by Elise Faber
I zipped up my suitcase and straightened, hoping it would be infallible in this case, too.
I was exhausted.
But then again, not sleeping would do that to a man.
I wanted to blame it on worry for Warren or perhaps me finally having the urge to invest in a house or build a space at the winery where I could stay during the few months I was in town.
That blame would be misplaced.
I’d been thinking of Maggie. Constantly.
Hearing her words, her certainty, and at first being so fucking pissed that she’d dared put any responsibility of ending us on me. Then staring at that circle of metal, the tiny peach with its equally tiny diamond, and realizing she’d kept it all these years.
And slowly, infinitesimally coming to the conclusion that she was right.
We’d been at two dramatically different places in life, and, frankly, it was unfair for me to have put pressure on her to stay just because I wanted her to.
I could have gone.
We could have tried to make things work long-distance.
But I would have eventually become resentful. At that point, I hadn’t wanted to leave or see the world or be with anyone else. I’d wanted to go to college in Salt Lake. I’d wanted to get my degree, find a job in town or nearby, and buy a house with a picket fence on the same street as my parents. I hadn’t had big dreams. And, maybe this sounded awful, because I did love her, but part of it had also been that Mags was comfortable and easy and mine. It had made sense for us to take the next step. Was totally logical.
Made. Sense. Logical.
All the things a young woman with her mind on the future, who’d had the big dreams I hadn’t, wouldn’t want to hear.
So, yeah, I’d come to the conclusion that I was a fucking idiot at eighteen, thinking I knew all the right things to do, that I knew best.
It wasn’t until my mom got sick about nine months after Maggie was gone that I’d started to mature. And it wasn’t until I’d devoted countless hours to a job and business that I’d begun to possess a modicum of adulthood, to understand that just because I had wanted something didn’t mean the world owed me it.
And now I realized that even though we’d spent four years together as boyfriend and girlfriend, even though we’d been each other’s firsts in so many ways—first love, first kiss, first time—Maggie didn’t owe me anything.
She hadn’t snuck off. She hadn’t made promises and left in the middle of the night.
She’d told me for years that her plan was to move to California after she turned eighteen, and I’d watched her for years as she’d saved money from every babysitting job, every birthday and holiday, every shift at Henry’s Diner she’d worked in the next town over to make that happen.
And somehow, I’d still been surprised that she’d gone.
Look, it didn’t feel great to know that I wasn’t enough to make her want to stay, and I knew now that part of the reason I’d held on to the anger was because of ego. Or rather, my ego being bruised.
But . . . that conversation in the kitchen, seeing her spine go ramrod stiff like she was afraid I was going to cut her down and it was the only way for her to stay strong. Seeing her pull into herself because I’d acted like her dad—
Fuck. I didn’t want to turn into Warren.
I’d respected him at one point. He’d let me stay at the ranch, had given me some comfort—even if it was comfort in anger—after Mags had gone.
But I didn’t want to be a gruff, ornery bastard who didn’t have anything except some property and an empty house. I wanted a full life, with a family that was my own. I was too old to be carrying a bruised heart from a decade before. Mags’ words might not have taken in that moment, but the last three weeks with nothing but my spreadsheets and the quiet of the ranch, and I’d started to see things through a different lens.
Either you would have had to sacrifice what you wanted, or I would have had to.
What did a pair of eighteen-year-olds know about sacrifice? Well, she’d clearly known more than me, with my happily married parents, with my stable family, my siblings who all got along. I’d known I was loved from the first moment I could remember. Mags had always struggled to see through Warren’s gruff.
A gruff that was getting sharper as the years progressed.
It was something I’d tried to tell the old man as the years had gone on, but Mags had gotten her stubborn from somewhere, and that somewhere was Warren.
He was of the tough, I-don’t-express-my-feelings set, and Maggie, who’d lost her mom, who was an only child in a new town, had needed more feelings. I knew that was part of why she’d left, that searching and aching and craving something more fulfilling from her dad.
And just not finding it.
“Yet, you held her leaving against her for a solid decade, dumbass,” I muttered, grabbing my suitcase by the handle and running through my mental to-do list, trying to stop going around and around in my mind for the umpteenth time in the last few weeks.
The past was the past.
She’d made the right choice in going. I was man enough to accept that now.
I made my way over to the coffee pot, exorcised from the house by nurse Claudette since coffee didn’t fit in with Warren’s post-heart attack diet. Something he’d known, apparently, but had just bided his time after the last time the nurse had been at the house, waiting until she’d finished her tenure before buying a new maker and resuming his morning cup of joe. I still felt a little guilty for having spent so much time with Warren and not having known that, but part of me recognized that even if I had known, I still probably wouldn’t have fought the old bugger over one cup a day.
My lips ghosted up as I filled my mug.
Claudette had no compunction over fighting with Warren though.
And Warren had no compunction over giving in. In fact, he even seemed to relish in Claudette taking care of him.
Which made no logical sense. Mags had been here to do the same thing, and she perhaps had more of a claim to provide that care, considering she was his daughter, but I’d given up a while ago on understanding what made Warren tick. Of course, I should have given up before I’d broached the subject of what had happened with Maggie at the hospital the night of his surgery.
