by Lexie Ray
She left me standing there with the divorce papers, feeling like the worst asshole on the planet.
It would’ve been easier to will my heart to stop beating than to live on the ranch and not be able to try to be a husband to Zoe. There was plenty to distract myself over the next few weeks — running the ranch like normal, meeting with lawyers and police officers and judges, and making arrangements to purchase more cattle. And I supposed I was thankful for that — that at least I wasn’t sitting around, stewing about the divorce papers Zoe had served me. Those were under my bed, which was stupid and childish, but I couldn’t bear to look at them. I’d deal with them, in time, but just not right now. It was difficult to keep on behaving as if everything was normal, but I was doing my best.
In the barn one day, lingering over the cattle log, I noticed that Toby was shadowing me. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to remain hidden or just playing at some elaborate ruse to get me to notice him, but I was in no mood. I ignored him outright until it became downright impossible to ignore him always popping up in my periphery. I grabbed the spreadsheet for payroll and looked up at him.
“Probably not a good idea to be in the hay loft,” I said.
“Why?” he asked, apparently unsurprised by me catching on to his little game of sneaking around.
“Just seems like something your mother wouldn’t like you doing,” I said. “There are probably mice up there, too.”
“I’m not afraid of mice,” he said. “Cats eat mice. You should get a cat.”
“I don’t think we need yet another animal to take care of around here,” I said, going over the rows of times on the spreadsheet.
“I could take care of it.”
Concentrating on work was fighting a losing battle.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked, peering up at the small boy dangling his feet from the edge of the hay loft.
“Mama said to play outside,” he offered. “That I was getting under her feet.”
Lord, I knew the feeling.
“Well, this is the barn,” I informed him. “Doesn’t quite count as outside, now, does it?”
“It smells like outside,” he reasoned. “Feels like outside.”
“But it’s still a building.” I drummed my fingers over the desk. “Aren’t you bored or something?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s boring in the barn,” I agreed. “Bet you’d find something more exciting to do if you went outside.”
“Everyone’s working,” Toby told me. “There isn’t anything to do.”
“I bet you could be working, too, if you told your mother you’re this bored,” I said. “She could probably use some help cleaning up inside, or cooking.”
“She never lets me cook,” Toby said. “She says it’s her therapy time. Whatever that means.”
“Cleaning’s still on the table,” I remarked.
“No, thank you.”
But he didn’t move from that odd little perch, swinging his legs, watching me like a hawk.
“What are you doing?” he asked me finally, the stretch of silence too much for him to bear, apparently. “It looks like homework.”
“It is homework — I’m at home, and I’m working,” I said, then had a momentary flash of inspiration. “Don’t you have homework to do?”
“I’m in first grade,” he said haughtily. “They don’t give us homework.”
“I should write a letter to your teacher and beg her to reconsider,” I muttered.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Is your homework fun?”
I sighed and put the pen down. “No. It isn’t fun.”
“Then maybe you should come play outside with me.”
It was amazing to witness how the kid’s mind worked, how he employed reason to get what he really wanted. He was in the barn to pester me until I gave in and entertained him. Well, I wasn’t about to give in.
“I think I have a better idea,” I said. “I know loads of people who could give you job if you’re that bored.”
“I don’t want a job. I just want to have fun.”
I spread my arms. “Lots of people find satisfaction in their jobs. That’s about the only fun us adults have.”
Toby considered this. “That doesn’t sound like very much fun.”
“Enjoy being young, then. Find something to do to entertain yourself.”
I returned to the payroll, making out the checks, always with Toby in my peripheral vision. I did my best to ignore him, but he did his best not to be ignored, swinging his feet dramatically enough to tap the underside of the hayloft. His hands joined the tapping, making an impressively complex rhythm that, given any other situation, I might’ve admired. But right now, the kid was hellbent on terrorizing me until I gave in to his demands, and I was just as stubborn as he was.
Then, something alarming happened.
Those tapping feet scrambled around in midair for the longest of moments, and I looked up just in time to see Toby tumble from the hayloft and hit the dirt floor on his side, hard enough to knock the wind out of him in a whoosh. I was in shock for a long moment, unwilling to believe what I’d just witnessed really happened. It wasn’t that high of a fall, but people could be seriously injured just slipping on a flat surface and falling to the ground. I was relieved to see Toby sit up — at least he hadn’t broken his neck or worse. But the way he held his arm out away from his body, as if it was betraying him at this very moment, made me realize that he hadn’t escaped the tumble unscathed.
I didn’t think. I just moved.
Toby was too shocked to cry, so I used that moment to swiftly put the arm I knew was injured securely across his chest.
“You’re okay,” I said, scooping him into my arms. “You are very brave. What we’re going to do now is to go to the hospital and let the doctors take a look — just to be sure.”
I could’ve taken him down to Hadley, but I knew he needed X-rays, knew there was always the possibility that Hadley might be busy with a patient and unable to see us right away. I’d call her once we were at the hospital, and she could bring Zoe there. That was the best plan. Right now, I needed to move quickly, to reassure Toby that he was in good hands, to distract him from the pain that was coming.
