“It’s weird, isn’t it?” she finally said. “So familiar but so different.”
“Yeah.” The truth of her words humbled me. She was June. My June. But we’d lived almost half our lives apart. Our bodies were different. Our personalities had matured and changed. I’d never been a happy-go-lucky kid, but after my dad got sick, a lot of humor had left. I’d gone from worrying about how I could spend my life with June without dragging her down to supporting both me and Wren and getting Dad the care he needed. Sometimes, I felt like I faked the good times with the girls because I was too worried about how they were doing. Were they happy? Was I enough for them? Could I be doing more?
June was still the girl who was always creating tunes and lyrics when she wasn’t around one of her guitars. She probably still got rowdy with her sisters too, but there was steel lining her back that hadn’t been there before.
“I really am sorry if I caused a rift between you andKirstin. You two seem to have a good... thing... going on.”
“Thing?” I asked wryly. “You don’t want to call it co-parenting?”
“Doesn’t seem to fit your situation.”
I stared at the dark ceiling. The rain outside had lightened up. “Any rift between me and Kirstin wasn’t caused by you. You were having a meal with a friend and his family.”
“Are we friends, Rhys?”
“I’m your muse. Besides, I’m friends with your brothers, but I don’t fuck them.”
She giggled and poked at my chest. “I know, but I knew it was a possibility and I got complacent. I didn’t think about how sitting right next to you would look.”
“Don’t blame yourself. Kirstin was probably worried because she was so far away. She might be dealing with the guilt that comes with her decision to pursue the career she loves.”
“It’s really hard to leave important people behind.” She traced circles on my stomach with her thumb while the rest of her fingers were splayed across my skin. “It’s lonely, and you’re almost driven more because you don’t want your absence to be for no reason. I can’t imagine what it’s like with kids.”
“A lot of people in town want to hate her.”
Her damp hair brushed against my skin as she looked up at me. “You defend her, don’t you?”
“She’s their mother, and it’s a little fucked up that I could’ve left to go do the same and no one would’ve batted an eye. I’d get cheered on.”
“It is a decision though,” she said softly. “You have tochoose between the ones you love and what you love to do. The selfishness bothered me, but I also thought that if I had kids... I dunno. That I’d do something differently.”
“She didn’t want...” I chomped on the inside of my cheek. The tendency to tell June everything had resurged with a vengeance. “She had kids because she knew they were important to me. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want the girls,” I rushed out. “At some level, she knew she’d have to decide between Montana and her job.”
June’s soft eyelashes brushed my chest as she blinked. “You’re a good dad, you know that?”
“I work hard to be, but why are you saying that?”
“You’ll never let the girls know how their mom felt about having kids or how she feels now.”
“Yeah.” I wanted them to see it was important to follow their dreams. If they didn’t want a quiet life in a small town at the base of the mountains, then they didn’t have to settle for it. Just because they were growing up in a fairly isolated area didn’t mean the world was closed to them.
“It’s okay though.”
“What is?” Did I want to know?
“To want Kirstin to be more involved when it comes to the girls.”
“She’s involved.”
“Okay.”
I frowned at the dark ceiling. Kirstin landed in Bourbon Canyon two or three times a year. Last year, she’d stayed with me... once. And she’d stayed with Wren... Last year had been a busy year. She’d launched an online store for prints and calendars and othermerchandise and she’d needed to be in the field for long stretches of time to get a variety of images.
She left messages and called when she could, which wasn’t that often. The girls no longer asked as much as they used to about when their mom would call. They had also quit asking why she didn’t call very often.
But fieldwork made it difficult.
“Penny for your thoughts.” The outlines she drew on me turned to the familiar shapes of musical notes.