Unfortunately for me and my eardrums, I hadn’t.
“Lesson learned,” I muttered before taking a gulp of coffee. I was allowed to hang around as long as I didn’t pester him.
His words.
That had been trailed by otherwise you can get your own damned place and get the hell off my ranch.
Ah. Warren.
To which I had countered with don’t worry, the next time I’m in town, I’ll stay at the winery.
Warren had glared. I had retreated to my laptop.
Because . . . had I really related to that fury inside the older man for nearly a decade?
It shamed me to think that I had, almost as much as it shamed me that I hadn’t understood exactly why Mags had left Campbell until that morning in Warren’s kitchen three weeks before.
But what could I do at this point?
She was gone. I didn’t have access to her number without hijacking Warren’s cell, or address, at least not without asking Warren for it, and neither of those were a road I was willing to travel down.
The past.
All in the past. If I saw Mags again, I’d apologize. Let her know that I was sorry it had taken me so long to get my head out of my ass, but that I got it and I wish I’d done things differently.
Let her know that the person I’d been mad at all these years wasn’t her.
I’d finally realized it was me.
My cell buzzed as I was rinsing my glass and cleaning up the rest of the space, making sure no critters would be attracted to any crumbs when I left. Eyeing the space for any left-behind belongings, I tugged the phone from my pocket, swiped without looking at the screen, and brought it up to my ear, I barely got my “Hello?” out before my mom�
��s voice came through the speaker.
“I thought you were coming by for breakfast.”
I grinned, shook my head. She always made me feel about ten, and even though I was nearly thirty and somehow reduced to a tween by just her voice, I loved the woman to the moon and back.
“Pushy,” I teased.
“You love me,” she teased back. “Pancakes are going on the griddle in five. It’s on you if they’re cold and soggy by the time you get here.”
“I’m just cleaning up the bunkhouse,” I told her, drying and putting the mug and coffee pot away, taking the dirty linens from the bed and bagging them. I’d drop them by the dry cleaner on the way to the airport, where they’d launder and hold on to them until I came back to Campbell. “I’m out the door in five.”
“Make it four.”
I laughed. “I know you still operate on military time, Mom, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Five kids, I had to operate on military time.”
“I love you,” I said, grabbing a sock I’d somehow missed and shoving it into my suitcase. “Your military time is distracting me. I’ll see you in a few.”
“Love you, baby boy. See you in a bit.” A beat. “But the pancakes may still be cold.”
I laughed as I said my goodbye and hung up, knowing that the pancakes wouldn’t be cold, that they’d be steaming and fluffy and delicious, not only because my mom was a great cook, but because she wouldn’t put the batter on the griddle until she heard my car pull into the driveway, timing it so the hot circles of yumminess hit my plate at the perfect moment.
My mom was incredible.
But my mom was also part of why I hadn’t understood what Maggie had been going through until she’d spelled it out for me like the dumbass I was in the kitchen three weeks ago.
I’d had perfectly-timed pancakes. She’d had . . . Warren.
Sighing, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do about that or the fact that this wasn’t new information, I pocketed my cell and used one hand to pick up the bagged linens, used my other to heft my suitcase, and made my way to the door.
Lights off.
Door locked, more because I found myself thinking the habit Mags had picked up in L.A. was a smart one rather than because there was any great risk that someone would enter the space uninvited.
Even when I wasn’t directly thinking about her, she was in my brain. What a mess.
Sighing, I headed out to my car.
My mom was driving me to the airport after breakfast and would take my car back to their house and store it until I came back to town. My dad would start it at regular intervals, would hook up a backup battery charger so it didn’t run dead while not in use.
Family.
Mine was great.
Mags’ was—
“Fuck,” I gritted out, tossing the suitcase and bag of linens into the trunk and slamming it shut. I got in my driver’s seat, Warren and I having said our goodbyes the night before over Claudette’s surprisingly tasty low-fat casserole, and I didn’t bother to glance at, let alone go up to the main house.
He wouldn’t want another conversation.
“Waste of time saying goodbye twice,” I could imagine him growling.
Which was just as well. I had pancakes to get to.
As predicted, the pancakes were piping hot and perfectly fluffy, making their way onto my plate just as I strolled through the door.
“Hi, honey,” my mom said, walking over to the bar-top counter of the island and setting the plate alongside a napkin already prepped with a knife and fork. I inhaled the delicious scent of pancakes, of bacon and eggs, and knew I was a nearly thirty-year-old man who’d been spoiled for most of my life.
Not that I was complaining.
The difference is that even as my mom, my parents, my siblings spoiled me, I spoiled them right back.
Case in point, the barstool I was plunking my ass into.
I’d paid for it. Well, I’d paid for everything in the kitchen. The stools, the countertops, the appliances, the cabinets. I’d hired a contractor to create my mom’s dream kitchen three years ago.
Five years in remission deserved a celebration.
