Dearest Cowboys Box Set

by Mia Brown

  “Hey, it will be okay,” Lance said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  “Everyone says that, but I don’t know.”

  Lance nodded. “No matter what happens, we’ll get through it together. That you can count on.”

  And he was right. I knew they would all stick together. I could see how they were doing it right now. It was beautiful and sad, all at the same time.

  Lance headed out of the house, and I was left behind. I sniveled a bit before collecting my things and packing it into the truck. I left the ranch and headed back to the hospital.

  My phone rang halfway, and I snatched it up, pressing it against my ear.

  “What happened?” I asked, terrified that Jaclyn had worsened in the time I’d been gone.

  “It’s your mother,” a familiar voice came over the line, and I groaned inwardly. It was the last person I wanted to hear from right now.

  “It’s not a good time for me, Mom,” I said. “I’m driving.”

  “I won’t be long,” she said. “Surely you can spare a moment to talk to me. I haven’t heard from you in almost two weeks.”

  I was getting irritated. This was so typical, making it about her when everything else in my life was falling apart. Of course, she couldn’t know what was happening if I hadn’t told her, but I wasn’t going to tell her. She wouldn’t understand how I had become attached to these people so fast.

  “Listen, Mom. If this is about going back home, I’m not. I want a different life. I can’t live the way you want me to.”

  “What are you talking about?” my mom asked. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  “It’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, anyway,” she said. I didn’t believe her. It was all she ever wanted to talk about. I wasn’t going to wait for her to tell me lies, to make small talk or ask me things about my life that she would only use against me later.

  I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Mom, I have to go,” I said.

  “Why won’t you ever talk to me?” she asked.

  “Bye, Mom,” I said and hung up without answering her question.

  When I arrived back at the hospital, I parked in the visitor’s parking instead of in front of the emergency room where the truck had been all night and carried the bags into the hospital. Andrew was asleep on a chair in the corner, his mouth open, snoring lightly. Ace sat at the side of his mom’s bed, holding her hand, his eyes worried.

  “I’m back,” I said softly. I handed him his bag. “You should take a moment to clean up. I’ll sit with her.”

  “Thank you,” Ace said. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  He stepped into the bathroom that was adjacent to the hospital room, and a moment later I heard the shower running. I put Andrew’s bag next to his chair and put mine in the corner before taking the seat net to Jaclyn’s bed that Ace had vacated. Jaclyn was sleeping. I looked at the machines trying to figure out what they meant, but I knew nothing. I didn’t know if she was doing better or worse. All I knew was that the machines weren’t beeping, nurses weren’t rushing in, so there was nothing serious. Nothing more serious than what was already happening, at least.

  I took Jaclyn’s hand. She was skin and bones, her hand delicate in mine. Her eyes and cheeks were sunken, and her skin seemed almost see-through. Tears welled up in my eyes again, and I furiously tried to wipe them away, but I couldn’t help it. I cried for this wonderful woman that was going to die. Jaclyn had had a full life; she’d told me that. But it was too soon for her to go. I’d wanted more time with her. I’d wanted to be able to look up to her and be a part of her family the way the others were, the way Alana and Lance were her kids even though they weren’t related.

  I’d wanted it all, and it wasn’t going to happen. In a few days, Jaclyn would be gone, and then, it would be me all alone in the world again. I knew it was unfair of me to make it all about myself, but I had felt for the first time that I belonged somewhere. And if Jaclyn died and my work at the ranch was over, I wouldn’t have a place to belong anymore.

  I didn’t hear the shower turn off or the door open a while later. Ace was suddenly next to me, pulling a chair closer. He pulled me against him so that I was enveloped in his warmth, and he held me. And I let him. I let him comfort and console me. I cried on his shoulder for his mother, and he held me, together in our sorrow.

  I had never lost anyone, not like this. There had been deaths in our family before, but I’d never known them directly. This time, it hit me hard. I wasn’t only losing someone I knew personally, but I was losing someone I had felt I could relate to, belong to. I was losing someone that meant so much to me.

  “It will be okay, sweetheart,” Ace said. I noticed the pet name, but I didn’t respond to it. I didn’t have the energy. “We’ll get through this.”

  And I guessed in some ways, we would. But I was under no illusion that this family that stuck so closely together was my family. I was still an outsider looking in, and while I sat at Jaclyn’s bed, crying about her death, I also mourned the loss of a family I’d never belonged to, people I had only recently learned to love, and most of all, the person I had become around them.

  They had changed me, and I felt like I was losing the person I was because of them. If I had to walk away, I would walk away from a life I had desperately wanted for myself.

  And that made me cry harder.

  Twenty-One

  Ace

  I haven’t left my mom’s side. I was terrified that the moment I walked away from her, she would slip away, and I would lose her forever. There was so much lost time already that I would never be able to get back. I couldn’t afford to lose her like that on top of it all.

  I couldn’t afford to lose her at all, but that wasn’t something I had control over. The doctors had given her a couple of days at most, and we’d been here at the hospital ever since she’d been admitted. Her time was running out.

