She got up and grabbed the red-and-green-plaid flannel shirt he’d worn yesterday and put it on as she walked to the bathroom.
When she came out, he was leaning in the bedroom doorway, looking hot and fresh, in faded jeans and a dark green corduroy shirt. “Mornin’, baby.”
“Good morning. You look ridiculously hot already.”
He grinned and offered her his hand. “Why, thank ye kindly, little lady. C’mon. Got somethin’ to show you.”
She took his hand and let him lead her into the wide main room, where the kitchen, dining room, and living room all blended together. On the old farmhouse table, a huge, strange map was spread out. She recognized it as a map of the world, but it almost looked like a coloring-book drawing. The seas and oceans were blue, but the countries were outlines on white. And the paper was thick and treated with something that made it a little slick as well. “What’s this?”
“Part of your present.” He set another large sheet on top of the map. This one had lots of colors—it was the countries of the world. And they were stickers. He’d given her a sticker map of the world.
“You can fill in the countries you’ve been to. I thought you could do it this morning, and show me everywhere you went.”
“We have to get ready to go to the rez.”
He pulled out a chair for her. “We’ve got time.”
She felt strange—anxious—to do this, to show him all the countries she’d been to, all the things she’d seen and done while she was away from him. For a minute, she stared at that sticker map, unsure how to think about it, worried it would lead them someplace dark and sad. But then his hand took hers again.
“Please, Mac?”
And she couldn’t say no.
It took over an hour, because she’d seen a lot in ten years, and because he sat beside her and asked about every sticker—what country it was, what she’d done there, what she liked and didn’t like. When she was done, a lot of the map was filled out. She didn’t count countries where she’d never left the airport or train station, but there weren’t many of those, anyway. Usually, when she’d landed somewhere new, she’d gone out and spent at least a day there. But she’d been to five of the seven continents and filled out at least a few stickers in each one. Some, she filled out almost completely.
“Wow,” Reese said, when she announced that she was done. “You’ve seen a lot.”
Gigi shrugged. She still wasn’t sure how to take this gift, but there was something satisfying in seeing her travels literally mapped out.
“Of anywhere you’ve been, what place do you most wish I’d been with you?”
Gigi turned and considered him. “What do you mean?”
“I’m just askin’.”
That was a melancholy exercise, but she played along and studied the map, thinking, remembering. So many interesting places. So many different worlds. “I think ... probably Europe. Yeah, Europe. Maybe that’s a boring answer, but that’s the place that felt like I’d reached something out of reach.” She thought of the Eiffel Tower, in the Madeline books she’d checked out of the library, way back in grade school. That life, that world, had seemed so foreign to her and beyond the grasp of a poor little Indigenous girl. Actually getting there had been a victory, in the midst of so many defeats.
Reese set a folded sheet of paper in front of her. “Merry Christmas, Mac.”
She opened it. Six words, in the strong slant of his handwriting: YOU AND ME. 3 MONTHS. ANYWHERE.
“What?”
“I have to be back in time for the tourist season. But I worked it out with Linda. We’ll cut the open hours down a little, and she can run the Jack while I’m away. Natalie’ll be nineteen in a couple weeks, and she can waitress full-time. We can go, and you can show me the things you saw. Make them real for us both.”
She couldn’t have heard him right. She studied the paper, his six words, and tried to see how she was misunderstanding. “Are you serious?”
Grinning, his eyes alight with love, giving her everything, he cupped her face. “Show me the world you found, baby. Share it with me. And this—it doesn’t have to be our only trip. Not three months away every time, I don’t think I can afford to do that more than once, but let’s travel. I don’t want to live anywhere else, but we’re not trapped here. We can stretch our legs from time to time.”
He was giving her everything. Even her own life. Letting her have it back.
With understanding came a sudden, explosive rush of tears. She threw herself into his arms. “All I got you was a sign!”
Laughing while she sobbed, he held her with all his might. “You got me you, Mac. You got me you.”
PART FOUR
Chapter Thirteen
The idea had occurred to him the night they’d sat under the Christmas tree, and she’d told him she couldn’t breathe. He’d been feeling something coming, like she was starting to lean away from him, since her birthday. It hadn’t been anything overt, just a low-grade sense of something not quite right that had him anxious. And then she’d told him she couldn’t breathe.
Reese had had a good long time to think about what had gone wrong before she’d left, how he could have done things differently, helped her better, been what she’d needed when things were so bad for her. Back then, he’d thought sweeping her up and carrying her off as his bride was the right thing to do, but boy, had he been wrong.
Now, he was older himself, he’d felt more sorrow of his own, his mom had gone the way she had, he’d helped his friends through real troubles, and he thought he understood a little better what depression was. It was his mom, hiding her pain behind a sweet smile. It was Heath, stewing in grief and rage over the horrific loss of his little girl, drinking himself into a stupefied fury again and again for years. It was him, unable to let go of his love and move on, stuck in place for ten years. It was Mac, jostling against the bonds and boundaries of her life. It was her sister, and her father, her mother, and ninety percent of all the family she’d ever had, drinking their problems into silence and creating more because of it. Hell, maybe everybody who wore their ass print into a seat at the Jack was depressed.
