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Gretchen’s breath puffed visible from her nostrils as we clipped down a hill and up another, and when we reached the crest, I pulled her to a stop. For a moment, we stood looking out over the land, across patches of trees and stretches of pasture. Buttery sunshine kissed the end of the world, a new beginning to a brand new day.
It was around my tenth birthday when Daddy’s mare had Gretchen. It was the first birth I’d ever seen on the farm, a long, terrifying moment that stretched between life and death. Or at least that was how it felt as a child, the weight of life and the delicate deliverance of it overwhelming me. When Gretchen stood up on wobbly legs, it was followed by the collective sigh of relief that everyone survived. At that age, I hadn’t lost many things that I loved.
Look at that, Daisy Mae, Daddy had said to me from where he knelt at my side. Makes you feel small, doesn’t it? But it reminds you that you’re here. Don’t forget that feeling.
What he hadn’t told me was that death gave you the same feeling. The reminder that you’re here. The smallness you felt. But joy was exchanged for pain. You were here, but without the one you loved. You were small, insignificant, your life so fragile that it could be gone in a second. A heartbeat that might be the last.
I’d spent much of yesterday in the past, sitting at Drew’s grave, thinking about him. About what might have been, the life I’d imagined at eighteen with the boy I loved. For so long, I’d only been able to imagine us together, never able to comprehend the reality of relationships. He’d been set to go off to UT, but I was going to stay home with Mama. It was only an hour away. But what might have happened? He could have met someone, fallen in love, left me. Maybe we’d guessed right—we might’ve stayed together forever, if we grew and learned and changed at the same pace. But the older I got, the more I saw how rarely that happened.
It was strange to have years of certainty on a thing broken and reshaped to fit reality. Like learning that fairy tales weren’t real and the good guys won sparingly.
I knew it sounded cynical, though I was generally no cynic. Truth be told, it was a little bit of a relief. It meant I wasn’t forever shackled to him. We were bound, but I was no prisoner of my love for him. The feeling came and went, sometimes by the week and sometimes by the hour. Yesterday, I was a pendulum. For a moment, I sat in Keaton’s warm kitchen that smelled of cookies and hope and believed in moving on. And then I sat next to Drew’s grave in the thick, springy grass, caught in a past life. Split in two, but the break wasn’t clean. It was a jagged edge, dangerous, sharp.
Drew was still with me as Gretchen and I panted at the top of that hill. He and I had ridden through here a hundred times, ever since we were little. We’d grown together even then, so who was to say we wouldn’t have been able to keep that going?
There was no point in considering it. That life had been lost to me long ago.
Didn’t stop me from wondering, though.
I’d told Keaton how to move on as if I knew how. It was easy to be brave for the sake of someone else. But the core of that courage wasn’t a solid. It wasn’t even a liquid, containable by something as simple as bare hands. It was like the slithering mist in the valley below me, never stopping, never grasped, ever shifting.
A hard swallow did little to open my throat, tears clinging to my lashes in defiance. And rather than let them take me, I clicked at Gretchen, spurring her down the hill and toward that sunrise, letting the wind carry those tears away.
We ran hard across the property, about two miles to the house. Through fields of flowers, past cozy bee boxes lined up in green patches. Past the tree house Daddy built for us so long ago, past the cottages at the skirt of the big house. And then the house itself was in view, bringing me back from the past with every gallop.
Once in the stables, I brushed Gretchen out as quickly as I could and made my way around the stable, giving everybody an apple and telling them good morning. After that, I headed inside, hoping no one was awake yet.
I’d never been one of the lucky ones.
The kitchen bustled with activity. Mama was at the griddle cooking eggs and hash browns, singing along to Reba. Poppy, Jo, and Grant sat at the table, coffees in front of them and sleepy smiles on their faces. It was later than I thought, and though I wouldn’t have wanted to cut my ride short, I might have if it meant avoiding everyone.
