But he was still here.
“Long distance is hard,” Tennessee told her.“We thought we could handle it, because it wasn’t as if we’d ever even really lived in the same town.But it was harder than that.And not because we didn’t trust each other, but because our lives became so different.”He was staring straight ahead, his gaze on the fire, but Matilda suspected that he was somewhere else entirely.Somewhere back in time.“And the longer it went on, it became obvious that while her world was getting bigger and bigger with possibilities that had never occurred to us, mine was staying the same.”
“I think it makes sense that your head can get turned when you live somewhere else,” Matilda said quietly.“When your world changes, you change with it.That’s only natural.”
“Oh, her head didn’t get turned,” Tennessee said with a short laugh.“Mine did.If I’d listened to her, she’d never been happier, because she knew where we were heading.The plan was the plan and we were executing it exactly the way we’d dreamed up when we were sixteen.If I’d listened to her, we would probably be married now.”
Matilda studied his face, and that frown he wore.“And that would be a bad thing?”
“I went to visit her on her campus in Billings,” Tennessee said after a moment.“It was supposed to be a surprise, because she’d had a tough run of classes and I hadn’t been able to get away.I knew her schedule, so it was easy to find her.I just waited outside for her class to let out.”He shook his head.“But then when she came outside, I couldn’t do it.It was like I could suddenly see it all much too clearly.”
“Was she with someone else?”Matilda asked, quietly.Though inside, she was already feeling indignant on his behalf.
Tennessee let out that small laugh.“Of course she wasn’t with someone else.Kacey wasn’t like that.She was with her friends.And she was… light and happy and carefree.She looked like the girl she’d been in high school, the one I’d fallen in love with.And I couldn’t pretend to myself any longer that she was still that girl with me.”
Matilda was riveted.“I don’t know what that means.”
“Looking back, I can see that no matter how much I might have loved her, the important thing to me was that I made sure I was nothing like my father.”Tennessee ran a hand over his face.“It’s not surprising that I found someone young, held on tight, and thought that if I could do everything right, get it all locked down, I could prove that I was different.Because deep down, I was desperate to be different.”
“You are different,” Matilda said at once.
But Tennessee shook his head at that.“Standing there that day on her campus, when she had no idea I was anywhere around, I could see what I was doing was pulling her down with me.Chaining her somewhere that maybe she didn’t belong.Because she loved me.She would never disappoint me.Even if the plans she and I made at sixteen didn’t suit her anymore.”
He swallowed, like it still hurt him, or maybe it was just as he was so busy looking at the past that it felt like the present again.Either way, he kept going.“I could have broken up with her on the spot and set her free immediately.I should have.But I didn’t.I didn’t even tell her that I was there.I went back home and I sat on it.”His mouth hardened.“And that was how I figured out that given the opportunity, I was exactly like my dad.Selfish.Deeply self-centered.Perfectly willing to hurt someone else if it made me feel better.I’ll tell you something, Matilda.I didn’t like myself much after that.”
“I think you’re being unfair.”Matilda studied him.“I’m pretty sure that selfish, self-centered people like themselves just fine when they act the way they do.Once again, you’re nothing like him.”
But he clearly didn’t want to hear that.“The next time she came home, I did what had to be done.It was messy, because we’d been together so long at that point.We grew up together.”
He let out a small sigh.“Needless to say, she didn’t exactly see things my way.And I’ll admit that we went back and forth on that.For years.Because deep down, I think we both liked the dream.The plan.The idea that two kids could get sweet on each other the first day of middle school, and make it work.Maybe they can, but we weren’t those kids.”
“Where is she now?”Matilda asked, already going through every person she’d ever known in Crawford County and wondering if there was a Kacey in there somewhere.
“Last I heard she was a teacher in Omaha,” Tennessee said, and smiled fondly, like he was proud of her all these years later.That just made Matilda like him more.“Her mom told me that she met a nice man who thought she hung the stars and wanted to give her the world.I told her I was happy to hear it, and I meant it.They’ve got three kids now.She still sends my mother a Christmas card.”
“Do you regret what you did?”Matilda asked.“Breaking up with her like that?”
“Not at all.”He shook his head decisively.“What I regret is not cutting it off cleaner.It lingered a little too long throughout our twenties and I don’t think it did either one of us any favors.Nostalgia can be a bitch like that.”
He didn’t say anything after that, not for some time.The fire crackled and popped.The wind slapped against the side of the cottage.Fran, Matilda’s old bulldog, snored in her corner.Montgomery, the ancient dachshund, chased badgers in his sleep, his white-tipped paws scrabbling in the air as he lay on his back.
“That’s the funny thing about these mysteries that folks think need solving,” Tennessee said after a while.“Most of the time, they’re not mysteries.They’re not even secrets.Just not anybody else’s business.But I’m glad to know that people are still sitting around talking about my broken heart.”His blue gaze lifted to hers, and held.“That was the trouble, Matilda.It wasn’t my heart that broke.And in the end, only my telling her that got her to let go.I should have told her the truth a whole lot sooner and saved her from all that mess.”
“So then you became the unofficial mayor of Cowboy Point instead,” Matilda said, instead of sharing her thoughts aboutmessand broken hearts and taking things on that maybe weren’t his to carry.She didn’t think he’d hear it.“With all of the rights and honors that conveys.”
“I think we both know that the only thing it means is that people somehow think I’m a bigger busybody than they are,” Tennessee said with a laugh.“Which I think we also know isn’t true at all.”
“I thought it had more to do with your stringent sense of responsibility for everything you touch, whether that’s your family or the town,” Matilda said.And thought,or your ex-girlfriend, who you’re taking responsibility for years later whenshe’sclearly moved on.“The very model of an upstanding citizen.”
“When I decided that I couldn’t solve my childhood by having a better marriage and family life than my father had,” Tennessee said ruefully, “which is funny now that I know how catastrophically bad he was at those things, I figured I would lean into the things I could do something about.Cowboy Point is a unique community.I know there are always people agitating to separate from Marietta, but the truth is, we benefit from being under the Marietta umbrella.Developing our own character inside of the protection of that umbrella makes sense.It’s happening more and more.Dr.Ramona opened her clinic here, not down in Marietta.We have more artists and farmers than we need at the market every summer.We’re becoming such a tourist destination that we have our own mention on that up-itself website for the Resort at Ransom Ridge out in the hills, and they generally call in private helicopters to take their guests to Jackson Hole.There’s even a farm-to-table restaurant, almost certain to be fancy in that Bozeman style, coming in on the main road.Classing up the valley, one step at a time.”
“I’ve heard,” Matilda said.She tilted her head as she looked at him.“I didn’t really see you as the farm-to-table, fancy dinner type.”
“I like any restaurant that doesn’t compete for my customers,” Tennessee retorted.“And I also like when other people cook dinner for me.”
“I think that people underestimate what a force of good will you really are.”Matilda wasn’t teasing him, not exactly.But his head moved a little bit as he studied her, and she wondered if he thought that she was.
Because neither one of them was fully themselves where other people could see, were they?They were alike that way.
