Chapter thirty-one
Steven
Theranchwasmyleast favorite place growing up. Waking up at dawn every morning to tend livestock and haul hay wasn’t what I pictured for myself. It never felt like my life. So when the chance to move to the city came, I didn’t hesitate to take it.
But after a year of being away at school, it became painfully clear how ungrateful I’d been for a home this beautiful.
Streaks of gold and blue glow as they stretch across the sky like a blanket settling over the pasture in slow motion. The ground is still the murky-brown color of late winter, the kind that looks like all life has been drained from it. Two lines of bare trees flank the field—an evident sign of the season’s end. At first glance, it looks depressing, but the closer you look, you can see faint patches of green dotting the soil. Little promises of life breaking through.
“I see you haven’t changed much.”
My sister, Jay, sidles up beside me at the front of the car. She doesn’t have to look at me to know exactly what I’m thinking.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I keep my eyes trained on the pasture, watching the cows graze.
“Every time you get here, you stand out front for nearly an hour, pondering God knows what, before finally coming inside.”
I glance at my watch. It’s only been five minutes since we got out of the car but still long enough for her pointto land.
“Sorry,” I mutter, turning to look at her.
She looks the same. The same green square glasses she’s worn since she was seventeen. Her hair is pin straight and chopped at her shoulders. She’s swallowed by her favorite University of Oklahoma hoodie, grungy and almost worn down to the threads.
“You’re alive,” she whispers.
This hits me in the sternum. It’s meant to be sarcastic, but I hear it, the tangle of emotion that comes from not seeing each other for who knows how long. And the very real possibility that I could’ve died a few weeks ago.
I laugh weakly and sling an arm around her shoulders. She squeezes me tighter than I expect. “I’m alive.”
“Now let me kill you for not being here for almost three years.”
My breath catches. Emma mentioned I’d avoided coming for a while, but she hadn’t said exactly how long. Three years. Three full years.
“It’s been three years?” I ask, ashamed and embarrassed.
She punches me in the ribs. Hard. “Sure has.”
“Jeez,” I wheeze as the air is knocked out of me. “I’m injured right now.”
“It’s your head; you’re fine.” She tugs me toward the house, gravel crunching beneath our feet as we climb the small hill. “We gotta hurry.”
“What’s the rush?” I ask as she pushes me inside, but she’s already heading up the stairs before I get an answer.
I freeze at the bottom step, a wave of ease washing over me at the sight of my parents’ house, familiar and unchanged. The same warm beige walls, the same smell of pine cleaner and Dawn dish soap, the same coat rack with scratched-up legs. A few new things catch my eye, though. Family photos, updated frames, a recliner near the back door I don’t remember. A life lived without me in it.
The photos lining the walls feel like a time capsule. My sisters and their families, faces I don’t remember meeting, my parents frozen in momentsI know by heart. The shelf that holds the television is crowded with more frames, and one side is solely dedicated to the grandkids. Baby pictures of Easton, Sawyer, and Josie are in the center, a photo of Emma cradling the boys in the hospital, one of me holding Josie on the porch. My chest pinches at the sight, moments I’ve seen in our albums but still can’t remember.
On the other shelf, the one that catches the sunlight pouring in from the back door, sit the wedding photos. My sisters and their husbands. Some with their second. And on the bottom shelf, right in the center, is a photo of Emma and me. She’s radiant in a white satin ball gown, her hair pinned high up on her head, wearing pearls identical to my mother’s. We’re mid-dance.Our first dance?And we look so impossibly happy it makes the air in my lungs feel pressurized, like I’ve been punched from the inside. I rub at the sharp pain settling behind my sternum, trying to ease it with no relief.
I stare at the photo so long it starts to blur, praying for some ounce of remembrance to burst through. But nothing comes. Again.
“Are you stalling?”
Emma’s playful voice feels far away, but when her hand slides over mine, her tone shifts. “What’s wrong?” She rubs at the hand I’ve wrapped so tightly around the shelf’s edge that it’s making my fingers tingle.
“I can’t remember it,” I grit out, eyes fixed on the photo.
She sighs. After a long moment, she takes the frame and flips it face-down. I blink at her, startled and a little hurt. But she smiles.
