I could barely hear her. I walked into the first building I could and pressed my phone hard to my ear. “Sorry, say that again.”
“I said I called Billy! She’s not picking up!”
I was in a museum, dimly lit with glass cases and black-and-white photographs covering the walls. “Take a breath,” I said calmly.
All ofthe pictures were of rodeos, surely for the festivities this week, and the glass cases were old saddles, sponsor vests, and vintage rodeo equipment.
“Can you have Jonascall Billy again while you stay on the line with me?”
“Yes.”
“Good, now let’s try the raw metadata, okay?”
“It’s not working!”
I kept wandering down the hall, pacing, keeping myself from freaking out with her. “If the Amarillo footage is clipped, we use the raw B-roll from Oklahoma.”
I heard the clicking of keys and a few hushed whispers as they did as I asked. I leaned against a wall and started chewing my nails, Sarah’s stress starting to be contagious.
“I got it! I mean, the IT guy did.”
I pushed off the wall, turning to face another glass case, this one from floor to ceiling with deep mahogany wood. “Thank goodne-”
I dropped the phone.
A huge, grainy photo was staring back at me. The man in the picture had hair as black as night, but we had the same “baby blues,” the same freckles, the same high cheekbones.
He was dusty from his ride, his hat lying in the dirt beside him, and a huge smile on his face.
The same smile Colton got after a ride.
Clay Ford- 1998 Stephenville Champion
There he was. Not the ghost that haunted my mother’s house, and not the man I’d tried to bury under a mountain of spreadsheets.
There he was in his prime.
His face was changing, morphing, and twisting until I no longer saw my father; I saw Colton.
It was like I had been punched in the gut.
I turned on my heel and stormed out of the museum, barely remembering at the last second to grab my phone off the ground.
I shovedthe door open hard and squinted in the sudden bright sun.
I needed to find a trash can.
“Hey! How was your call?”
Colton was waiting outside the museum for me.
I clenched my jaw, my emotions overtook me, and I pushed him. “I can’t take it anymore!” I yelled.
Colton gave me a hurt, confused look. “Ally, what-”
I was exploding. I raised my finger and pointed it in his face. “I love you too much to let you be in the rodeo!”
He was bewildered, understandable as this came out of nowhere for him. “Ally, please, what-” He reached for my hands, but I ripped them away.
