He’s saying:My boy has gone through so much. He’s suffered. Please, don’t make him hurt any more.
He’s saying:Don’t pull away.
I shudder violently.
This pain I’ve caused, this family I’ve stormed into, made wreckage of. I don’t deserve their open arms.
The instinct to run, to punish myself, to fix the unfixable, grips me like an undertow.
The same pull I felt with Mum. Beth died because of me. So I should live with it. I should feel what I’ve done. I should go.
My throat burns. “I took him away. Claimed to be him. Stole his family.”
Grandpa looks at me sharply, a command in his silence.Do. Not. Pull. Away.“We want you to stay.”
It’s so sincere, it hurts.
I wobble to my feet. “I, ah... didn’t finish cleaning up the barn.”
Wind rushes around my ears. The trodden path, the sinking view of the farm, the grassy paddock?—
Trent. Still sleeping in the sunshine.
He knows.
He still cradled me in his arms.
I can’t breathe.
I stagger into the barn.Clean up. Clean up—that’s what I said.
Hay is scattered across the floor. And?—
The bottle.
Filmed with dry dirt.
Like it’s been dug up. Uprooted by wild weather. Like it’s been buried.
I drop to my knees, hands shaking, and pick it up. The waxed top.
Something’s inside.
With my shirt, I scrub at the dirt. Is this . . . could this be . . .
Bottle’s buried,Trent said.Maybe his dreams will wash up somewhere new.
And earlier:
Have you ever opened the bottle?
I’ve thought about it.
The barn door squeals open. My shoulders stiffen as footsteps cross the hay. A yawn. “What are you doing?”
So warm. So much like he wants another hug.
I grip the bottleneck.
