And now it was like they were building memories rather than comparing notes on old ones.Tonight Helena was telling stories about customers at her coffee cart.
“Nothing beats the extremely grumpy ranchers,” she said.“I’m supposed to know, from a single glare, the exact and precise order, even if there’s been no verbal confirmation.All because the man raises horses.”
“I think you mean Colton Dean,” Tennessee said, and wondered if everyone at the table noticed the way Helena sat up just a little bit straighter.Like that name landed on her with some force.Interesting.“He’s pretty ill-tempered.Always has been.His grandfather spends a lot of mornings in the diner and that’s a major topic of conversation.”
“Imagine,” Cat said with a delighted sort of laugh, “being grumpy enough thatTennesseenoted this.”
Then they all sat around, having a grand old time casting aspersions upon his character in what was certainly a family bonding moment, so Tennessee let them have it.He sat back in his chair and thought about Matilda.Again.As usual.But specifically about how terrified she’d looked when she’d told him she loved him, and how fast she’d run out the door.
He thought about the crushing weight of the responsibility he’d always felt for his family, and how he’d let that guide everything.How it had made himmonastic.How it had given himcontrol issues.How it had made him prize a clean house overpuppies, for God’s sake.
How maybe, somewhere along the way, he’d let what he considered his duties become his personality.
So that even now, though she’d told him she loved him and he’d already known this was forever from the moment she’d kissed him, Matilda doubted him.
That didn’t sit well with him at all.
The pizzas came.They laughed a whole lot, told more stories, and Tennessee was pretty sure that he could see them getting closer in real time.Exactly what their mothers had hoped.It didn’t just feel right, it felt like this wassupposedto happen.What their father had split, they were damn sure going to bring together.
When they finished eating, most of the group decided to stay.Only Cat said she needed to go home, and so Tennessee walked her out, claiming his usual early morning as an excuse.
Out on the street, Cat went to the truck Wilder insisted she drive through the winter and pulled out a box from the front seat.
“Will you give this to Mom?”she asked Tennessee.“If I take it up to the house myself I’ll end up hanging out for much too long, and I have to study tonight.”
Tennessee could not exactly say that he had to chase Matilda down without getting into a long conversation about how and why, could he?So all he did was nod.
But Cat didn’t get into the driver’s seat.She stood by the side of the truck and studied him instead, seemingly impervious to the kick of cold wind rushing down from the mountains.
“Matilda Stark?”she asked again, quietly.
Tennessee nodded toward the truck door.“You just said you have to go home and study.”
“The thing is, Tennessee,” Cat said, with a very small smile that suggested she knew more than he wanted anyone to know right now, “you seem to forget that I am the person who knows all about the seemingly inappropriate love interest who actually turns out to be the love of your life.In case you forgot.”
“Good night, Cat,” Tennessee muttered, and turned around to walk across the road toward his house.
“I’ll take that as confirmation,” Cat called after him, loud enough that it followed him as he walked.“Because it wasn’t the usual death scowl.”
Tennessee did what both of his siblings would have done, if the positions had been reversed.He did not turn around.He simply lifted his middle finger into the air in her direction, and kept right on walking.
And found himself grinning a little bit at her delighted laughter as he went.
Rather than hike halfway up the hill when there was still snowpack on the ground, that icy crust on top, and a cold night settling in, he climbed into his truck and drove up instead.He pulled up in front of the old house that he kept shoveled much better than his own driveway, grabbed the box, and then, as always, let the grip of history pull at him as he walked.
It was a clear night.The old Victorian was lit up like a perfect little music box of a house, looking pretty and gracious in the dark.Higher up, the old lighthouse that Dallas had been working on for so long was casting its beams of light over the valley and rolling across the little town below.
Everyone had complained when Dallas got the light operational again.Many of them had complained to Tennessee.And now, when it was off of an evening because it needed maintenance, everyone complained about that, too.
He supposed that was the part of the history here that he forgot.Everything was done the way it always had been done, until someone came along and made it different.And then, eventually, folks got used to it.And then that was theonlyway that it should be done, as far as they were concerned.
Maybe tradition was nothing more than the stories people told, the way they told them, and who they told them to.
And maybe, after all this time, he needed to accept that when it came to the story he told himself about his family, his burdens, and the way he needed to live his life, he was an unreliable narrator.
Because the person he’d beenso surehe was would never have gotten involved with Matilda Stark in the first place.He could fool himself all he wanted and claim it was her showing up with the puppy that had done it.But that didn’t explain that cascade of memories it turned out he’d been hiding away inside of all these years.
Like he’d gone out into a winter’s night when he was too young to know better, and had been frozen in place ever since—until Matilda had come along and melted him.
