay? I wanted to call you earlier, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to be implicated.”
“I get it.” She sounded fed up and weary.
“No charges were filed against me. Not one. Hosea is in lock-up.”
Amber coughed uncomfortably. “We seem to cause one another nothing but pain, don’t we?”
Fear is not an emotion I had to wrangle with often, but it was rising to the precipice now.
“We have love, Amber, and there’s no way I want to live this dream out without you. I need you in my life.” I let out my heartfelt plea to her.
“I don’t know. This is a lot to deal with. I need some time to think, Colt. Can you give me some time?”
Devastated, I ran one hand through my hair and fought back the tears on the dirt trail path.
“Sure, Amber. Whatever you need.”
Twenty-Eight
Amber
Hopelessly in love is not something I ever thought I would call myself. I did a lot for my community with my social work. I wanted the prison systems to be better. I wanted foster children to feel safe in the homes they were sent to. I wanted perpetrators to be sent to jail if they harmed them. I wanted domestic violence to stop. I fought for justice in a lot of different areas of my life, but never for myself. My relationship with Colt felt like an injustice. Like we would never make it.
I wrestled with myself as I sat on my porch, watching the sun go down. I recognized the guilt I had in my heart from putting him in the situation with Hector. If it wasn’t for me asking for his help, that guy wouldn’t have been in his barn. He was from that night that they wouldn’t tell me about. I put two and two together. I was good at doing that.
I sat silently, listening to the world at dusk, wiping my tears. Could we have a life together? Thing is, I loved Bella. She’d called me after Colt’s arrest. I flashed back to the call.
“Hi, Ms. Atwood. I wanted to ask if you would come to dinner soon? I haven’t seen you. I miss you.”
I gulped down silent tears on the phone. “I’m really busy, but I will try to come and see you really soon. How about that? We can go out for ice cream.”
“Yay!”
“Bella?”
“Yes, Ms. Atwood?”
“Don’t call me that. Call me Amber. We’re friends now.”
She repeated it back to me. “We’re friends now. Okay. I understand,” she said in that sweet little voice of hers. “Amber, can I ask you something?”
