I nod, tucking my hair back. “Yeah, I just don’t always like thinking about this. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important to talk about sometimes.”
He looks at me, and I can see the gears turning in his head.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I say, smiling weakly.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Dad wouldn’t like my thoughts.”
“Well, try me.”
He sighs. “Sometimes…I think I need to go back and just see it.”
My stomach sinks, down to somewhere below the floor. Hell, maybe.
“What do you mean?” I whisper.
He’s staring at the opposite wall, eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard you and Dad talk about the mountains, about the bluegrass. And I’ve done my own looking into it. But it isn’t just that it looks interesting. It’s this…pull.”
I take his hand, holding it tight. “I get that,” I say in my bravest voice.
“Do you?” He meets my eyes, raw emotion spilling out.
“Of course,” I say. “It’s the most beautiful place on Earth. But your father and I had too many bad things happen there. We needed a fresh start.”
“Maybe it could be my fresh start.”
I don’t tell him he’s not looking for a fresh start, he’s just looking for a start. I’ve watched my son grow up and become a man, and I’ve watched his life stall out. Maybe he doesn’t know it, but I see him from the upstairs window, standing at the edge of the field, watching the sunset. Like he’s about to just walk off and keep on walking until he finds a place to call home.
That makes me want to cry, but this isn’t about me.
“I think that’s something to think about carefully,” I say after a while.
He nods. “I know. I’m thinking. Won’t do anything reckless.”
“I know you won’t.”
I’m not sure I handled this right. It kind of seems like he’s shutting down now. We talk for a while longer, but the conversation is surface level. Finally, he gets up and says he needs to finish some chores. I tell him to take the pastries from the cafe with him. He hugs me, and I watch him leave, standing with my nose pressed into the screen door.
Sometimes, I still feel small, uncertain. But that’s just life. I don’t think we ever grow up all the way.
That night, after dinner, I wash my face and sit down at my vanity in the bathroom. It’s beautiful, made of wood from the ranch and painted slate blue. I pull up my hair, tucking the bit of gray behind my ear. My face looks a little different than it did back then, when Landis was small. But my eyes will always have the same fire. That comes from the mountains.
It’s the fire burning up Landis too.
Slowly, I work my rings off and set them aside. Downstairs, the door creaks, signaling Jensen’s return. I dip my middle finger into the little pot of cream and dab it under my eyes, listening as he takes off his boots and climbs the stairs. The door opens then shuts.
He appears in the mirror, leaning in the doorway behind me.
“Looking good, baby,” he drawls.
I thought I was going to wait for the right time to talk to him about my conversation with Landis, but it bubbles out right away.
“Landis found that photograph of you and…him,” I say. “He was asking about Kentucky.”
His face doesn’t change, but his throat bobs.
“Yeah?” he says finally.
“He said it pulls at him.”
