by Dana Mentink
But she wasn’t his mother and never would be. Now his hair tickled Vivian’s chin and the stick figure drawings adorned her refrigerator. Gina should be glad. God wanted mothers to be reunited with their sons. But where had that left Gina? Lost. Hurt, but not forgotten. Not by Him. It was the only truth she knew for certain. As much as she’d wanted it, God hadn’t meant Gina to be a mother to Matthew. It hurt. Still. But she’d been changed and blessed while it had lasted. Cal was still hurting too much to hear that truth, she figured.
Cal shot a glance at her. “Um, sorry. That got heavy.”
Yeah. Heavy.
In spite of the weird day they’d had so far, Cal’s spirits lifted as they drove up the steep road to Six Peaks Ranch in Humboldt County. Cal wasn’t an imaginative guy. In school when faced with writing a creative story, he’d labored on for pages describing every detail of a nine inning baseball game until the teacher took his pencil away, but now he could smell the sundried alfalfa, though the bales were long since sold and the land gone fallow. He heard the blatting of the goats, jostling one another as they headed for milking, and most of all, he could taste the succulent ripe peaches that had hung heavy from the tree in seasons past. A craving for peaches nearly overwhelmed him in that moment.
Trees crowded the road, and the wheels jostled over the gravel which Cal automatically noted had worn thin in spots. Good thing the winter had been dry or the truck might be hubcap deep in mud. The drive paralleled a split rail fence. He stomped on the brake so hard, Gina slid forward on the seat.
“Sorry.”
And then he was out of the car, forgetting to open the door for her, approaching the old mare cropping grass, tawny head hung over the fence.
“Hold on a minute, Tip,” he heard Gina say as she opened the door. Tippy lost no time in joining him.
“My old girl,” Cal said, stroking the horse’s muzzle. The animal blew out a soft breath as Cal leaned his forehead against hers.
Tippy danced up, sproinging into the air as if on springs, until the horse leaned down and allowed her a welcome lick. She blew a breath onto the dog that sent her ears fluttering.
Gina stood, eyes wide. “I guess you all know each other.”
“This is Potato Chip. We grew up together.”
Gina stroked the silky shoulders as the horse nosed around. “Potato Chip?”
“My mother’s idea. They were both nutty for junk food. Chip here always knew when Mom had a baggie full in her pocket.”
“And no amount of scolding ever did change your stubborn mother’s mind about proper horse food.”
They both jerked around. Cal allowed himself a breathless moment to take in the older man, still tall and erect, discounting a slight stooping of the shoulders. He sported a full head of silver hair, legs strong and straight in their faded jeans, a sweat-stained Falcons baseball cap in his hand.
Something tight released inside Cal and suddenly he felt as if he could take his first full breath in months, like a drowning man sucking in that first lungful after being rescued. He clasped the man in a tight hug. The hard thumps on Cal’s back spoke more love than any words they might have mustered between them.
“Staying out of trouble, Cal?”
“Yes, sir.” He gave a final squeeze before releasing the hug. “Gina, this is my Uncle Oscar.”
“So nice to meet you.” Gina extended a hand.
Cal guided her palm into Oscar’s. He took in her surprise. “Uncle Oscar is blind.”
“Almost blind,” he said, folding her hand between his two calloused palms. “I can still see shadows and I’m pretty sure you’re a lovely young shadow, aren’t you?”
Gina laughed in that silvery, bubbly way that made Cal want to join in.
“I’m a little travel worn, but I appreciate the compliment.”
“And here’s your mother’s nutty dog,” Oscar said, leaning over to offer his fingers for a Tippy greeting. The dog whined in pleasure, nearly falling over with wild enthusiasm. “Weirdest dog ever to pee in a pasture, but Meg loved her.”
Cal swallowed a sudden thickening in his throat. “Should have left Tippy here at the ranch.”
“Nah,” Oscar said. “Tippy don’t stay put. Hard to keep tabs on her after Sweets got sick. Grateful when Pete took her after the funeral.”
