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Bryson pulled me to him, and I wrapped my arms around him tightly. I melted into his body and breathed in his scent. It instantly put me at ease, and I remembered how I felt so relaxed with him before.
“You don’t have to have it all figured out right now, Rose.”
I sniffled and buried my face in his shirt. His hand moved slowly up and down my back as he pressed a kiss on top of my head.
“Maybe you want something simpler.”
Drawing back, I stared up at him confused. “What do you mean?”
“Not everyone wants a career, Rose. Who is the one person in your life you admire more than anyone?”
Without even thinking, I said, “My mother.”
“What does your mother do for a living?”
Smiling, I said, “She reads books for a living and edits them. She throws one hell of a good party, and she loves to…”
My mind drifted to a memory, and I stopped talking.
“Where did you just go?” Bryson asked.
Stepping out of his embrace, I wrapped my arms around my chest and said, “I was about ten or eleven, maybe, and I went with my mother to sit out in a field. I don’t remember where on the ranch we were, but my mother had decided to paint. She had set up a small easel for me, gave me paints, and we sat in silence as we both painted. She painted the mountain range, and I painted these two horses that were off in the distance. My mother said I was a natural and that I had inherited her talent for painting. She showed me how to add my parents, Josh, and myself into my painting. I remember being so happy that day. The two of us were alone in the middle of a pasture painting. I’d never felt so close to my mother as I did that day. I loved that she said I had gotten my talent for painting from her. It made me feel like she was part of me, and I was part of her. But I remember her telling me how before she met my father she had felt so lost and confused. And that Daddy had helped her find her way.”
My eyes lifted to meet his gaze. He smiled and whispered, “Destiny, Rose Marie.”
“Fate,” I replied.
Bryson softly brushed a loose hair from my face. “Do you still paint?”
My eyes drifted away. “No. I mean, I haven’t really sat down and painted anything in a few years. I doodle. My cousin Lily has been bugging me to paint more.”
“Why don’t you?”
My teeth dug into my lip, and I looked away, not wanting to admit the reason.
“When I was in high school,” Bryson said, turning and facing out toward the mountains once again. “There was a scout from one of the major league teams. It was the state championship, and I had never been so nervous in my life because I was told he was there to watch me. I really wanted the win. When my coach told me someone from the Red Sox was there, and they were interested in me, I nearly shit my pants. You don’t go from high school directly into the MLB. It’s very rare. I remember walking into the dugout, dumping everything out of my bag, and I threw up in it.”
“Oh my gosh!” I said, slapping my hand over my mouth.
Laughing, he said, “I was so freaked out. Scared out of my mind. What if I fucked up? What if we lost? What if I got hurt? A million things ran through my eighteen-year-old brain. My coach didn’t bother to tell me there were a lot of other scouts out in the crowd that night watching me, and it was a good thing or I might have passed out.”
“How did you play? Did you win the state championship?”
He grinned down at me. “We did win, and I played like shit the first few innings. Then my father came down and sat next to me. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him. He turned to me and said that life was always going to be filled with moments of clarity, but also moments when we would feel lost and confused. The key was for me to decide whether I was going to let the stress of something I couldn’t control dictate the outcome, or if I was going to take a deep breath, do the best I could do, and whatever happened happened. That’s how my father is. He believes everything happens for a reason. Then he reminded me I hated the Red Sox and wouldn’t want to play for them anyway, so we both had a good laugh. The rest of the innings there were no runs made by the other team. We won, I got multiple offers for college scholarships, and a number of minor league teams were interested in me. The point of that story is sometimes you have to let go, Rose, and trust that your heart will help you find the right path.”