“Have you ever gotten an X-ray before?” I asked conversationally, loading him into the front seat of the truck and hurrying around and into the driver’s seat in time to hear his faint response.
“No.”
“Well, this is a very exciting day,” I said. “X-rays show you a special picture of your bones. Have you ever seen your bones?”
“No.” His eyes were filling up with tears, and I knew he was on the verge of losing it.
“Today you’ll get to see them,” I said, keeping my voice deliberately bright even though I wanted to panic just as badly as he did. “It’s the coolest thing in the world. You’ll see a skeleton, like on Halloween, but it’ll be your skeleton.”
Toby shifted in his seat and winced. “Really?”
“Definitely. Do you know what you’re going to be for Halloween yet?”
“No. Mama — Mom told me I’d make a good rancher.”
My heart was so inexplicably full for a moment that I nearly forgot the purpose for our rush into town.
“You would make a good rancher,” I said. “I have a hat or two you could try on. Even keep. Wear whenever you want. We could get you a rope, too, for lassoing. But what about — now hear me out — what about a skeleton rancher?”
The kid was clearly in pain at this point, but his interest was piqued. “What would that be like?”
“Well, first we have to do research with your X-ray,” I said. “We need to see what your bones look like, don’t we?”
“Yeah …”
“And then you can wear all the clothes us ranchers wear — the cowboy hat, the jeans, the boots, everything — only paint yourself up like a skeleton. That’s where the research on the X-
ray will come into play.”
“Maybe we could even paint my face,” Toby suggested, bouncing a little in excitement and jostling his arm. “Ow!”
“I think face paint is an excellent idea,” I said quickly, wincing in sympathy as his dark eyes filled up with tears. “Better stay still, though. That arm has to be pretty tender. We’re almost at the hospital. Those doctors will patch you right up and get you feeling better than ever.”
“Do you think my arm is broken?” Toby asked, his voice quavering. Really, if he broke down into tears at this point, I was still going to be pretty impressed. The kid had made it this far with some pretty transparent attempts at distraction. I’d forgive him his tears.
“Buddy, if it’s broken, something else pretty cool is going to happen, and you’re going to get a front-row seat to it,” I said, chipper as ever.
“What’s going to happen?” If he’d been a little bit older, he wouldn’t have played ball like this. I was amazed at how eagerly he soaked up all of my words, even as he was fighting the pain of his arm. All I had to do was stay positive, and he’d stay positive, too.
“If it’s broken, the doctors will put this really cool thing on your arm called a cast.” I raised my eyebrows in an expression of what I hoped was wonderment. “It’s hard, so it’ll protect your arm while you’re healing.”
“Cool!”
“That’s not even the coolest part,” I said, a grin creeping across my face. It was so easy to stay in this character, to chase away my worries and Toby’s pain. I would’ve even said I was enjoying myself, talking with Toby, if we hadn’t been on our way to the hospital with a possible broken arm. Zoe was going to murder me outright for spiriting him away from the ranch like this.
“What’s cooler than that — a cast?” Toby asked.
“Well, since it’s hard, you can even draw on it,” I said, lowering my voice like I was imparting an important secret.
“I can draw on it?” This was apparently a very important revelation.
“You sure can,” I said. “You can draw whatever you want on it — write on it, whatever. You can even have your friends at school sign their names.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Why would I do that?”
I laughed. “I don’t know. You can do anything you want with it. That’s my point, I guess.”
“Would you draw something on it, if I asked?” Toby looked over me with big eyes.
“I’m not such a great artist,” I confessed, “but I’d do it if you really wanted me to. Maybe I could practice a couple of times on paper beforehand. Then, you could choose.”
“Okay.”
I was having trouble wrapping my mind around this kid. I knew he liked me from the way he glommed onto me like a boy-shaped glob of glue, but I didn’t understand why. I was gruff, older than the rest of my brothers, and had trouble relating to a kid like Toby. If I was his age I probably wouldn’t like an old asshole like me.
Or maybe Toby had simply taken on the challenge of getting the crabbiest son of a bitch on the ranch to like him.
The kid was good. I’d give him that.
“Here we are,” I announced needlessly, pulling up at the emergency center entrance. “Have you ever ridden in a wheelchair before?”
“No,” Toby said, shaking his head, drawing out the vowel. “Do I get to?”
“Heck yes, you get to,” I said. “You’re the most important person here, did you know that? You get to do whatever you want. I’ll go get that wheelchair, then what if I get you a chocolate milkshake at the cafeteria?”
In spite of everything — the fear, the pain, the trepidation at being at the hospital without his mother — Toby grinned and nodded as I slipped out of the truck and jogged to the entrance to wrestle a wheelchair away from an orderly. Dealing with the kid was easier than I could’ve ever imagined. He was just excited to be talked to, which gave me a little pause. Maybe he was more accustomed to someone like Forrest ignoring him all the time — ignoring him or beating on him. The thought made me boil with anger, and I was savagely happy, not for the first time, that Forrest Holland was locked away in jail.
Perhaps what was even more surprising was how much I had personally enjoyed engaging Toby. He was a bright boy, curious about the world around him, and stunningly tough.
