Page 6 of Broken Cedar

When the memorial wraps up, someone takes the microphone to play a guitar with a simple melody. People begin to stand, their chairs scraping on gravel.

I stand too. My legs are stiff. The sun is higher now, warming the yard, and people are moving toward the food tables with the purposeful drift of humans who have cried together and are now ready to eat together. Mom is busy accepting another hug. Colt has vanished into the crowd.

Not sure what else to do, I join the flow and fill a plate. Tater tot casserole, obviously. Green beans with those fried onions that constitute a separate food group. Something involving Jell-O and whipped cream that continues to exist in a category of its own. I find a spot on the porch steps and balance the plate on my knees.

An older woman settles beside me on the step. I recognize her, vaguely.

“Hallie Walker,” she says. “Look at you. All grown up and city-fied.” She pats my knee. “How long you staying, honey?”

“Just through the weekend,” I say, taking a bite of the tater tot casserole. “I’ve got meetings wit h work on Tuesday I can’t move.”

The woman nods. Her eyes don’t leave my face. “Shame,” she says. “Your mama’s been counting the days. You know that, right?”

I take another bite of casserole, but it goes down dry. “I’ll visit more,” I say, and we both know it’s an empty promise.

She pats my knee again and moves on, carrying her plate toward a cluster of women by the oak tree.

A few steps away, a group has formed—three men and a woman, all somewhere north of sixty. I drift toward them because drifting is easier than sitting alone with my guilt.

“—never understood it,” one of the men is saying. “Good-looking man. Hard worker. And still single. Can’t figure it out.”

They’re obviously talking about Colt. Small towns have approximately seven topics of conversation, and the marital status of attractive single men is firmly in the top three.

“Maybe he’s picky,” the woman offers.

“Picky.” The bearded man snorts. “Picky is for people who have options. Out here, you take what you can get.”

“Frank,” says one of the other men, “the man’s thirty-two. He’s got plenty of time.”

“Had time eight years ago too,” Frank says, and takes a pull from a red cup that definitely does not contain lemonade. “Just saying. Strange, is all. Man like that. You’d think someone would’ve caught his attention by now.”

I take a bite of green beans and say nothing, because saying nothing is the only move that doesn’t end with me either defending Colt’s love life or accidentally implying something about my own feelings, both of which are territories I am not prepared to navigate while holding a plate of Jell-O salad.

The woman notices that I’ve joined their group, and I find myself trapped in the same conversation I’d just left.

Then an older man ambles over, and the group turns. “Remember when these two tried to catch that bull calf that got loose? Must’ve been—what, Hallie, you were twelve? Thirteen?”

Oh no. I know this story.

“Eleven,” I say weakly.

“Eleven. Colt would’ve been thirteen, fourteen.” The man grins, and I grimace. “Jim sent them out to bring in that black baldy calf from the north pasture. Thing was no bigger than a collie dog but faster than anything on four legs. These two spent three hours chasing it. Three hours. Hallie’s on the four-wheeler, Colt’s on foot, and they’ve got this system going where she herds it toward him, and he’s supposed to catch it.”

The group is already laughing because they know how this ends. I look across the yard. Colt is by the drink table, refilling a cup. But he’s watching me, and I know he’s remembering the same afternoon.

I finish my food and carry my plate to the trash. I move through the crowd. Accept a hug from someone I half-remember. Laugh at a joke I don’t fully understand. People begin saying goodbye by late afternoon. Trucks start their engines in the driveway. Hugs are exchanged. Casserole dishes, miraculously empty, are returned to their owners with thanks and promises to return the favor someday. The yard, which has been dense with bodies and noise all day, begins to open up. Spaces appear between conversations. The light shifts toward gold.

And through it all, constant as the mountains, Colt keeps himself busy. Because as hard as today was for Mom, today was equally hard for Colt. I watch him gather trash bags from overflowing cans and tie them off without being asked. Watch him collapse folding chairs and stack them against the barn wall in neat rows.

I watch him, and the attraction I’ve been carrying since I crested that ridge yesterday—the physical want, the knee-weakening certainty that his hands on my body would ruin me for any other hands—doesn’t disappear.

I begin to wonder, with a specificity that surprises me, what it would have been like if I’d stayed. Would I be in that kitchen right now, washing dishes beside my mother, planning tomorrow’s chores? Would there be muddy boots beside Colt’s at the back door?

Would this simply be our life?

Colt bends to retrieve a napkin that has blown under a table. His hat shadows his face as he looks across the yard and sees me watching him. His eyes meet mine. Neither of us looks away. After a moment, he moves to pick up another chair. But something has shifted. The ground under my feet feels different. Or maybe it’s always felt this way, and I’m only now allowing myself to stand on it.

Chapter Three