Cal’s heart folded in on itself again. “I’m sorry I haven’t called in a while. How is Sweets?”
“Good. You stayin’ a while?”
“Couple of days.”
“Tell you what. How about I bring her on up to the big house tonight and we have ourselves a little dinner together? Sweets would like nothing better. We can jaw a bit and bore the socks off this lovely lady.”
“Yes, sir,” Cal said. “I’ll fix us something.”
“No thanks, Cal. I’ve tasted your cooking before. Sweets will whip us up a meal.”
“But she’s… ”
He stopped Cal with a palm. “You don’t know anything about it, son. Sweets and me been married going on sixty-two years now, and I can read that woman like a book. She’d have my ears if I edged her out of cooking a meal for you.”
“I’d be happy to help,” Gina said.
“It’s settled then.” A crafty look came over Uncle Oscar’s face. “Handy your coming here just at this time. I got a favor to ask of you, Cal.”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to like it?”
“Don’t matter ’cause you’re gonna do it anyway.”
Cal laughed again. True. He would never refuse a favor to Uncle Oscar. He would never refuse him anything.
“Gotta go. Fred’s giving me a lift into town.” Oscar tipped his battered hat to Gina and strode away, his fingers trailing along the split rail fence.
Gina inhaled a deep breath that lifted her slender shoulders, sunlight gilding her blonde hair. “Your Uncle Oscar is perfect,” she said. “Just the sort of man I’d imagine in this place. You two are really close, aren’t you?”
“He raised me since I was a kid.”
“What happened to your father?” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Uh oh. Filter didn’t engage. I’m hearing my mother’s voice inside my head telling me that was nosey and inappropriate.”
He could not help but smile at her look of chagrin. “Probably was. Anyway, when I was eight, I lost my dad.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Did he… pass away?”
Cal flicked back to the nights he sat awake at his window, curtain pulled pack, waiting for that green Buick to reappear, knowing his mother was doing the same thing. “Might as well have,” Cal said.
He saw her recoil at the bitterness in his voice, but he could not hold back the rest. It spilled over from the well of anger that never ran dry.
“My dad left us, and he never looked back.”
Seven
Gina was surprised at the size of the ranch. Forty acres, she’d managed to pry from Cal as he showed her to the main house, a single level with wood siding and a massive spray of vine trying its best to devour the whole structure.
“Got two bedrooms and there’s a guest house.”
“Was it a working ranch?”
He raised his chin, offended. “Sure it was. We grew alfalfa hay, raised livestock and chickens. Believe it or not, I even learned how to make goat’s milk cheese.”
She tried to picture the Falcons’ multi-million-dollar star pitcher milking goats. “You don’t read that in Sports Illustrated.”
He grinned. “Yeah, but it was good training. Wrangling a ball’s a lot easier than milking an angry goat.”
They passed a fat calico cat sitting on the sun-bleached porch. Tippy trotted over and wagged her tail. The cat swiped out a paw and whacked Tippy on the snout. Tail tucked, Tippy ran behind Gina with a whine.
“Mean cat,” Gina said.
“That’s why his name is Crabs. Tippy’s been trying to make friends with that cat for months. Don’t know when she’s going to learn that Crabs just doesn’t like her and never will
.”
“Oh, Tippy will wear her down someday.” She wagged her finger at the cat. “Crabs, you will succumb to Tippy’s natural charm sooner or later. Resistance is futile, cat.”
Cal stopped, fingers on the door handle. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“Yes. Tippy’s charm is limitless.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow at the cowering dog. “Do you always see the sunny side of things?”
“Whenever I can.”
“Where’d you get that outlook?”
“Probably I was just born that way. Maybe I spent so many hours in the NICU with Nana she rubbed off on me.”
“Are your parents like that?”
“No. My dad’s very serious—he’s a urologist. So’s my older brother. They run a practice together. Mom’s a medical researcher. Very left-brained and all that. I’m the oddball of the family.”
“Didn’t want to go into medicine?”
