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I can’t imagine what it would feel like to come back after being gone for years to find the ranch house a pile of bricks.
He’s quiet, standing with his hands in his pockets and looking out over the flattened area. Then, he does a slow circle with his head down. He’s a very quiet man. I’m starting to realize there’s a lot of hurt going on underneath. It’s contained in him, but I see it in the quick flex of his jaw, in the way he looks but doesn’t seem to see everything, like he’s too tired to care.
My stomach wrenches.
I hate how quiet he is, like a shut door in an empty house. I wonder what it would take for him to come out of the deepest point, to find that it’s alright to look out his front window. I’m standing on the street outside, wondering how long he’s been inside alone.
It occurs to me how strange it is to surmise that from the way he’s standing on the hill. He’s easy to read but hard to understand. Maybe we’re both locked in place, just in different ways.
He comes back.
“Well,” he says, voice steady, “guess that’s a dead end.”
Ouch. That’s a rough thing to say about his childhood home. I open my mouth, but he pulls open the passenger door and helps me in. I turn off the radio as he circles the truck so it’s silent when he turns on the engine. The only sound is the soft rush of the air conditioning and the road flying by. Finally, I clear my throat.
“You good?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “So you grew up there with your parents?”
“My mom. Dad was never in the picture.”
“Not at all?”
He shakes his head. “My mom was really young when she had me, almost nineteen. She met my father on the ranch next door. It was a huge cattle operation, and a lot of wranglers came through for the summer. I guess he must have been pretty convincing that he would stay, because she got pregnant on purpose. Not on purpose, but not by accident, I guess.”
“He didn’t stay.”
“He was gone by September.”
That sentence echoes, almost like I’ve heard it before. Maybe the summer Mom left, but I doubt it. Not much was said to me then, not while I was so young. One moment, I woke up, and everything had fallen apart. Then, she was gone, and I was the one putting records into the player while I cooked.
“You ever try to get in contact with him?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I tried, about five years ago. He passed.”
“I’m sorry.”
My heart hurts for both of us, but especially for him.
“It’s fine,” he says.
Neither of us talk for a while.
“It hurts more that he left. I guess I was done mourning him by the time he was actually gone,” he says. “Death isn’t the only thing to grieve, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He’s gazing ahead, eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. One arm is flexed up tight, and the rest of him is relaxed, a tiny outlet for what I know bubbles beneath the surface. I was right to say I’m not a Band-Aid for whatever hurts him. He’s not a Band-Aid for what’s ailing me either. That doesn’t help what I want, though.
Deep in the back of my brain is a warning bell, planted there by the pain of other people. But beneath my ribs, my heart hasn’t been hurt by men like Coen Taylor, quiet, reserved, and so incredibly thoughtful about every word from his mouth. He’s something brand new for me.
All the ride home, I think about our one night together and wish for more. I want to feel what I felt the other night. And that’s such an implausible thing, I push it all the way down and keep quiet for the rest of the ride. The more we get to know each other this summer, the worse it’ll be when he goes home.
The more it’ll hurt when he’s gone by September.
CHAPTER TEN
COEN