“Your chariot awaits,” I said, bowing to him grandly before lifting him out of the truck and into the wheelchair. “This is the real royal treatment right here, buddy. People waiting on you hand and foot. Pretty nurses.”
He giggled gamely as I wheeled him inside, the truck forgotten, unimportant. We stopped in front of the admittance desk, me clearing my throat to get the attendant to look up and notice us.
“What do we have here?” she asked, eyeing the way Toby held his arm across his chest. “What’s happened to you, young man?”
“I fell out of the barn,” Toby announced.
“Uh-huh.” The attendant’s eyes slid up to me and I felt an ugly fear coil inside of me. She was thinking, right now, at this very moment, that I was the asshole behind Toby’s arm. That I was no better than Forrest. And hell, maybe she’d be right about me. I wasn’t father material. It was probably my fault that Toby had fallen in the first place. I shouldn’t have ignored him. I should’ve taken just a few minutes to tell him to come on down from the hay loft and maybe show him how to ride a horse, or muck a stall, or just fucking throw a ball around with him. He was just a kid. He didn’t deserve my vitriol at not being able to figure out how to work it all out with Zoe. He was an innocent in all of this, and somehow, he still liked me. He deserved better than me, than any of this. He deserved only the best of the world, and life hadn’t been very good to him up until this point.
“Chance says that I’m going to have an X-ray, and we’ll see the bones, and maybe I can be a skeleton rancher for Halloween,” Toby was saying, chattering on, oblivious to my existential crisis. “And if I get a cast, he said he’d draw me a picture on it, even if it isn’t very good.”
“And how is Mr. Chance related to you?” the attendant asked kindly, focusing on Toby, for now. I was sure I’d get the third degree as soon as he was in another room, being examined.
“Oh, he’s my dad,” Toby said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. It was as if the kid had the unique and singular ability to peel back all the layers of bullshit, all the worries and platitudes and confusions that adults piled on a situation, and saw the truth for what it was.
I’d married his mother.
I’d adopted him.
I was his father, whether I wanted to be or not. It was just how Toby saw me. It was the thing that made sense to him.
“You’re his father?” The attendant looked at me with raised eyebrows, indicating how little she believed that statement. She was within her rights. I was fair, blond, and blue-eyed, and Toby had dark eyes and hair, taking mostly after his mother.
I opened up my mouth to make some sort of explanation about how, yes, in the eyes of the state of Texas and every law that mattered, I was Toby’s father. I even had the paperwork at home that was easily retrievable, if it came down to it. His biological father was locked up in jail, and I was about to get a divorce from his mother because I was shaping up to be a piss-poor attempt at a father, and somehow I was here with him at the hospital, seeking treatment from his probably broken arm.
And yet something else entirely different happened.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m his father.”
The words surprised me more than it did the attendant, who simply made a notation on a sheet of paper, or even Toby, who looked around at the novel sights of a place he’d never been before — beds on wheels, chairs on wheels, and strangers milling about. I’d just said that I was Toby’s father without even stumbling over the words.
And just like when Toby had said it aloud, my saying it aloud made it true. It was all theories and hangups and me trapped inside of my own self-doubt when I was just thinking about it, but saying it aloud
made it finally make sense.
I was a father to this kid.
I stayed by Toby’s side — or as close as they would let me be — throughout his examination and the subsequent task of applying the cast to his arm, which was broken, after all. While he was getting his X-ray, though, I did take the opportunity to call Hadley and let her know what was going on.
“Well, I appreciate the head’s up, but why are you calling me and not Zoe?” she asked flatly.
“You, um, you know Zoe,” I said. “She’s going to flip out once she finds out.”
“So you want me to tell her instead of you telling her? No, thanks.”
“Please, Hadley?”
“Jesus, Chance, she’s your wife.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Hadley that all I had to do was sign the divorce papers to end that little notion.
“You know she’ll bite your head off a little more gently,” I said in a last-ditch effort to save myself. “Plus, you have history with her, right? You’re from the same hometown.”
“For whatever that’s worth,” Hadley mumbled. “Fine, I’ll tell her. But that’ll probably piss her off even more, that you didn’t let her know yourself.”
“Just say that I’m with Toby, and I was too busy to call her, too,” I tried, wincing as the explanation sounded weak even to me.
“She’s already going to be salty that you miraculously had the time to call me, first.”
“Because you’re the one with medical experience. I was bouncing the diagnosis off of you, first.”
“A broken arm’s a broken arm, Chance.”
“I’ll owe you a favor.”
She chuckled. “You’ll owe me a huge favor.”
“I will be indebted to you, seriously. Anything.”
“Like a long vacation for Hunter? That kind of favor.”
I grimaced. “Yes, sure, fine. That kind of favor. But I have to go, now.”
Dread filled me from that phone call onward, realizing that Zoe would soon know that I was with her son at the hospital, that I was hopeless at being so much as a semblance of a good father, that I still hadn’t signed the divorce papers because I thought there was still perhaps a snowflake’s chance in hell that she might change her mind. That was useless thinking, especially now, now that I had let all this happen.