Every day at noon when she's home, that's our time. Our ritual. I came yesterday, first day of her summer break, but she didn't show. Ranch obligations, probably. Eleanor parading her around for photos, Cash makin’ her ride the fence line with him. But she came later, found my note, left one of her own.
I wrote: Missed you. Got a surprise. Gonna be a great summer with you at my back.
I always signed them: Me. Not a name or an initial. Just Me.
Like there was no one else in the world who could be writing to her.
I find myself smiling along with the kid. Remembering the weight of that pen, the careful way I would print each letter, trying to make my handwritin’ look better than it was.
And her reply—I can see it in my head now, the looping script she'd perfected years ago.
Dear You…
Couldn't get away. Hovering mother and older brothers demandin' my time like they own it or somethin'.
She always wrote like that. Complete sentences in an accent.
I thought that was the cutest fucking thing ever, how she dropped that g and added a little tick at the end in her written notes. That’s how she talked too. To me, anyway. Because that’s how I talked to her.
Then she said— You're not the only one with a surprise up your sleeve. I got one for YOU. And maybe YOU will feel good against MY back. This summer's gonna be the best… be there tomorrow for sure.
She always signed her notes: S.
Not Savannah.
Just S.
My past unfolds around me, my memory made real as the sound of hooves hits. Me at fifteen steps outside the silo, watching as Savannah Ashby, age thirteen, comes in at a hard gallop, then pulls up dramatically making the dust fly.
She always did love an entrance.
Savannah slides off her horse as it’s still hoppin’, lands light on her feet. Her boots hit the dirt with practiced grace. She's wearin' dark jeans that have never seen the inside of a thrift store and her hair is pulled back in one long, thick braid that falls down her back, comin' loose from the wind of her own creation.
She looks wild. That's the best part about Savannah, no matter the age. She's never been one of 'them'. She's always been one of 'us'.
"You're late," younger me says.
But at the same moment, she blurts, "Oh, my god! Family! They act like they own me, or somethin'."
They both laugh, as she explains the new horse. "Eleanor sold my fuckin' pony while I was away at school," she announces suddenly, accent thickening with anger. "Can you believe her? Nine years I had that pony, and she just—" She makes a slashing motion with her hand. "Gone. Didn't even tell me 'til I got home."
"Fucking bullshit," younger me agrees.
But then something shifts in her expression. The anger bleeds out, replaced by a reluctant smile. "But then she brought me to the south paddock, and..." She turns toward her new horse, pride straightening her spine. "I was gettin' too big for Patches anyway. And now I have a real horse! Not some quarter horse built for barrels. A thoroughbred. Seventeenhands. Eleanor hired a private trainer from Billings to teach me jumpin'."
The boy walks over to the new horse, runs a hand down its neck. He doesn't know shit about horses—not really.
But Savannah made him ride with her. That first summer when she was twelve and I was fourteen, she had the pony. I was already too big for that thing—hell, she was probably too big for that thing. But Savannah said it could hold us both because I was skinny.
That skinny burned me, I remember. Probably why I didn’t mind the feed store work.
This thought makes me laugh. The things teenage boys do for girls. But it worked. Because this year, that year, back when I was fifteen, Savannah looked at me different and she hadn’t called me skinny in a while.
"This is what you meant in your note?" he asks. "About me against your back?"
"Thought we could ride double," she says, suddenly shy. "If ya want."
If I want, I think in my grown-up mind. That offer is a fantasy come true.
