Page 60 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think. I don’t know, though. Because they’re conversations we didn’t get to have. It’s crazy to think about all the things that get taken from you. But you still get to have your issues with your parents.”

“I guess they’re preferable to yours.”

“I guess. Or we can just decide they’re two different things and call it a day.”

“Well. That’s probably for the best. How did you come from a family like that?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m more like my mom’s dad. He was really into science. But he died when I was ten. So we never got to talk about it really. Or dig into it. But I did inherit a few things from him.”

“That’s really special.”

“Yeah. It is. I wish that I would’ve had more of a chance to know him. Genuinely. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt so singularly weird.”

“Well, I definitely relate to that.”

“I know. And you’re really gorgeous, so that’s kind of amazing.”

“You’re beautiful. And smart, interesting. I think you’re fifty times more interesting than your mom. Just based on the snippet of conversation that I heard. You’re weird, and I like it.”

“That is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“That is a low bar.”

“Yeah. Well, as you can see, I’m surrounded by that kind of person.” It was maybe the saltiest thing she’d ever said about her family to anyone. But she felt like she deserved it. He served the spaghetti, and they sat at the table together, and she had never really thought about men doing any kind of domestic labor for her before, but it was hands down the most attractive thing she’d ever seen. Genuinely. A sight to behold. It was nice to have him taking care of her, instead of telling her she should be less invested in her work and take care of herself.

But he was taking care of her. In all her state. And that seemed like the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.

“Are you going to spend the night with me?”

He looked up from his plate of spaghetti. “If you want me to.”

“I really want you to.”

And tonight, she was going to be bold with him.

* * *

Ernestine jumped to do the dishes after dinner, but he didn’t want to let her. What he wanted was for her to have a nice evening. His blood was still boiling after listening to that conversation with her mom. It was just incredible. Incredible to him that somebody could be related to Ernestine, and not be invested at all in the things that she was doing. She was so smart. So clever and unique, and not understanding that, not investing in that, was wild to him. And yes, her parents had given her things. That much was clear. They had done the things they needed to do to get her where she was. But they didn’t have a personal interest in her.

“When did your parents realize you were a genius?”

She laughed. “I’m not sure that they did. I mean, I wouldn’t call myself a genius. There are a lot of things that I am bad at. Or at least more on par with my peers.”

“But how did you graduate early?”

“I won’t lie, I think some of that was teachers who saw what I was so good at, and they gave me a pass on a lot of things like literature. I love reading. I really do. And I love fantasy novels. But I’m really not the one to go to about symbolism. And I hated writing essays about it. I can write endlessly about science, or I can write fiction, but I really don’t like writing about fiction.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re writing a book.”

“I’ve gotten better with symbolism. But in school I wasn’t that good at it. But I think that what they really wanted was for me to be great and special. And my parents were into that. So when I had a science teacher who said that I was achieving and understanding concepts at such a high level, they were flattered. It got them a lot of attention in the community. I was in the local news. I’m not saying they didn’t do a lot. But it’s complicated. For a while, I was accomplishing things that they valued. My profile was high where we lived. Because where we lived I was the youngest student to get into college. The youngest doctorate. And all of those things reflected all this glory onto them. But when you get into the more granular things—things that people in the community won’t hear about or care about, they care about a lot less. Mind you, I’m sure that my mom is bragging to her cribbage club as we speak. But again, it doesn’t matter the substance of what I do. Maybe that’s being overly picky.”

“It’s not being overly picky,” he said. “You want somebody who understands how important this is to you to congratulate you. I see it, Ernestine. Congratulations. What you’ve done is really amazing.”

She looked at him with deep emotion in her eyes, and he felt something shift in his chest. “I don’t know why all of this feels like such a big deal right now. What I should care more about is the discovery. Not the reaction to it. Particularly not from people who are never going to understand what it means. They don’t need to. I need to understand what it means. That’s all. The end. I don’t know why this feels just so…ugh. But it does.”

“It just does. And that’s enough. You don’t have to try to explain yourself.”