She sighed. “My parents desperately wanted me to. I tried, I really did, but I just wasn’t that interested in math and science. I have memory problems and no amount of tutoring could change that, much to their dismay.”
“How’d they handle that?”
Her cheeks warmed. “They tried to arrange internships for me, jobs in the various family businesses, passed me around from relative to relative. At this point, I think they are resigned to my failures. My mother tells people I’m ‘taking time to consider my options.’ She’s still hoping I’ll miraculously morph into a doctor or lawyer or something. They thought the teaching idea was crazy anyway.”
“Why? You’re great with people. Why not teach?”
“Something to do with little pay, long hours, and the fact I was born into a family of doctors, so how could I not inherit the medical mantle?”
“I’ve met a lot of doctors,” Cal said. “You’re too compassionate to be a doctor, and I mean that in a good way.”
He thought she was compassionate? Something swirled inside her stomach that made her cheeks burn even more. “Compassion isn’t as highly regarded as a medical degree in my family.”
“It should be.” His eyes lingered a moment on hers before she looked down and fussed over Tippy, who was trying to both get into the house and stay out of feline range.
“Just a minute, dog,” Cal said, holding the animal back with one foot while he opened the door. Tippy scrambled inside and would have tripped Gina if Cal hadn’t grabbed her arm to steady her.
“Tippy’s a menace,” he said, but his voice was soft.
They passed into a front hallway with an old hat stand on which hung a woman’s nubby knit sweater in a vivacious pink. The striped wallpaper had probably been cheerful when it was hung many years before, but now it was faded and peeling along one seam. In the kitchen, winter sunshine shone in through the open curtains onto old appliances and a gouged wooden table with a few magic marker lines marring the surface.
Gina could picture a little boy Cal sitting there, drawing, dreaming of playing baseball in the big leagues. How many young boys fantasized about the same thing, and how precious few achieved their dreams? Yet for all his amazing achievements, Cal was far from a happy man. She wondered if being at the ranch would help him come to grips with his unhappiness, or make it worse.
At the moment, a look of longing was creeping over Cal. He pointed out the window toward a tree-clustered swell of land. “Over there’s Slip Rock Creek. It’s the best thing about this ranch. Never runs dry, even in the summer.”
“Your own creek. That’s something.”
“Yeah. I used to fish there every chance I got until my mom begged me to stop for a while and give the fish a chance to recover.”
“Poor fish.”
“I’ve got some ferocious fishing skills.” He laughed, eyes sparkling as they swiveled to her. “Maybe… uh, I could show you the creek, if you want.”
“That would be great,” she said.
He nodded. “So in the back is the garden, but I don’t think anyone’s tending it. My uncle does what he can to keep up the place, but it’s too much for him. Uncle Oscar and Sweets live in a trailer on a piece of property about two miles up the road.” He showed the way past a small sitting room, done in worn tan carpet with comfortable, overstuffed furniture. No TV, the walls crowded with photos which Gina intended to get a good look at later.
“Down here are the bedrooms. I thought, maybe, if you want, you could stay in my old room.”
They stopped at a small room plastered with baseball pennants, home to one full bed and an old wooden dresser. She peered at a shelf filled with trophies and picked one up. “Hey, you’ve even got one here for Boy Scouts.”
“Won the Pinewood Derby. Mom helped me build the car. Called it the Thunder Racer.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I remember that.”
Again, the pain shimmered in his eyes.
She replaced the trophy very carefully back on the shelf, thinking with sadness that Matthew would probably do the same thing, build a car and race it. Win or lose, she would never know how it turned out. Matthew was back with his mother, where he belonged. She should be happy for him and she was. Mostly.
Cal shrugged. “Sorry about the decor. I never got around to making it a grown-up room. I stayed here until I went off to college.” His gaze drifted around the space. “Small, but it’s got its own bathroom.”
“This will be fine,” she said. “I can memorize the teams, study up on my baseball knowledge.”
Another faint smile. “And man could you use it.”
She elbowed him in the ribs as she passed.
