Chapter 98

Chapter 98
By Saturday morning, our house looked less like a home and more like a place where a paint store had exploded. Cream-colored drop cloths all over the floors. Brushes rested in cloudy jars of water beside half-empty cans of dark green. The sofa had been shoved against the windows, and one of June’s lamps sat upside down on the floor while we argued with a stubborn shelf.June stood in the middle of the living room with a roller in one hand and a smear of paint on her cheek. “We could keep going,” she said.I looked at the unfinished wall, the open toolbox, and the stack of picture frames waiting for decisions. For weeks, unfinished things had felt like accusations. This morning, they looked more like promises that could wait.“Or,” I said, setting down my brush, “we could leave them exactly like this.”June’s smile arrived slowly, then all at once. “A revolutionary idea.”I changed out of my paint-splattered shirt, packed a sweater and a thermos of coffee, and locked the door behind us. The house was still a work in progress. So was I. For once, neither fact made me feel guilty.

The road out of town opened in long, pale ribbons beneath a sky that could not decide what season it wanted to be. Sunlight washed the fields gold, then vanished behind a bank of gray spring clouds. Along the shoulders, ditches shone with melted snow. Fence posts marched beside us, some straight and new, others leaning as if they had grown tired of holding up the wire. I drove with one hand on the wheel and the radio turned low. I watched the foothills gather ahead of us, blue at their edges and darkening where the weather moved across them. Farther off, mountains rose like unfinished thoughts. Every mile loosened something in my chest. The familiar streets disappeared. Stores became feed lots, traffic lights became cattle guards, and the tight list of things waiting for me at home faded behind the rear window. I had spent so long believing that making plans was a kind of betrayal. Eli and I had been good at plans—weekend drives, dinners we would try to cook, a future we kept describing in small, ordinary pieces. After he died, even accepting an invitation felt like stepping into a life that no longer belonged to me. But Maisie had asked twice, and June and I needed to get out of the house. The first drops of rain began tapping the windshield and then the clouds broke. Sunlight spilled across the fields, and the wet road flashed silver all the way to the ranch.

Maisie came out before we had fully closed the car doors, waving both arms. Her little boy barreled after her in red rubber boots, shouting, “Aunt Taylor!” I crouched just in time to catch him. I barely had a moment to laugh before Maisie pulled me into a hug that smelled like flour, cedar soap, and the wind outside. “You made it,” she said into my hair.“We did.”Wes appeared in the doorway, taller than I remembered and wearing a faded work jacket. He lifted a hand in greeting instead of hugging me, which was very Wes—warm without making a production of it. “I saved the good chair,” he said. “And I only burned one batch of rolls.”“That’s growth,” I said.

Inside, the ranch kitchen glowed with afternoon light. The old table was crowded with bowls of chicken stew, buttered rolls, sliced apples, and a salad Maisie insisted counted as balance. Maisie’s son interrupted every third sentence to announce something important about a wooden tractor, a missing sock, or a chicken named Pickle. Wes kept the conversation moving with dry observations about a cow that had learned to open gates. Maisie told us about a neighbor’s new puppy. June stole a roll from my plate and denied it while chewing. I found myself laughing. Not carefully. Not because everyone was watching for signs that I might break. I laughed because Wes’s imitation of the cow was terrible and because for a few minutes, I was simply at a crowded table, warm food in front of me and familiar voices around me. Then I noticed the empty place Eli would have taken if he were here. The ache came softly, not as a storm but as a hand closing around my heart.I let it stay. I kept eating. Enjoying myself did not mean I had left him behind.After lunch, Maisie’s son, Coy, dragged us toward the yard, and Wes followed with a battered red ball under his arm. “No one gets to escape cleanup,” he called.“You’re the one who cooked,” Maisie said.“Exactly. I’ve suffered enough.”

Outside, the rain had rinsed the dust from the grass and left the air smelling of wet earth and alfalfa. Sunshine warmed the back of my neck. June and Coy chased the red ball toward the fence while Wes jogged after them, pretending the kids were winning. Maisie sat on the lowest rail and clapped whenever Coy kicked the ball, even when he kicked it in the wrong direction. June stopped chasing the ball and started to wander near the barn, where a row of plastic trucks lay half-buried in the dirt. Chickens fussed behind the wire enclosure. Somewhere beyond the pasture, a horse gave a lazy snort, and the wind made the metal roof tick as it dried.

Then something small and striped shot from the barn.“Kitten!” June cried.The first one skidded to a stop in the grass, all oversized paws and gray tabby stripes. Two more raced after it: a black kitten with one white toe and a tiny orange one whose tail curled like a question mark.They headed straight for June.She dropped to her knees without hesitation. The tabby climbed into her lap. The black kitten pounced on her shoelace, while the orange one pressed its nose to her fingers and sneezed.I got up from the step and headed towards June. I got up to her and knelt down next to here and started to play with the kittens. “Mama they are so cute!” I smiled at her and I was about to answer when the barn door was pushed further open. A man stepped into the sunlight and paused beneath the overhang. He was tall, with dark black hair tousled by the wind and a five-o’clock shadow along his jaw. When he looked toward us, his eyes were a startling, piercing blue—not bright in a polished way, but clear and watchful, like sky after a storm. He glanced first at the kittens, and something in his guarded expression eased. Then his attention moved to June, to me, and finally to Maisie and Wes. Wes lowered the ball. Maisie straightened on the fence. Their reactions told me they knew him, though neither of them spoke. The man walked directly toward us, boots dark with barn dust. The kittens tumbled around his feet without fear. June gathered the orange one against her sweater, and I shifted closer to her.“Are these yours?” I asked.His gaze settled on me. Up close, the blue of his eyes was even more unsettling.“Not exactly,” he said.Behind me, Wes let out a quiet breath that sounded almost like a laugh. Maisie said, “Taylor, June, this is—”The black kitten darted between us, and the stranger reached down to catch it before it disappeared beneath the porch.He looked back at me, the kitten tucked safely against his chest. I had no idea who he was, why he had been in the barn, or what else had followed him into the carefully rebuilt shape of my life.For the first time in a long while, the unknown did not feel like a threat.It felt like a question.