  Life had to carry on without me as long as my mom was in here. I hadn’t been back to the ranch at all, and everyone else was taking care of it. Alana had called Lance, and he had stepped in. I was grateful. Between the two of them, I didn’t have to worry about it. But Lance was supposed to go back to California to his job. He’d only come for a short while. How did that work for him?

  I didn’t give it too much thought. There were other more pressing things to worry about. Like the fact that no matter how hard I prayed, my mom wasn’t getting better. I prayed to whoever was willing to listen that she would recover, but it was in vain. She was too far gone, and it was only a matter of time now.

  Time was running out way too fast. They were doing all they could to keep her comfortable. The doctors told us she wasn’t in too much pain. But I wasn’t sure. She wasn’t awake to be able to tell me any different, so I had to hope that the doctors were right.

  Since she’d spoken to Andrew and me when first arriving at the hospital, she hadn’t woken up again. Sometimes, I tried to accept that she was already gone, that whether she held on for a few more days or passed away right now, we had lost her already. But I refused to accept it every time, holding out for hope.

  That hope was becoming dimmer.

  I barely slept. When I did it, was in the chair in the corner that Andrew and I took turns occupying. If I wasn’t sleeping in the chair, I was right next to my mom’s bed, holding her hand, hoping for a miracle.

  I stood up and stretched my back. It ached from sitting hunched over for so long. Andrew came into the room. He’d gone down to the cafeteria to get us something to eat and handed me a little yogurt tub from the vending machine. He’d started off buying me proper plates of food, but seeing that I never ate them, anyway, he’d resorted to something—anything—I would put in my stomach.

  “Thanks,” I said and peeled it open. I put a spoonful in my mouth, but it tasted like nothing at all. I swallowed my one mouthful and put it down on the bedside table. My mom’s phone lay next to it, silent and untouched. Th
e machines she was hooked up to beeped and whirred all around us, a sound that I’d come to hate.

  “Can we talk?” Andrew asked.

  I nodded and turned to him.

  “We have to talk about what we’re going to do when this is all over. We can’t leave it hanging.”

  I sighed. “I don’t want to go there. Not yet. She’s not dead, Andrew, she’s—”

  “Dying,” he finished the sentence for me. I didn’t want to admit to it, but he was right. She was dying, and we did have to talk about it. He’d tried to talk to me about it all before, bringing up funeral arrangements and wills. At first, I had gotten angry. I had felt like he was trying to take her away from me when I’d already lost her in a sense. But he had been right; the inevitable was happening. I was going to lose my mom, and we had to look to the future. But I couldn’t focus on that, now. All I wanted to do was make sure I was there in case my mom woke up.

  “We have to talk about it,” Andrew said. “If not right now, then soon. Okay?”

  I nodded. He was right, I guess. I just didn’t want to accept it.

  Everyone else was taking care of the ranch and whatever else needed to be done, and I was relieved about that. Vanessa was my saving grace. She’d been running back and forth between the hospital and the ranch, bringing us things, giving us updates, and making sure Lance was alright with everything at home.

  She was also more than supportive, there for me whenever I felt like I was breaking down. She was a pillar of strength, keeping it all together, and all I could do was fall apart. I knew it was hard on her, though. She was good at running around and pretending everything was fine. I had a hunch she’d had a lot of practice doing that. But she was struggling as much as we were. I had found her crying about my mom twice when she’d thought she was alone. It was touching that she was so caring, that my mom had come to mean so much to her in such a short time.

  Sadly, I didn’t have what it took to be there for her the way she was for me. I would do that later, but right now, I couldn’t. My sorrow was too great. My regrets were too many, and all I could do was focus on my own pain. It was selfish, but it was all I could be.

  I left the room when Vanessa came back. I needed to get out of the room for a little bit, and Vanessa hadn’t been eating a lot, either. I walked to the cafeteria to find her some food. It was the least I could do after everything she was doing. I bought her lunch and stopped at the restroom. When I looked in the mirror, I realized how terrible I looked. My hair was a mess, and my eyes had dark circles beneath them. I looked like a ghost of myself.

  There wasn’t much I could do about it—lack of sleep and too much worry would do that to anyone—and I walked back to my mom’s room. Vanessa was there with my mom. Whenever I needed to step out, she made sure she was there so that my mom was never alone. I wondered if she knew how much that meant to me.

  When I came into the room again, two doctors were there. My first thought was that something had happened, and I started panicking, but Vanessa shook her head at me and reached out her hand. I walked to her, taking it. It was only a routine checkup, I realized. My mom was still alive and no worse than she’d been when I’d left her.

  “She doesn’t have much more time,” I heard one doctor say.

  My ears started ringing. We had been waiting for the past few days for my mom to pass away, but to hear them talking about this like it was just a fact was something I couldn’t deal with. I pulled Vanessa out of the room with me.

  “I can’t be in there for another minute with them talking like this,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Okay,” Vanessa said, and we navigated the corridors until we found an exit that opened into the gardens. We walked together. I was still holding Vanessa’s hand, and she wasn’t trying to get me to let go. So, I held on. I had to keep holding on, even if it was onto her and nothing else. She kept me grounded. I felt like if I let go, I would float away. I was numb. I felt nothing but worry. And regret. Worry and regret were the only two emotions I could identify, and they were becoming increasingly familiar.

