She stretches her arms over her head until her back cracks, reaches down and picks her water bottle off the porch boards and stands up.
My phone buzzes against the porch boards next to my notebook. I pick it up and see it's a text from Thunder:
*Mama's askin if Nash can come over tonight for a movie night with Raine. Popcorn on the couch, the whole production. Diesel welcome too. I'll come grab the boy in about an hour if y'all are good with it.*
I type back without having to think about it.
*Yes, please. Tell Mama Lou I owe her one.*
I set the phone down. Bex doesn't ask what it was. She waits for me to say something. "Mama Lou wants Nash and Diesel tonight. Movie night with Raine."
Bex's mouth pulls into the slow knowing smile. "Mama Lou is a saint. That woman has been collectin' kids since she had Thunder. She'll have Nash thinkin' he's at Disneyland by the time the credits roll."
"That's what I'm countin' on."
Bex's eyebrow goes up a quarter inch. "That right?"
I laugh and Bex heads down the porch. "There's one more thing I've noticed about you."
"Yeah?"
She doesn't turn around. She's looking out at the gravel with her water bottle in her hand and her back to me. "That chain at your throat. The one your fingers keep findin'."
My hand drops away from it.
"You don't have to be ready before you're ready. But when you're ready—when it's time—you'll know. And it won't feel like losin' him. It'll feel like settin' him down somewhere safe. I went through all of this with Banshee. I don't know if you know it, but his dead wife was my best friend. Grief is complicated, and no one will try to push it on ya. Take your time."
She lifts a hand without looking back and walks across the gravel toward her own cabin.
I sit on the porch with the broken pencil in my hand and Diesel breathing slow against my boot. I don't move for a long time.
Thunder comes for Nash around supper.
Nash runs across the gravel with his backpack and his Switch and Stitch under one arm and Diesel keeping pace at his hip. Thunder lifts him into the cab one-handed and Diesel jumps up beside him without being told. Thunder buckles Nash in, tips his hat at me from the driver's side, and the truck pulls down the drive.
Nash waves at me from the back window until they turn the bend.
The dust settles on the gravel. The ranch goes quiet.
I cross the gravel to my own cabin. The screen door makes the same sound it always makes. The boards under my feet feel the same. The smell is the same—the same lavender soap, the same coffee, the same six-year-old socks balled up under the kitchen table from a morning I can't remember now.
Nothing has changed in this cabin. I'm the one who's changed.
I walk down the short hall to my bedroom and stand at the dresser. I look at myself in the small mirror above it. My hair is up off my neck from the heat. My face is the same face it's been for thirty years. The chain is around my throat where it has been since the day Garrett died.
I lift both hands to the back of my neck. The clasp is small and warm from my skin. I work it open with my fingers. The chain slides forward over my collarbone and into my palm. The weight of Garrett's ring lands in the gold.
I sit down on the edge of my bed because my knees go and hold the chain in both hands. The ring is warm and the chain is warm. My palms are cold.
I look at the ring for a long time.
*Garrett.*
The word doesn't come out of my mouth. It moves through my chest the way a hand moves through water.
My thumb works the ring up off the chain. It comes loose with a small clean motion that takes longer than it should and shorter than I expected.
I open the top drawer of the dresser. My own gold band is where I left it. The light catches the rim of it. I set Garrett's ring in the drawer next to it. The two rings sit together. They look like they belong together. They look like they should've been together a long time before now.
