by S Doyle
“Sixteen months. That’s it. Sixteen months and she’ll be legal and we can get a divorce.”
“I’m supposed to wait? Put my life on hold while you do this? I thought we were working toward something, Jake.”
“We are,” I admitted. I wasn’t ready to say I wanted to marry her now. I wasn’t there yet. I wanted my land back first. I wanted to have a better sense of the future before I made that commitment. “But I have to do this. There is no choice. Sam saved me. Hell, he left me enough money to buy my land. I’m not going to abandon his daughter to some foster family in Paradise.”
“Have you considered the idea that we could get married, apply to be foster parents, and then we could be her guardians together?”
I had. I had thought about it. But being married to Ellie was a sixteen-month commitment. Being married to Janet was for life.
I didn’t say that.
“I don’t know how long that would take. Or if it would be a guarantee. I can’t take that risk. Not with Ellie.”
“So Ellie is more important than me.”
I sighed. It was typical Janet to take it to that level. Black or white. Her or Ellie. “Yes. Ellie needs me more right now than you do. You have to see that.”
“No,” she snapped. “Don’t make me the bad guy here. We’ve been dating for two years. I’ve been patiently waiting for you to save up for the land and get everything you wanted in place. I know you, Jake. You’re a planner. But I thought we were close, and now you’re telling me I have to sit back and wait sixteen months. I’m twenty-seven now.”
It was a thing with her, being a year older than me. I got it. Most of her friends were either engaged or married and already had babies. She felt like she was late to the race.
Maybe I wasn’t being fair to her. I liked Janet. I really liked Janet. I thought about marrying her all the time in a logistical manner. I just never had the definitive moment when I thought yes, she’s the one I want to be with forever.
The truth was, I liked our lunch dates and I liked the regular sex. When we didn’t have the extra staff for calving and sell off, the bunk house was mine. For most of the year we had all the privacy we wanted, which was key since Janet still lived with her parents.
I wouldn’t let her stay over though. I thought it was disrespectful to Sam. He had a young impressionable daughter in the house, after all. Not that Ellie didn’t get what it meant when Janet came to the bunk house on her nights off. She wasn’t stupid. Still, it was the principle of it.
She was right. It wasn’t fair to make her wait so I could get off when I wanted to.
“Janet, I understand if you need to move on…”
She slammed her hands on the table. I could feel the other folks around us turn and look.
I lowered my voice. “What? I’m trying to do the right thing by you. If you don’t want to wait, I get it. But this is happening. Ellie is my family. The only family I have left, and I’m not sending her to strangers. That is never going to happen, so you need to decide now what works for you.”
She was nodding, but I could see her lips were quivering. She took a few shallow breaths and reined it in.
“Are you going to live with her? In the house?”
It wasn’t a question I was expecting, so I answered without thinking. “I guess so. She might not like being alone in the house. And she should probably have some supervision. She’s only sixteen.”
“Almost seventeen.”
“Yeah. So what.”
“Has it occurred to you what it’s going to look like? You’re twenty-six, Jake, not seventy.”
“I’m not following.”
“You’ve known Ellie since she was born, but have you looked at her lately?”
“Of course I’ve looked at her.”
“No, have you looked at her. She’s growing up, Jake. She’s not an adult, but she’s not a girl either. Tall, thin, long brown hair, perky little breasts.”
I saw red. “Tell me you’re not suggesting that I would take advantage of an underage girl. Of Ellie.”
I could see her back up, but it was too late.
“You think that of me?” I asked her. “You think that’s who I am? Then what the fuck have you been doing with me for two years?”
She reached across the table to grab my hands, but I pulled them back out of her reach.
“Of course I know you’re not that guy. But think of the visual, Jake. You’re a strong attractive man, she’s growing into a beautiful young woman. You’ll be married, living together.”
“She’s like my fucking sister,” I snapped.
“But she’s not,” Janet said, gathering her purse. “People will talk.”
“I don’t give a shit what they say. You’ll know the truth. That’s all the matters.”
“I need to think about this,” she said, scooting out of the booth. “I love you, Jake. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with you, so I’m not ready to give up on us, but I need time to process this.”
I nodded. “That’s fair.” I needed time too. Time to think about what it meant that Janet was actually jealous of Ellie.
