POV: Ivory
Ryan was in uniform, on shift, and he came anyway. He helped load the last of the trucks without being asked because that was how Hills helped.
When the house was empty he hugged me, long and hard. I broke against his chest, every wall coming apart at once, and he didn’t let go and he didn’t tell me it would be okay.
“Call me when you get there,” he said. “Not tomorrow. When you get there.”
I nodded against his chest. “I will.”
“I mean it, Ivory. The second you pull into that driveway.”
“I said I will.”
“And don’t let those boys forget how to grill. Kameron’s brisket needs supervision and you know it.”
I laughed into his uniform, wet and awful and the best sound I’d made all morning. “I’ll supervise the brisket.”
“Good.” He held my face in both hands. “You’re doing the right thing. I do know that. Say it back.”
“I’m doing the right thing,” I said, and my voice cracked but I got it out.
“Yeah you are.” He stepped back and his eyes were wet. “Now get in the truck before I arrest you for loitering.”
“You can’t arrest me, I’m leaving your jurisdiction.”
“Then leave already,” he said, and his voice finally cracked. “Before I change my mind about letting you go.”
Stella arrived separately, pregnant and showing. She hugged me with the belly between us and whispered so the men wouldn’t hear.
“You owe me. Every holiday, every phone call, every birthday. Don’t you dare disappear on me again.”
“I won’t disappear.”
“I’m serious, Ivory. If you go more than three days without texting me I’m driving to Idaho myself.”
“You’re not driving anywhere, you’re eight months pregnant.”
“Then don’t make me.” She took my hand and pressed it against her stomach. “She needs to know her aunt.”
It was a girl. Stella had told me now because she understood you don’t let someone drive away without giving them a reason to come back.
“A girl,” I said.
“A girl.” Her eyes were full. “So you better answer the phone when I call you at two in the morning panicking about breastfeeding.”
“Every single time.”
“And holidays. I want video calls on holidays. I want those kids to see their cousin.”
“They will,” I said. I put both hands on her belly and felt the baby shift. “Tell her I’m the fun aunt who lives in the mountains.”
“You’re the aunt who punched Esther Marsh,” Stella said, and we both laughed. “Go,” she whispered. “Go before I ugly-cry in front of your cowboys.”
Jolene was standing by the truck with the posture of a woman still waiting to be told whether she was welcome. I walked to her, took Lucy from the bassinet, and put her in Jolene’s arms. “Hold her while I check the car seats.”
“Ivory, are you sure you want me to…”
“I’m checking the car seats,” I said. “You’re holding my daughter. That’s how this works now.”
“Your daughter,” Jolene repeated, and her voice caught on both words.
“Our daughter. The whole truck full of them. Now hold her so I can make sure nobody flies out the window on the highway.”
“Okay,” she said, and her chin trembled. She looked down at Lucy and adjusted her hold.
I hugged her, brief and tight, and she held on one second longer than I did. “Thank you,” she said into my shoulder. “For letting me stay.”
“You earned it,” I said. “Every bit of it.”
Lily cried first, fast and hot and honest, and then she was the first one in the truck. “I already called the front seat,” she said through tears, climbing in.
“You’re not getting the front seat,” Kameron told her. “You’re seven.”
“I called it.”
“Lily.”
“Fine.” She buckled herself into the back with her arms crossed and her face still wet. “But I’m calling it on the way back if we ever come back.”
“Deal,” Kameron said.
Luke was angry because anger was easier than sadness for a boy who’d learned to work this land with his grandfather beside him every afternoon. “I don’t want to go,” he said. “This is my home.”
“I know, baby,” I said. “Of course it is.”
“Grandpa’s here. The horses are here. Everything I care about is here.”
“Not everything,” I said, and my voice held because it had to. “Grandpa’s everywhere now. He’s not just in this ground anymore, he’s wherever we take him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m taking him right here,” I said, touching my chest. “And you are too. He’s coming with us, Luke.”
He kicked the fence post on the way to the truck, hard enough that I heard it. Then he turned back and put his hand flat against the wood, holding it there.
“Come on, buddy,” Kameron said softly.
“I’m coming.” But he didn’t move his hand for another ten seconds. “Bye,” he whispered to the fence, and then he walked to the truck and didn’t look back.
Levi carried his notebook and one box. At the truck he turned around and looked at the house, then drew it quick, pencil on paper, the house with no people in it.
“Why no people?” Lily asked, watching over his shoulder.
“Because I want to remember them in here,” he said, pressing his hand against his ribs. “The house I want to remember with my eyes.”
He closed the notebook, climbed into the truck, and Lily put her arm around him. He let her.
The engines started. Kameron raised his hand from the other truck, palm flat against the window.
“You ready?” Colt asked.
“No,” I said. “Drive anyway.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, and put the truck in gear.
The driveway, the gate, the road out of Hico. I’d driven into this town years ago with three babies and nothing else.
I was leaving with four children, two men, a mother-in-law who’d earned her name, Hank’s reading glasses in my pocket, and a swollen hand that still throbbed where Esther Marsh’s cheekbone had met my knuckles.
Texas got smaller in the mirror. I watched until the road curved and there was nothing behind us but highway.
“You okay?” one of the men asked.
“Ask me in a hundred miles,” I said.
A hand reached across the console for mine and I didn’t look to see which one because I didn’t need to. The grip was warm and sure. I squeezed and didn’t let go.
“Mom?” Lily’s voice from the back seat. “Are we going to be happy there?”
“Yeah, baby,” I said. “We’re going to be happy there.”
The road ahead was straight and long, the kind that exists between where you were and where you’re going. We were choosing. Every mile forward.