Mac wouldn’t see a therapist, and maybe it wouldn’t help her. He’d never gone, either, and he was glad he hadn’t moved on. He’d been waiting, so he’d been ready when she came back to him. But his depression had been inertia. Hers was motion, and that scared the shit out of him. So, if not a therapist, maybe some travel therapy instead.
She’d always said she hadn’t run from him. That night under the tree, they’d both said they wished he’d gone with her. So he would go with her now. Maybe she could ease her restlessness with him at her side.
He was deeply rooted at home and had barely left the state in all his life, but he had a passport—he’d applied for it back while they’d been planning a wedding. They’d both gotten them; he’d meant to take her to the Bahamas, one of those big all-inclusive resort deals, for their honeymoon, after the summer was over.
She’d made a different use of hers. His had sat in a file drawer all this time. When he dug it up and checked it, he discovered they were good for ten years—his had expired a few months back. Hers had, too, as it turned out. She hadn’t been out of the country in almost a year.
So, first thing, they had to get them renewed. Because they were going to Europe.
The news had flown through town. Their vacation was all anybody could talk about through the whole snowy month of January, while they were in the thick of their preparations. At the IGA, the hardware store, the gas station, the Outfitters when Mac was at work, the Lunch Box, and every damn night at the Jack, people wanted to hear about their trip. Where they were going, what they were seeing, where they meant to stay. People asked for souvenirs and gave them lists and cash like they were placing orders. Mac had finally put a stop to that because she said they’d never get through Customs if they brought so much home for people.
The whole idea of three months overseas left their friend
s and neighbors stunned. People didn’t leave Jasper Ridge. They hardly even took week-long vacations, not even honeymoons, too far from home.
People here grew up in the houses their parents grew up in, who’d grown up in the houses their parents had grown up in. They moved their new bride or groom in and raised their kids in the same house. If those kids went to college, they went to the University of Idaho or Idaho State, or took classes at the community college in Boise. Or they got a football scholarship someplace fancy and were town celebrities. Others joined the military. Either way, when people left Idaho by choice, they did it in uniform. And most came home when their duty was done.
There were the occasional misfits who ran to the big city—Boise, that usually was—and a few exiles, who’d done something so wrong their welcome ran out, or who’d ended up in prison for it. But overall, overwhelmingly, Jasper Ridge stayed put. The same was true of Mac’s people on the reservation, maybe even more. Those who left were exiles.
That was why Mac was such an oddity and had had trouble being accepted back in the fold. Leaving was a rejection. An abandonment. She’d had to earn back the place she’d left.
Now they were leaving again, and some wondered if she wasn’t a bad influence on him. Maybe she wouldn’t let him come back, they muttered. Like she was a Siren, luring him off his course. So people asked a million questions, trying to pin them down, and Reese and Mac answered them all.
She was excited—in a way he hadn’t seen her since before her dad died. He’d hoped the gift would make her happy and give her some peace, too, but he could not have anticipated the wholehearted ebullience with which she embraced the idea. Every day, they talked out what they’d do, and she told stories about what she wanted to show him.
That was something he’d figured out, in getting her to talk with him, in watching her, listening to her: she didn’t know how to think about those ten years. She’d traveled the world, seen and done amazing things, but she was ashamed of herself for leaving, for hurting him and her family. Unable to enjoy her memories, or even to talk about them, they were falling into the void she said sat inside her.
He meant to fill that void up. Do what he could to help her reclaim her life, give her everything she needed.
He’d intended to buy her a laptop for Christmas. Then she’d told him she couldn’t breathe, so he decided he’d give her all the air in the world instead.
*****
“It’s an Airbnb. I never did those before, I was never that organized, and I couldn’t have afforded one anyway, but look at this place!” Mac handed her phone to Gabe, who shifted baby Maria to one arm and took the phone. The baby was nursing; Reese was surprised at how little he noticed that anymore. There Gabe was, a beautiful young woman, with a boob out, and it didn’t even register. She was just feeding her kid.
Sure, Heath would have gouged his eyes out if he’d noticed it as anything more than that, but there had been a time, not all that long ago, when he would have felt pretty damn awkward about the whole thing. Now, it was just a baby having a meal, and a mama feeding her that meal.
“Oh, wow!” Gabe said, swiping through the photos. “That’s gorgeous! Where is that?”
“Tuscany. It’s an actual villa, on an actual winery in Montepulciano.” She laughed and took her phone back, passing it to Logan for a look. “Way nicer than the hostel I stayed in in Milan.” She grinned happily at Reese.
Damn, he should have gone with her back then.
“Nice. You gonna stomp grapes with your bare feet, Reese?” Logan asked with a chuckle as he passed the phone back. “Don’t try to bring that shit home with you. Nobody wants your foot wine.”
Reese laughed and handed Mac her phone. “I don’t think that’s how it works, asshole.”
“Asshole,” Matthew said from the floor nearby, where he was playing with some kind of building set. Every grownup in Heath and Gabe’s living room either guffawed or groaned, depending on how invested they were in a two-year-old’s growing vocabulary.
