I punched his arm this time. “I’m not a nun!”
“If you say so.”
Grimacing, I turned to round the car. “That’s my cue to leave.”
“Have you got everything?” he called after me.
“Yup.” I pulled open the driver’s door and glanced back at him. “I’ll phone you when I get there.” Melancholy threatened, a deep, yawning loneliness that I knew was mostly born of grief. “If you need me to come back, tell me, aye?”
Sadness tightened Jared’s features. “Aye, wee cuz.”
“Big cuz,” I countered, my smile wobbly.
His return smile was forlorn. “I’m proud of you, Sarah. Grandad would be proud too.”
“I’m proud of both of us.We’redoing Grandpa proud.”
Jared nodded and hit the roof of the car before stepping back. He wore his usual work gear of flannel shirt, jeans, and green farm boots. The farmhouse I’d grown up in stood behind him. The two-story home was built a hundred years ago in sandstone brick with slate tile for its roof of multiple pitches. Grandpa had gone into the attic space so he’d added dormer windows and a third floor. Jared had taken that space forhimself when he came to live with us, but I’d finally talked him into taking the primary bedroom now that Grandpa was gone. That third floor got too hot during the summer.
Knowing it would be strange for him, I used my earnings to have my grandparents’ bedroom furniture removed and put in the attic. I bought a whole new bedroom suite for Jared and redecorated the room. He cried quietly when he saw it. Jared had rarely cried in all the years we’d known each other, but we’d both been extremely emotional these last few months since Grandpa’s death. And poor Jared had been with him. Had held him in his arms as he died. Heart attack. No time to save him.
The two of us were like a raw wound; the slightest thing reopened the pain and tears.
For not the first time, I questioned leaving Jared so soon after. It had only been six months since we lost the only real father we’d ever known.
“I can stay,” I whispered.
Jared swallowed hard but shook his head. “He’d want us both to start living again.”
Pushing down the tears in my throat, I nodded and gave him a wee wave. “Off I go, then.”
He smiled. “Go write another bestseller, superstar.”
“Talk soon?”
“Call me as soon as you get there.”
“Love you, Jar.”
His mouth trembled and he looked away, composing himself, before he turned back to me. His words sounded like stone under sandpaper. “I love you, too, Sarah.”
Afraid I might burst into painful sobs, I hurried into the car and slammed the door shut.
About a year after Jared arrived, he got a phone call from his mum that had set him off. He was acting like a shit to everyone, and he did something stupid and dangerous with the tractor. YetGrandpa didn’t yell at him, didn’t rage. He knew something was eating away at Jared, and at dinner that night, he’d told him that he could destroy the whole farm if he liked, but it wouldn’t stop Grandpa from loving him.
Jared turned as white as a sheet, and it was the first and only time I saw my cousin cry—until our grandfather died. Grandpa had got up from the table and pulled Jared into his arms, holding him tightly as he promised him nothing could make him stop loving him. Jared cried like a small child and returned the sentiment, though the words sounded wrenched from him.
He’d never been able to say those three words easily, but Grandpa had made it safe for him. For both of us.
Knowing that man who’d protected and loved us as fiercely as any good father would was now gone from the world still tore through me like a serrated knife.
I hit the gas and drove faster down the drive than I should because if I didn’t, I wasn’t sure I would leave the farm or Jared behind.
Three
THEO
For the first time in months, my fingers itched to type. To transport the ideas and scenes in my head onto the page. Except, also for the first time, they were inspired by someone else’s story. Many of the scenes were already written by someone else, but I could visualize how they’d work on-screen and which part of the dialogue was perfect for adaptation and the parts we could take out without affecting the story.
