The once baby blues were now more of a navy, colored with what felt like nothing but sadness.
For what? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t look away. Or rather, I didn’t want to.
His chest rose as he opened his mouth, but just as he was about to speak, we were interrupted.
“Scarlett! Are you ready?” Mom’s voice piped in from just outside the stable. “Your dad just can’t seem to hold his horses.” She laughed, presumably at her own joke, but her laugh ceased when she peered into the stable. “Oh. So sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You weren’t. And yeah, I’m ready, I just need to get the saddle from Dad.”
“Okay. Are you sure?” she asked.
“Uh-huh,” I replied, ushering Winnie out.
She led me, her four hooves walking out of the stable. Just as I stepped one foot out, Stetson grabbed my other hand. Our eyes met again, and this time I had to look away because if I didn’t, I never would.
The truth was, even if we were going to talk, this wasn’t the time or place.
I pulled my hand from his and made my way out of the barn.
A rogue tear threatened my composure, so I quickly swiped it away. “Ready?” I asked, doing everything I could to smile.
“Your dad ended up going ahead. I guess he just couldn’t wait.” She smiled. “Imagine that.”
“No surprise there.” I handed Winnie over and took Valhalla from her hands. Valhalla was basically my horse and everyone knew it, including Valhalla himself. I threw my leg over and pulled myself into the saddle. “Let’s do this.”
“Right behind ya,” Mom replied.
We rode in silence for a while before coming to the top of a hill that overlooked the mountains.
“I forget how beautiful this place really is,” Mom said.
“It will never not be perfect,” I admired.
“Did you and Stetson have a chance to talk at all?” Mom was like me—very aware of others and their emotions. My forced smiles and short answers had never fooled her, so I wasn’t sure why I thought they would today.
“No. But that’s okay.” I sighed. “I don’t even know if there’s anything to talk about.”
“What do you mean? Of course there is.” Her voice demanded my attention. “That article didn’t tell him anything about who you are, or why you made the decision you did, or even how you made the decision. The article simply told him that you put a child up for adoption. Everything else was just words used to try to feed a narrative.”
Feed a narrative.
That was the same thing Stetson had said regarding the articles written about him.
“But what if that was all he needed to know?” I questioned. “What if he doesn’t care about any of the other parts?”
That was my fear—that my decision to put a child up for adoption was something he’d never be able to understand.
“Shouldn’t you let him be the judge of that?” she asked. “If I’m being honest, I think maybe this whole thing has dredged up some unresolved emotions for you. And unfortunately, when things in life get hard or messy, you tend to turn and run, which is no fault of your own. I take full responsibility for that.” She offered a smile.
I pursed my lips together, attempting to return her smile. “I just wish I could’ve been the one to tell him, ya know? At least then it would’ve come straight from me and I would’ve had thechance to tell him the entire story instead of him getting bits and pieces of the truth,” I said.
“Well then why don’t you just go tell him your story? The real story,” Mom wondered. “The one you and I both know. The one you’ve carried with you every day since you made the decision thirteen years ago.”
“What’s the point?” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “He’s already heard the story once and now he’s had time to sit with it. The truth is, he’s probably already made an opinion about the situation. Why would he want to hear it again?”
“First off, you just said yourself that the story he read and what really happened are two very different things. Secondly, don’t you think he at least deserves a chance to tell you his thoughts about the situation instead of you just assuming you know what those thoughts are? You and I both know assuming never leads anywhere good.”
Her words fluttered through the air between us, hanging around like a couple of birds floating in the wind.