Reese gave Gabe a sheepish look. “Sorry, little mama. But Logan said sh—” He caught himself just in time.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “He’s growing up around all you delinquents, and all the ranch hands, too. I think it’s hopeless.”
“Definitely hopeless. There’s no taming these guys.” Honor stood. “More coffee, anybody?”
Everybody nodded, and Logan stood and went with her to the kitchen.
“Bring that tray of muffins in, would ya?” Gabe called.
Matthew stood up from his construction project and yelled, “Scuse me!”
“What is it, honey?” Gabe asked.
“I pooped!”
This time, everybody laughed, even from the kitchen. Matthew scowled. “I did!”
“Okay, little man.” Heath stood up. “Let’s go take care of that.” He held out his hands, and Matthew went to him, leaving, yep, a little wake of odor behind him.
Mac watched father and son walk into the hallway and out of sight. “He speaks so well.”
Gabe laughed. “It’s wild. Full sentences before his first birthday, and now he’s already trying sarcasm. Their dad says Heath talked early, too, so maybe it’s genetic.”
Honor came back in with a fresh pot of coffee, and Logan followed her with a tray of fresh-baked muffins. This gathering was hardly a bacchanal, but it was a perfect way to spend the day before their flight out—the afternoon with their best friends, dinner with her family, one last night at the Jack.
“Logan must’ve been talking in the womb, then,” Honor said as she filled their cups. Logan only smirked.
“My nephew is almost four,” Mac said as she added sugar to her coffee, “but he hardly talks at all. He’s got some problems.”
“I’d heard that,” Logan said. “Is there something that can help?”
“I’m working on my sister. She doesn’t like to think he’s got any problems, so it’s hard to get her to ask for help. Plus, there’s not much help on the rez, anyway. The pediatrician only comes once a month. Other specialists less than that. All we’ve got is the GP at the rez clinic, and he’s not much good for this.”
“How’d Frannie feel if we helped out with that?” Logan asked.
Mac’s mouth dropped open, and she blushed. “Oh, no. I didn’t bring it up because—I wasn’t asking for anything.”
“I know, darlin’. I’m asking if we can help. You think she’d take it?”
She stared into the mouth of her cup for a long time before she answered in a whisper. “I don’t know. I can ask.”
“You do that, and let us know. I don’t want to step where we’re not wanted, but we’ll do what we can if she’s okay with it.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Geej,” Heath said from the doorway. He held his freshly diapered, hyperarticulate toddler on his hip. “We’re family. Even without Reese, you’re family.”
Her blush deepened to puce, and Reese thought she might cry, but she didn’t. She managed a smile and a nod, and didn’t try to add unnecessary words.
“Show them that place in Paris we’re staying,” Reese said, throwing out a lifeline as he grabbed her hand.
*****
Reese had grown up with people from the Shoshone reservation. He would never say, or think, he understood what it was to be Indigenous in this world, or to live on a Native reservation, but he did understand the dynamics of his place as a white man in the lives of the Native people he loved. So he hadn’t ridden in and tried to make the Mackenzies’ lives better, not before Mac left, and not now. He stood aside as she took care of her family, and he took care of her.
Besides, the problems in the Mackenzie family were so deeply entrenched, so much a part of who they were, he didn’t think he could throw a little money at it and make anything really better.
But whatever Mac wanted for them, he did what he could to help her get. And now the Cahills were on it
, too—and they could maybe throw enough money in to effect real change.
After their little coffee and muffin chat on the Twisted C, they went to her family for dinner. They’d expected a small meal with just the family, but they should have known better. Everybody was interested in their big trip, and nobody wanted to miss out on the chance for gossip. Though it was February and too cold for one of their patented cookout yard parties, all the neighbors found a way to squeeze in, and they all brought something, so it turned into a full-on potluck. Complete with plenty of booze.
Reese had gotten caught out at the grill, hunkered in his coat while he cooked venison steaks and burgers. Victor was out there with him, and a few other men from nearby. They’d been talking the way men do, about not much, who was doing work on his house, who’d bought a used car, what lumber was going for at the yard. The kids were running around in the cold, and the men were supervising with a typical benign neglect.
From the corner of his eye, while he kept a hand in the aimless talk of men, Reese paid attention to Tyson. For the most part, the boy stood in the middle of the fracas of childish play, watching. Nobody picked on him, but nobody played with him, either. He didn’t seem to want to. Or maybe it was that he didn’t know how.
Reese didn’t know about such things, but it seemed to him that Tyson had more delays than his speech. But he was a sweet boy, quick to return a smile or to give a hug when one was asked for. And he didn’t seem to get into mischief, ever.
“Time to turn those over, Reese.” Arnold Dent, a neighbor, said. “Want me to take a shift?”
“I got it, thanks.” He flipped the meat.
Suddenly, the door of the mobile home flew open and crashed into the aluminum siding. “Keep your nose out of it!” Frannie shouted and stormed into the yard. She grabbed Tyson up with such sudden force she scared him, and he began to wail—a single note, held as long as his breath would power it, then a great suck of air and the same note again.
Mac ran out of the house and down the steps. “Fran, I’m sorry! I’m trying to help!”
Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3) Page 16