A closed door with anger in it and a closed door with care in it are two different sounds—and my mother taught me when I was a child that you close a trailer door the way you'd close a door on a sleeping child.
She knew some stuff about horses. I'll give her that.
Whatever else she was, she at least had some knowledge.
I walk inside the Valero.
The coffee is bad. I know it's bad before I pour it by the stench that hits me.
The Bunn machine has a sticker that says CLEANED DAILY, and I’d bet it’s been cleaned approximately once since the Bush administration.
But I pour it anyway because this is what I normally do. My ritual. The ritual I follow so I don't have to do the other thing.
The other thing is think. The other thing is feel. The other thing is cry, and I don't cry.
I haven't cried since before Mom left us in her dust.
The clerk's a woman about sixty with a nametag that says Linda.
She takes my two dollars for a coffee I wouldn't give to a dog, looks at me, and says, "Long drive, honey?"
"Yeah."
"Where you coming from?"
"Regionals."
Her face lights up.
One of those older ranch Texas women who saw a barrel racer at a county fair once and has been a fan of the sport ever since.
"You win?"
I hold up my left hand.
Flash the bandage across the knuckles from where Jaeger caught my glove on a barrel and stripped skin off the third finger. "Yeah," I say. "I won."
"Bless your heart, honey. Drive safe."
"Yes, ma'am."
I take my coffee, walk back out to my truck, and I put it in the cup holder. I sit with my hands on the wheel for a few moments, but I don’t put the truck in drive.
Not yet.
Not until I've done the thing.
I unlock my phone.
The screen lights up. Three notifications.
Pops called twenty minutes ago—I'll deal with that next. Presley texted at six-oh-two. Grace texted at five-fifty-eight.
I ignore all three and swipe to my camera roll, scroll to the top.
She's there at the top of everything.
She's been at the top of everything for almost eleven months, because every time I screenshot it I push it one more day into the present.