  The hospital gardens were beautiful. Had I not been here because my mom was dying, I would have appreciated it. Paths wound through hedges and lawns respectively with large trees.

  “It’s going to be alright, you know,” Vanessa said. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through it.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure if she was right. How could it ever be okay? But I had to hold onto something, and the hope in her words was as good as anything.

  When I looked at her, I noticed she was as tired and weary as I was. Her eyes were haunted, too, her blonde hair hanging limply on her shoulders, and I was sure she’d worn that same outfit for two days now. Although, I couldn’t be sure. This was hard for her too.

  “Andrew keeps talking about funerals like she’s already dead,” I said.

  Vanessa nodded. “I heard.”

  “I can’t do this,” I said. “How am I supposed to plan for her death when all I want is for her to stay alive?”

  Vanessa gave my hand a squeeze. “It’s the only way he knows how to handle it. He’s not being inconsiderate. He doesn’t know what else to do.”

  She was right, of course. My brother had never been good at handling loss. When my dad had died, he’d been all business the same as he was now. Then, I had been furious with him. It was my mom who had told me to let him be that way, to let him handle grief in his own way. Now, she was dying. She would be proud to know that I had been following her advice.

  “I regret going away to study,” I said. “I could have been here with her.”

  Vanessa shook her head. “Don’t do that to yourself. You couldn’t have known, and if you get stuck on ‘what if,’ you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

  I nodded. I knew all about driving myself crazy. But I couldn’t help it.

  “You were here the last couple of months,” Vanessa said. “She saw you graduate. You were here with her for Christmas. I saw you in the kitchen that day. You were there for her more than before. That’s what she’ll be thinking about, wherever she is now. That’s all that matters.”

  She was right, of course, Vanessa talked so much sense. It was refreshing to be with her, to hear her talk me through this.

  I was still holding her hand, and I liked it. Her hand was warm in mine; her fingers interlaced through mine was reassuring. I had no idea what I would have done without her.

  I thought about what my mom had said, that I’d found a good one. She was right. Vanessa was a great one. She was everything I could have imagined I might need in a woman, and more. And I would try to do exactly what my mom had said. I would hold onto her.

  My mom had thought about Andrew and me when she’d come here. Maybe she had known that this was it, that she wouldn’t wake up again. I was more than I believed, she’d told me. And that I had to hold onto Vanessa. I intended to be the person that she thought I was. And I was going to try to do exactly what she’d said.

  I was going to hold on with all I had.

  Twenty-Two

  Vanessa

  I turned on my phone. It had been off for a few days. After the talk with my mom, I hadn’t had what it took to face anyone who might phone me. More important things had been happening in my life.

  But I had to face reality at some point.

  When I switched on my phone, messages flooded in. My mom had tried to call me several times, leaving voice messages when she couldn’t get through to me. I sighed. I couldn’t avoid her forever, even though I would have preferred to. At some point, I would have to face her.

  I was in the lobby of the hospital, the only person around for the time being. I dialed my mom’s number and held the phone to my ear. It was better to deal with her right away rather than leaving it even longer.

  “Where have you been?” my mom asked when she answered the phone. I rolled my eyes.

  “I’ve been busy, Mom. Something’s come up.” I was not in the mood to talk to her. Especi
ally with where I knew this conversation was headed. I was tired of her treating me like a child even though I was a college graduate.

  “Is it that ranch job you’re doing that’s keeping you so busy?” She had a snarky tone to her voice. I had to control myself so that I didn’t say something I’d regret later.

  “Something like that,” I said. I wasn’t going to explain to her what had been going on. She didn’t deserve to have an insight into my life when she didn’t care about me.

  “Well, I don’t think this is the job for you,” she said. “You’re always busy, and what kind of prospects does it hold for your future?”

  “I’m not going to leave this job, Mom. I’m happy here. Isn’t that what matters?”

  “What about your future?” she asked. My future, my future, my future. God, I was sick of it.

  “What if my future is here?” I asked. “What if this is what I want to do?”

  My mom was silent for a moment. “You want to be a farmer? You want to marry one?”

  I groaned. “Blow it out of proportion, why don’t you, Mom? I said I was happy. That should be enough for you.”

  “If it’s not enough for you—and I can tell you know already, it’s not—then it’s not enough for me.”

  “What about what I want?” I asked. “What if I want this?”

  My mom mumbled something, and I knew she was getting angry. Well, I was getting angry, too.

  “Mom, I’m not going to go into this with you. It’s what I want, so it’s what I’m going to do. I’m not coming home; I’m not going to marry an investment banker and pop out a million kids for you. I’m not going to live that life.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” my mom cried out. “This isn’t the life for you!”

  “No, Mom. You telling me how to live my life is what’s not for me.”

  I hung up the phone before she could answer me. I had nothing else to say to her, nothing else that I had to say about what my life was like now. I had people I cared about, people I was about to lose, and my mom’s shit was the last thing I needed.