Page 32 of The Road Back to Us

I swallowed down the emotions that kept rising to the surface as I thought about what Lyric said last night. Her words had triggered something in me that I hadn’t expected, and I knew that I wouldn’t do either of us any good until I dealt with my own shit.

“Okay, well, I should get going. Kara, if you’re ready, grab your backpack, and I’ll take you to school.”

She nodded as she cleared her plate, ruffling Chloe’s hair as she walked by.

Lyric looked up at me as she held her mug between her hands. It was as if time stopped, giving us a moment as we stared at each other with a million things needing to be said sitting between us.

I turned and grabbed my stuff, not looking back as I headed out the door and waited for Kara in the truck. I cranked the air conditioning up, letting the cold air blast my face as I closed my eyes and realized that I had zero idea how to fix things with my wife.

Twenty-Nine

Lyric

“Rufus!” I shrieked, pulling my hand away as the goat tried to bite it. “You'd better stop being naughty, or I’m going to—”

“Please don’t get rid of her,” Chloe said sadly with tears filling her eyes.

My brow lifted as my face fell, hating how brokenhearted she looked.

“Oh, honey,” I replied, kneeling in front of her while keeping watch of Rufus out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t trust that cheeky little goat for anything. “I would never get rid of her.”

“Then what were you going to do to her?”

“I umm...” I hesitated, unsure of what to say because I had truly been thinking about all the places I could send her—not that I would ever admit that to Chloe.

“Chores,” Ben answered for me as he scratched Magnolia’s head. “She would make Rufus do chores.”

I smiled and let out the breath I had been holding, offering him a silent thank you when he met my eyes.

“Chores?” Chloe snorted. “Goats can’t do chores.”

“Sure they can,” Ben said, nodding his head as he fought for his life to come up with something.

“Yeah,” I jumped in. “Like mowing the grass. Technically, Rufus would have to eat all of the weeds first, but it would still be a lot of work.”

“I thought goats liked that?”

“What?” I asked, putting my hand on my hip as I stood up and stared at Chloe as if she had just revealed mind-blowing information. “Are you kidding me?”

I shook my head for dramatic effect as I pressed the palm of my hand to my head.

“And here I thought it would be the perfect punishment for her biting me.” I turned and faced Rufus, shaking my finger at her. “You better behave, or I won’t let you eat any weeds or grass.”

Chloe giggled, the sound of pure joy filling the air around us. I glanced at my watch, debating whether to stay with them a little longer or get started on the work that needed to be done.

“Go ahead, I’ve got her,” Ben said, reading my mind. “We’ll head inside in half an hour so I can get her a snack before nap time.”

“Sounds great. Thank you. You guys have fun and come get me if you need anything.”

I headed inside, knowing that I needed to focus on getting those designs finished, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I said to Cole last night. I knew it wasn’t fair to unload all of that on him when he was simply asking me for another chance, but at the time, it felt safer to put my walls up than to consider a future with Cole.

I sat down at my makeshift desk and pulled out the notepad I had been sketching in. While I could use more modern approaches and do stuff digitally, there was something soothing about hand-drawing my sketches. It always brought a sense of joy to see the ideas in my head come to life on paper.

My mind was so focused on the sketch I was working on that I hadn’t noticed when Ben and Chloe had come inside until I found her standing beside me, looking at the woman I was outlining.

“Is that my mommy?” she asked, her eyes big as she stared at the page.

I looked at her, then at the page, and frowned because I hadn’t noticed the way I had drawn the woman until she pointed it out. Her long, flowy hair looked identical to Melanie’s, but it was the softness in her face that made my heart ache. Her smile was so similar that if I allowed myself to, I could picture her as if she were really there.