Page 74 of Rootbound

“You could have made some time. And why didn’t you finish your degree?”

“Christ. Maybe I decided I didn’t need it.”

“But that’snotwhat you said. You said you were short because of family drama.”

“Yeah, because my mother showed up out of the blue! And I had already spent years dicking around at school by that point anyways!”

“Why is it dicking around when it comes to something that’s foryou,though?”

I breathe in through my nose, out again… and play back all that she’s saying to me. And that’s when it clicks.

“Jesus, you think I wantyoubecause you’re part ofthem,don’t you?” I say, incredulous.

“I think maybe that’s part of it. I think you are so loyal and devoted to this place and this family, and that I might just be a very convenient piece to that puzzle.” She waves me off before I can interject. “But I also think that it took me years to find a sliver of myself, and I don’t think that diving into a life here, fleeing even the small life I managed to build for myself, repeating history in a roundabout way, is what I should do without some serious time and consideration. I’m trying not to let go too easily.”

I nod, not trusting myself to say or do much else.

“Henry…,” she says in a watery voice.

“Can you see yourself building a life here? Someday, maybe?” I ask, still not able to look up.

“Can you see yourself building a life in California?” is heranswer, and damnit, she’s right. At this stage, I can’t.But I love you,is on the tip of my tongue.

But it’s not fair, to her or to me. If she doesn’t want to set down roots here, for herself, I can’t be the reason for her to. I’m not enough of a reason.

I think she very well could be enough of a reason for me, though. I think if she asked me to go with her, I couldn’t deny her. And that realization terrifies me enough that I need to get out of the same room as her; I need to breathe.

Christ, this must’ve been what she was feeling this morning.

I get up—with as much dignity as a man can while naked and in an apron—kiss her on the cheek, and head upstairs.

At some point I hear her leave, and I eventually work up the energy to get ready for the party.

I’m unsuccessful at keeping my thoughts on a leash, though, and let my mind wander to the future. There’s no doubt that Tait is in my life, and will be in one form or another now, forever. We’ll have to see each other at holidays, at minimum. I’ll have to meet the guy she ends up bringing home one day. I’ll have to swallow this love like glass, and I’ll have to be her friend. While the thought of not loving her rakes its claws down my brain, the thought of not knowing her at all clogs my throat.

And shit, this is not how I remember heartbreak. I remember wanting it to be done, to be far away. To be the proverbial kid pushing away his peas at the dinner table because they’re nasty—that’s how silly that heartbreak felt compared to this.

I can’t catch my breath for a second, for thirty seconds, for thirty minutes.

Until I remember what I do have, and that’s now. Today. Until I remember that I need to be man enough to allow her what she needs, while she needs it. Until I know what I have to do.

Thirty-Seven

Tait

Lucy helps Ava and I get ready, cajoling us with 90s pop and lemon drops to pull us out of our funks. I ask Ava how she feels enough times that she eventually snaps, tossing her drink at me.

“I feel like the man I thought I was getting to know as my dad is still the man I was getting to know as my dad, damnit!! I feel like I’m fine! I feel like our mom was a spiteful, but sad woman, but that she tucked us away because she didn’t want us to pay the consequences for her actions and have people call us sister-cousins our whole lives! I feel like I am still your fucking sister and I don’t care that there’s been a name change to the faceless man I’ve always thought of as Dad, anyway. I feel like I miss my son and my husband, and I feel like you’re being fucking annoying. Now stop it and let’s let ourselves enjoy a fun party for you and for Lucy, and for our grandmother!!!”

I stare at her, my face full of makeup running down in rivulets, and say, “Okay.” And we all dissolve into laughter to the point that she pees herself and has to change her dress while I reapply.

The party is beautiful, and way too over the top. It’s the first real glimpse I get of Logan Range with its Hollywood glamour vignette. There are trailers everywhere behind the largest barn, the fanciest outdoor bathrooms (cannot be considered portable potties when they have stairs, mirrors, and actual flushing mechanisms), and lights strung up from the open barn across a blacktop dance floor, through the surrounding pines. There are great long banquet tables, small pub style ones dotting the areas between, a bar with a full cocktail menu blocking the entry to the barn, and a DJ booth operating from a stage in the far corner. The night is cool but dry despite the other night’s downpour, and Lucy even thought to set up multiple fire pit areas with Adirondack chairs, blankets slung over their backs.

“Lucy. This is incredible. You could do this for a living,” I say in awe.

“No, thank you. Party planning usually involves planning forotherpeople. I only like to plan for my own,” she responds.

I meet the majority of the cast members, who all seem so much smaller in real life, but who also all seem surprisingly down to earth and kind. Duke Wade is handsome in a disarming kind of way. Big brown eyes the color of milk chocolate, tall and lean like you’d imagine an actor to be, with black hair that waves to his shoulders, and lips that would be feminine on anyone else, but that work with hissharp-boned face. Lucy may have feigned a brave interest in him before, but she loses her hold on the act the moment he greets us, and she sprints over to the bar.