It was absurd and ridiculous. And wrong.
I walked into the house and made my way back toward the kitchen. Ellie was sitting on a stool at the center island, working on her laptop.
“Homework?” I asked. Because even after everything she’d been through, life still went on. She’d already missed a week of school and I knew her teachers had sent her some work to help her try and keep up.
She lifted her head and I tried to look at her. Janet was right. I hadn’t really thought about Ellie in any particular way other than as Ellie. This girl who was in my life, who was part of my family.
She had grown up. And she was very pretty. Long honey-brown hair. She had her dad’s eyes. Dark blue. Her mom’s chin, a little pointy. She was taller than most girls in her class, which I knew she hated, because it also meant she was taller than a lot of the guys. She’d once informed me, as if it were a biological fact, that guys did NOT date girls taller than them.
Would people talk? I didn’t think so. Too many people knew our story. My dad dying, then her mom, now her dad. People would talk more if I let anything happen to her.
No, it didn’t matter that she’d turned into this young beautiful woman while I wasn’t looking. I knew me. I knew Ellie. I knew what we were to each other. Janet’s jealousy was unfounded.
Only now I had to worry about the guys who would eventually come sniffing around her.
“How did she take it?” she said, not answering my question.
“Not great.”
“Figured.”
I walked to the fridge and took out a beer that had been left over from the wake.
“Why did you figure?”
“Jake, she’s twenty-seven. Around here that’s almost ancient to be married. She’s waiting for you because you’re the best. Only now you told her she has wait another year. You had to assume she was going to be upset. You shouldn’t be mad at her.”
“Why would I be mad at her?” I was.
“Because you think she should understand. You know, because I’m an… ugh… orphan. Except you made a choice to put me above her. That was going to hurt no matter what.”
When the hell had Ellie become so damn smart?
“For sixteen months,” I reminded her. “You over her for sixteen months.”
“Doesn’t matter. Which means you don’t get to be mad at her.”
I let it drop. “Hey, have you thought about what we should do after the wedding? In terms of me living here.”
I had been sleeping on the couch in the study since Sam died. It seemed presumptuous to take the guest room. But the couch was lumpy as hell and wasn’t sustainable.
“I have, actually. I know you’re going to balk, but I think you should take Dad’s room instead of the guest room.”
“Not happening.”
“Hear me out. It’s got a private ba
throom, so we wouldn’t have to share. A TV. You could have your own space that’s separate from me. It makes sense, Jake. I can’t take it. It would be too weird and I don’t want to move all my stuff anyway. I like my room.”
I hated it when she made sense. “Okay.”
“I’ll start going through his stuff tomorrow.”
“School,” I instinctively said. It was Monday.
“One more day. I have what I need to catch up,” she said, pointing at the laptop. “I think… I need one more day. Then I can do it.”
“Okay. One more day.”
I took my beer and was about to leave her to her homework when I thought about what Janet said. What people might think about us living together.
I wanted to ask her if she had concerns, but I didn’t want to invite the ugliness of it inside. Of course it wouldn’t have occurred to her that people might talk. She was growing up, but she was still innocent. I wasn’t going to change that.
“Dinner in few hours?”
“Yep,” she said. “Lots of casseroles. We have casseroles for life or something.”
I laughed and thought it was the first time. The first time since Sam died. Ellie could always do that.
Yeah, I was doing the right thing.
Four
Ellie
I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t think I looked like a creepy teenage bride and I knew I wasn’t a creepy teenage bride, but still…
I didn’t look like me.
It was the same dress I wore to my dad’s funeral—weird, I know—because it was still my nicest dress. Blue velvet, capped sleeves, with a belted waist. I wore my hair up because I thought it made me look older.
You know, because I was getting married today.
MARRIED.
I should at least look like I knew what I was doing.
I kept going back to my mantra. It’s no big deal. It’s no big deal. It’s no big deal.
Who was I kidding? It was a big freaking deal. On a scale of one to ten, this was a full-on ten.
I was getting MARRIED.
I guess I always thought I would someday. Fall in love. Find my guy. Have kids. It was all out there as the most likely future.
Sure, sometimes I thought about leaving Montana and heading to New York and becoming some major advertising executive. I would work in this high rise building in a corner office. I would have people fetch me coffee and handle my dry cleaning. I would wear five-hundred-dollar shoes and thousand-dollar pant suits. And I would have someone blow out my hair every day because it always looked nice when Bella at the Hair Stop in town blew it out.
