Cotton, Three Months Later
THE DAY WAS COOL, BUTMOTHER HAD INSISTED ON SITTING IN HER GARDEN.Spring was her favorite season, and was just beginning to show itself in the bulbs pushing through the loamy topsoil and the verdant patches of green peppering the fields. Months after the attack that had instigated a stroke and rendered her unable to walk or speak, she was starting to heal.
She smiled now, despite the droop of the left side of her face. Laughed on occasion. Talked more. We were gradually coming to a place of understanding with each other. I understood that the accident that had taken both her husband and her son had broken something within her. She had distanced herself so she would never have to feel that same grief again.
She understood now how terribly her behavior had affected me. How it had left me feeling unwanted, unloved. In a rare display of vulnerability, she had apologized, confessing it was never her intention to separate herself from me so completely.
Our wounds were healing now, together.
I helped her into the garden, settling her in her favorite chaise with a lightweight throw over her legs. I checked to make sure she had everything she needed—book, phone, tea—and then dropped a quick kiss to the top of her head.
“I’ll be in the stables if you need me, and Savvi’s in the kitchen,” I reminded her.
“Check the mare?”
“That’s the plan.”
We had a mare that was due to foal in six weeks and we were both waiting impatiently. The vet was meeting me to give her the necessary vaccinations and a health exam. Mother hated not seeing to the animals herself as she always had, but she confided that the time away from the stables had forced her to recognize that she was using them as a substitute.
The stables were located a short distance away from the house, on the crest of a small hill that a fence-lined drive led to. My shoes crunched along the gravel as I made my way there, stopping to give one of our horses grazing at the fence a pat along the way.
It had been so long since I’d been home and felt comfortable enough to relax and enjoy it. I lived in a beautiful area, all rolling hills and patches of wood and water. The mountains rose around us, wooded foothills rising to blue gray shadows further out. When I was little, I’d ridden my horse over these fields, had lived in the barn, chasing kittens and climbing hay bales. I’d missed it.
The barn was where Shiloh found me a while later. I was just saying my good-byes to the vet when she rolled up in her truck and jumped lightly to the ground. I waved and started walking her way.
“Hey, you. Figured I’d find you here. How’s the horse?”
“She’s good. Mom can’t wait for that foal to arrive.” I’d slipped into calling her Mom not too long after I’d brought her home from the hospital. She was a different woman, humbled and wide open emotionally. She needed a different name. “What are you up to?”
“Just in the area; thought I’d stop in hang out for a while. You have time?”
“Of course. Savvi made cheese danish for breakfast this morning. Want to go bug her?”
“Dumb question.”
We walked back to the house, Shiloh claiming the return walk would be good for her ass after eating one of Savvi’s danishes, and entered through the kitchen door. Savvi glanced over her shoulder as she stood at the stove, stirring something in a pot. A morning news program played on a tablet propped up on the counter.
“We came for danish, Savvi,” Shiloh announced, dropping into a chair at the island.
“Ah, well, lucky for you, I have plenty of danish. You know where it is, right, Emery?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I sliced a couple of pieces and placed one in front of Shiloh with a fork, holding my own plate in my hand as I leaned against the counter.
“Oh, my God, this is divine.” Shiloh ignored the fork and ate with her hand, pausing to lick each finger with a delicate enthusiasm. “So, Cotton. You heard from Brodie lately?”
I glared. Shiloh was well-acquainted with the Brodie saga. I hadn’t seen him after the afternoon he had helped to bring Paul down. That night I had discovered my purse—the one Brodie had taken from me weeks earlier—sitting on my bed. Opening it, I had found my phone, fully charged, and a note scratched out on a piece of lined yellow paper torn from a ledger.
Macushla.
I think you know; my life is not my own. I’ll think of you every hour while I’m away, until such a time I am able to love you in the sunlight as well as in the shadow.
My only regret is that I didn’t get the chance to kill the fucker who hurt you.
Perhaps one day.
Yours,
Brodie
