“I got her into trials, every trial I could. I got a laptop just so I could start lookin’ things up online, treatments, off-the-beaten-path homeopathic stuff. Everything.” I have not opened that laptop since. “But it all was so expensive.Traveling and the accommodations, not to mention they required lab tests, X-rays, other imaging, hospital stays, prescriptions, homeopathic treatment courses… I couldn’t afford any of it. So I had to find a way. I couldn’t letmoneybe the reason I let my wife die.”
Quinn’s eyes are full of sadness for us, for my late wife, for Sadie, for everyone. She drops one hand consolingly to my knee, kneading as she patiently awaits more.
“I took out a loan against the land, against the ranch house. Got an equity line of credit, and just about panhandled my way up and down Sable Sky. Started one of those crowd-sourcing fundraisers, too.”
“Oh, Landry.” She doesn’t move to swipe her own tears, but instead still consoles me with her gentle touches and delicate focus.
I can’t look at her right now, sad and beautiful as I share a truth I should’ve shared months ago. I look out the window and take in the happiness spread over the lawn. Happy little girls, my best friends, summer and ice cream. I look back to Quinn. “Treatment didn’t stick. The cancer was so aggressive, there wasn’t time for chemo. She did some trials and the radiation but…” I shake my head, no need to finish that sentence. We’re both very clear on how it worked out.
Love catches Sadie by the wrist before she sneaks in, buying us more time.
“That’s how the debt started. I fell into a pretty good depression when she passed, and I had a newborn to take care of. Love and Tate, they helped me a ton, and Mabel, too. But Love had her own baby and Tate and I had to get back to work. Ranches never quit, not for death, not for grief, not for nothin’.”
My gaze finds hers again, mostly because my heart craves it. I glance down at our joined hands, realizing that holdingQuinn’s hand helped me get through what is normally an emotionally disastrous story, even all these years later. “I just never caught up, and when Sadie was two, we lost a couple mares to sickness, the coop got destroyed in a flood, there was a fire in the barn, and, I don’t know, life just piled on. And with no cash and no credit, I was stuck. I’vebeenstuck.”
Quinn strokes her thumbs over our joined hands, nudging her chair closer to mine. “Thank you for telling me now.”
I glance outside at the people I love eating ice cream, enjoying the sunshine. Quiet lingers between us for a moment, then she pulls back.
“Landry, I—” She looks down at her hands, and I wonder if holding this back from her will cost me her. If I’ll lose another woman I love. “I understand why you did everything that you did, and it’s so noble. Courageous and noble.”
It doesn’t feel that way, but I nod my head, feeling lighter from the truth being out. But when I look up at her bright green eyes, sadness still touches them.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” I say, feeling desperate not to lose her, feeling like not sharing this part of myself was foolish and prideful. Suddenly, everything feels like it’s on the line again, or still, like maybe I was never safe.
“I just don’t understand.” She shakes her head, teary eyes meeting mine again. “Why didn’t you tell me the ranch is in this serious of trouble? That you’re weeks away from losing everything? I mean, that feels vital. That feels important. We got our stories straight about everything and… It just feels like something yourwifeshould know.”
I squeeze her hands. “Talking about it, it just reminds me that… I failed and… I just… I didn’t want you to see me that way. As a man who couldn’t save his wife or his land, and is gonna lose his daughter, too.”
“Honey.” She drags the endearment out softly, like lyingthe first rose across a casket. She immediately loops her arms around my neck, burying her face in my throat. “You won’t lose Sadie. You’re not a failure.”
“I’ve felt like it for so long,” I finally admit. I’ve held that truth in my heart for so long, letting go feels freeing.
Her eyes hold mine. “You didn’t want to come back. That’s why you were resistant to the film. You only entered the rodeo for the money, to pay down the debt from the trials. To save the ranch.” Quinn says this more to herself than to me, but I nod to confirm.
Agony unlike anything else tears through my chest, and it causes me to straighten for a moment as I calibrate to experiencing a sharp bout of grief. It’s been so long.
“I didn’t care about the rodeo after I lost Amelia. All I cared about was Sadie. I put my everything into that child because sheismy everything,” I explain, voice unusually thick, heavy, and sure. “I didn’t know how I was gonna get out of it until I saw that rodeo flyer. But then when the Montgomerys came for Sadie, I realized I had to wake up and… reclaim my life.”
I stop talking because her hands are on my face, pulling it up, holding me steady, her thumbs sweeping gentle crescents beneath my eyes. She doesn’t say anything, but the touch is so tender and so unexpected amidst the argument that it almost breaks me.
“I’m sorry for not telling you.” When my feelings got serious, I should have shared. If she had some big secret, I’d feel the same way. “I’m ashamed. Ashamed I couldn’t save her, and ashamed I couldn’t be a better man, a better husband, father, provider…”
“Landry,” she says again, voice lined with anger, but still gentle enough to not sting. “It was not your fault.”
The back of my nose burns.
“Landry,” she says, drawing nearer to me, the laughter outside falling to a low roar as my ears begin to ring. “Amelia was very sick and you did everything under the sun that you could, okay?” Her thumbs continue stroking gently beneath my eyes, so I let my lids fall closed. “You were amazing, and nothing was your fault, and no one believes that, either.”
She presses her lips to mine. “I’m sorry I looked at your things in the office.”
I clear my throat. “You wouldn’t have to if I had told you.”
She kisses me, and I open my eyes to find her beautiful, glowing face staring up at me. “You could have told me. I want you to know, moving forward, you can tell me anything. I don’t judge you, Landry. I admire you. I have respect for you, honey.”
I can’t help but crash my lips against hers as tears slide, hers or mine, I don’t know at this point.
“I was terrified of the pity, and I didn’t want you to stay with me out of obligation. You’re a respectable woman, Quinn, and everyone who’s met you has only good things to say. Especially Mabel. Having a person like you ruin your life out of some sense of guilt would end me.”