Tippy dashed ahead of them, nails scrabbling on the scarred wood floor. Good thing I packed her socks, Gina thought.
Tippy sprinted to the end of the hallway, where she whacked her snout against a closed door. Ricocheting off with a dull thud, she sat down, stunned. Gina went to comfort her. “Maybe you should learn to knock first, honey.”
“She’s not used to the door being shut. Never was when my… ” Cal paused. “I mean it always used to be open.” After a moment of hesitation, Cal opened the door.
A waft of stale air hit them, laced with the faint scent of fragrance. A woman’s perfume? Hairspray? Tippy did a quick trot around the perimeter of the room, nose to the floor. She investigated the bathroom and closet before she skittered to the bed, plowing up the foam steps that must have been purchased for her. Nose quivering, she sniffed every square inch of the mattress. Puzzled, she paused and did another full circular scan of the bed.
Gina realized what was going on. Her mouth went dry as Tippy continued her fruitless search.
Looking from Cal to Gina, her confusion seemed to make her jowls sag even more than usual. After a long moment, she circled three times and sank down. Fixing filmy brown eyes on the humans, she let out one soft whine. The sound was filled with yearning and loss. It spoke of a void that would not be filled this side of heaven, a broken heart that would never heal. Tippy laid her head down on her paws.
Gina’s throat thickened and her eyes began to fill. Don’t cry, Gina. Don’t make it worse for Cal. She forced in a steadying breath. When she decided she was as in control as she was going to get, she risked a look at Cal to gauge his reaction.
He had already gone from the room.
“Tippy,” Gina coaxed. She sat on the bed, patting the mattress next to her, but Tippy remained still, dead center.
“Come here, baby.”
Still Tippy would not come.
Gina finally crawled over to meet her, nestled near the limp creature.
“Your mama is gone. I’m so sorry,” she whispered against the top of Tippy’s head, scooping her up and rocking the dog like an infant. Could Tippy still catch Meg’s scent? Was the old dog listening hopefully for her footsteps in the hallway?
The thought made her tears spill over. She tried to cry quietly, so Cal wouldn’t hear in case he was close by.
You just can’t explain death to a dog, she thought.
And why should a dog understand things that people sometimes couldn’t?
The closet doors were open and empty of clothes. The old chest with drawers slightly ajar was too. At least Cal had been spared the need to pack her clothes.
Or was it good to be spared that? She wondered if Cal would be able to start healing when he was trying so hard to stay away from the truth.
“Lord,” she whispered, caressing the dispirited dog, “mend Cal’s broken heart.” She pressed another kiss on the dog’s boney head. “And take care of Tippy’s heart, too.”
Tippy put her cold nose against Gina’s chin as she carried her out of the room and closed the door behind them.
Gina didn’t actually unpack anything, since they were only due to stay a few days and it felt odd to be opening drawers and closets in Cal’s boyhood room. She rested for a while, until the buzz of a text message woke her from a doze.
Her heart squeezed when she saw that it was from Bill.
Checking on you. How are things?
She wondered what had spurred him to message her. Dark hair, spiffy dresser, Ivy League all the way, keen sense of humor, she’d loved Bill from the moment they’d met at the ice cream social at Mount Olive Christian School where she’d been subbing. Yes, she’d loved Bill, but it was his five-year-old son, Matthew, who had left such a big empty spot in her heart that she feared it would never heal.
How should she answer a man who had reunited with his classy, corporate CEO ex-wife and dumped her over a cup of coffee while his son colored with his crayons and watched? She wasn’t sure how Vivian, the former ex, would feel about Bill texting her. She deleted the message and was about to turn off her phone when it buzzed again.
Matthew started Little League. A photo popped up of Matthew in his white baseball uniform, pristinely clean, freckled face grinning. She peered close to catch every tiny detail, surprised to feel her eyes filling again. He’d probably sent the picture as a kindness, but it stung to see the boy she loved and could not touch.
A soft knock at the door startled her. Blinking hard, she stowed the phone in her pocket and opened the door.
