That gets me up, gets me moving.
My time of hiding in these four walls is over. I hurt when I get up, like I have every morning since the accident in the mines. It’s an overall ache that comes from the marrow of my bones, a wound so old, I can’t figure out if it’s flaring up or if my body is just not conditioned to being alive without pills to numb it all.
I reckon it’s the latter now that I’m clean off everything.
It takes a second to get out of bed. The shower helps loosen things up. I turn the knob until it’s almost too hot to bear and let it beat down on my back.
In the kitchen, I make another coffee and take it out to the front porch. In rehab, there was a gym where I usually spent mymornings once they discharged me from physical therapy. My hands have never been quite the same after the accident. My grip doesn’t work as well as it should. When I squeeze too hard, they shake a little.
Time in the rehab gym and physical therapist’s office has helped, but it’s gonna take time.
It all feels…so disconnected from the world I knew. Back home, we were tough as nails, about as fancy as dirt. The concept of going to a gym was laughable. Hours of labor in the factory or the mines was workout enough. Nobody had anything left after that. Evenings meant eating without speaking and falling into bed from exhaustion, then rinse and repeat so there was just enough of a paycheck to keep the lights on.
I sink down on the porch. In the distance, I glimpse a tall figure moving on a horse down the center of the housing. Deacon Ryder, Freya’s man, is heading towards me at an easy pace. The first time I saw Deacon, I kind of recoiled, because he reminded me of Aiden. Even in my hazy state, it hit me pretty hard that my little sister was running around with him. It hit even harder when she told me she was pregnant.
But then I met him.
He’s a rare kind of man, no anger in him. Justice, yes, and sympathy for the disadvantaged, but anger—I haven’t seen that surface in his eyes yet.
I glance up as he pulls his horse to a halt and takes off his hat.
“You look like shit,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, stretching out my legs on the stoop. “I feel like it.”
“I don’t think you should start work full time just yet.”
“I’ve been putting it off for a month,” I say, taken aback. “Is that Freya talking or you?”
His jaw works, and that’s how I know my sister put him up to this. So far, Deacon seems like the hardworking type whodoesn’t care much for excuses. I can’t see him giving me time off just for being tired.
“I’m fine,” I say, getting up. “I’m ready to work. What needs done?”
He sighs. “I can have you shadow Andy today.”
“Ranch manager Andy?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Why’s that?” I climb up the steps and go to pull open the door.
“Andy needs somebody to help out on his days off,” he says, shifting his weight to turn his horse. “You better be the one to explain to Freya that you don’t need more time off. I ain’t doing that shit.”
“She’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ll drop by so she can see how well I’m doing.”
“You better. She’s always worried.”
I pause in the doorway. “Hey, I’m not going to disappoint her. I promised, and I mean it.”
He jerks his head, clicking his tongue to send his horse in the other direction. I duck inside and head upstairs. I only have one extra change of clothes, but luckily, they’ll be serviceable for work. Moving slowly, I put everything on, buckle my belt, and head down the stairs to where my boots sit.
They’re the only thing left from my old life, made in Kentucky a few years back. I had them on the night Deacon dragged me to rehab. They held them back for me and handed them over the day I checked out.
I sink down, lacing them on.
I kind of miss home. The dense mountains, the foliage so thick, it blocks out the sun sometimes, the creeks snaking through the hills. But it’s better to be here now, with Freya and her new family, than anywhere else. She needs me, that much was clear when I saw her for the first time after rehab lastmonth. I’ve got to pull it together and be the brother I couldn’t be for the last twenty some years.
She’s been through enough at just twenty-three. I hated watching her struggle the way we did, just hanging on and trying to grow up like weeds struggling through sidewalk cracks. I had it rough, but she had it worse as the only girl in the family—underfed, ignored, sleeping in corners of the house, sometimes on nothing but a dirty blanket. I was gone in the mines, and after that, I don’t remember much.