And since she wouldn’t let me buy her a vacation to the Caribbean or Europe, like she’d always wanted to go, I’d gotten her appliances.
Oh, she’d still protested that.
But then I’d bought the stove I knew she’d always wanted—a huge unit with two ovens, six burners, a grill and a separate griddle—and had it delivered to the house for Christmas.
It had barely fit through the door.
But she’d fallen in love, had practically salivated over using it.
So when I’d threatened her with the matching fridge, dishwasher, and microwave, she’d relented and let the contractor come and plan the space.
I think it was the double oven that pushed her over the edge.
Either way, I knew, digging into my pancakes, I was really the one who benefited.
Home-cooked meals.
A happy mom.
Yeah, it had been well worth the money.
She filled her own plate and came to sit next to me. “What time’s your flight?”
“Eleven.” I took a bite. “Thanks for driving me.”
“Of course, baby.” Her fingers brushed across my forehead, a light touch she’d done for as long as I could remember. It was something I’d once shied away from, a babyish bit of contact to retreat from or block, thinking I was too old for it.
Then I’d almost lost it.
So, now I knew how precious that touch was.
And after the quiet contemplation of the last weeks, now I wondered if Mags had ever had it.
I’d touched her, of course. But the caress of a boyfriend who wanted to get into her pants was markedly different than that of a parent, of a mom.
She’d never had the latter, and I couldn’t see Warren kissing booboos.
Fuck.
It had been easier when I’d been wrapped up in myself. Thinking like this, recognizing all the things I’d missed as a teenager more wrapped up in myself than the world around me, and I was feeling no little amount of guilt.
I should have been better.
Or at the very least, it shouldn’t have taken me ten years to realize that my pain, my hurt wasn’t bigger than Maggie’s.
Sometimes things didn’t work out, but that didn’t mean one of us had to be a monster or a bad guy—
“You’ve got some really heavy thoughts running through your mind.”
I glanced up from my pancakes, saw my mom had set down her fork. “I’m okay, Mom. Thanks for breakfast. It’s delicious, as always.”
“I’m glad you say you’re okay.” She picked up her fork. “But my Mom Powers tell me otherwise. And you know that I won’t push you to talk,” she added when I opened my mouth to demure.
No. She wouldn’t.
My mom wasn’t the overtly pushy type. More the sly pushy. Not demanding I tell her what was wrong. Instead, she would remind me she was there to listen, and she would make herself available so that by the time the feelings needed an out, she was always nearby. So really, she just out-patienced me into confessing what was wrong. Or maybe out-pancaked me, I realized, since the revelations usually came over breakfast.
“How do you always know?” I asked, setting down my own fork.
Her lips quirked. “Are you questioning my Mom Powers?”
“The ones that always knew when I was even a minute past curfew?” I asked teasingly. “No. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that.”
“Smart boy.”
I grabbed our plates, now empty, and carried them to the sink then returned for the utensils and coffee mugs. “Want a refill?” I asked.
“No, honey.”
Since I’d had enough caffeine to feel a bit jittery, I dumped the contents from both mugs in the sink and began washing up. Or maybe it was less the caffeine and more related to the fact that I was about to say,
just loud enough to be heard over the running water, “I saw Maggie.”
Silence.
I washed the first dish, stuck it in the dishwasher. Then repeated the pattern with the second, with the pan from the eggs and bacon, though those I dried with a hand towel and put away. When I turned back to face my mom at the bar top, she was studying me carefully.
“And how’d that make you feel?”
“Pissed.”
Her eyes clouded.
“At first.”
They cleared.
“We said some things. Well, no, I barked at her and she returned some calm volleys that made me think.”
“Think?” my mom asked. “Or reconsider?”
“Think,” I said. “Think myself into circles before I realized that I needed to reconsider everything I’d felt and thought after she left.”
“Why?”
I frowned. “Why?”
“You guys exchanged plenty of words before she left.”
I chuckled darkly, remembering those words had been more argument than thoughtful exchange.
She patted my hand when I came to lean against the counter near her. “Why did these words affect you?”
I sighed. “Probably because I’ve realized she was right.” I slipped my hand into my pocket, to where I’d stashed the charm bracelet, rolling the peach between my thumb and forefinger, and knowing that this, too, had played a part in my revised thinking. She’d kept it all these years because it was important. She hadn’t thrown it away. She hadn’t thrown me away.
“Oh, baby,” my mom murmured, and squeezed my fingers again. “You were both young. Mistakes were made on both sides.”
I made a face. “I know that.”
“But you think that you made bigger ones?” she asked, proving her Mom Powers were real by poaching the thoughts right from my mind.
“How can I not?” I asked. “It wasn’t like Mags ever hid what she wanted.”
“A big city. A big career in Hollywood.”
I nodded. “I held that against her, tried to make her dreams smaller so they’d fit with mine. I loved her, but just as much as I cared for her, I think I was almost more hurt that I wasn’t big enough to fill her hopes for the future and resentful that she wanted something else.” A sigh. “I should have recognized that really loving someone meant not trying to shrink them down, to make their dream more palatable. It’s accepting them, helping to make them happen.”