Only I knew that was never going to be my reality. My reality was cattle, horses, hay, chicken shit (literally chicken shit), and Montana.
So here I was, standing in front of a mirror in my blue velvet dress, leggings (because still January) and my hair up because I thought it made me look older.
Shoe choice was a no-brainer. Flats. Because guys did NOT date girls who were taller than them even if it was only because of shoes. It was a biological imperative.
Jake was pretty tall. I guess could have worn heels, but I didn’t have any.
I didn’t want to buy anything new for the wedding either, because then it might make it seem more than it was.
It was no big deal.
There was a soft knock on the door. “Ellie, you ready?”
It was Howard.
“Another minute?”
“Sure.”
Howard had been great. He’d written up the pre-nup. What was mine was mine, what was Jake’s was Jakes. It would make the divorce a lot cleaner. He’d gotten Judge Michaels to waive the parental consent on the marriage certificate. Howard and his secretary were going to be witnesses.
I wanted to keep it professional. No friends or anything. Besides, then I would have to chose between Karen or Chrissy, who were my two best friends. Either one would have been mad if I picked one over the other. If I had them both come, then it would have been a thing and Lisa might have felt left out.
No, it was best to make it business.
Janet definitely wasn’t coming.
Jake said she was cool with the situation now. That she understood he was doing what he had to do and was willing to wait for him.
What he had to do.
That’s what he’d said. What he had to do.
I didn’t like it. When he said that, it made me feel like this charity case. Like that football player from the movie with Sandra Bullock. You know the one where she won the Oscar and was all like I love my husband Jesse so much only to find out practically the next day he was banging a porn star behind her back.
I felt like the football player. I needed to be saved.
Only what if he didn’t need to be saved? What if I didn’t?
He was a big freaking dude. What if he found a way to get into football without the rich blond?
I wasn’t homeless. I wasn’t poor. I was sitting on land worth two million freaking dollars. What if I could have made it on my own for sixteen months?
I had it so much easier than that football guy did. Yet, still I needed to be saved.
Jake was going to do what he had to do.
Another gentle knock. “Ellie? We’re running a little late now.”
Right. Because we had one court, one judge, and he had way more important stuff to do.
Like traffic tickets and parking violations.
There was no point in putting it off, though. This was what I had to do.
I walked over to the door and opened it. Howard gave me a weak smile. No compliments, no anything. He started walking and I followed him through the hall into the open courtroom. There were a few people in the benches, waiting for their turn at whatever.
Jake was standing in front of the judge’s desk.
Judge Michaels, who had made this all possible, was wearing jeans and a chambray shirt. He didn’t do the whole robe thing, which was a little anticlimactic. A looming judge in a black robe might have been more ominous.
Because that’s what this felt like. More like a sentencing than a wedding.
I ran through my options again.
Foster home.
Running away.
Or Jake.
Jake gave me a chin nod and I guessed that meant he was okay with everything. He was clearly my best option. If only we didn’t have to be married.
Finally I shuffled toward him and stood next him. He was actually way taller than I was. My head only came up to his shoulder. I guess I hadn’t realized that. Jake was the type of a guy a woman could wear high heels with if she had them. Which I didn’t.
“You okay?” he asked me.
I nodded, but the truth was I felt nauseous. That would make for some interesting wedding photos. Me puking on Jake’s cowboy boots.
He was wearing his suit that he’d worn to Dad’s funeral. Same suit he’d worn to his own father’s funeral. His only suit. What if he wore it to his next wedding? That would be too awful. I would have to tell him that. Do not marry Janet in the same suit you married me in. I knew instinctively Janet would not like that.
“Is everyone ready?” the judge asked us.
I nodded. I could see Jake nod out of my peripheral vision because I didn’t want to look at him directly. I didn’t want to watch him as he made this sacrifice and essentially gave away a year and four months of his life.
For me.
“You don’t have to do this,” I blurted out. I turned to him but kept my head down. “I’ll go to the foster home. It’s only a year and…”
His hand was under my chin, lifting my face, forcing me to look at him. Until I reached his eyes. Those eyes, which I had known for as long as I could remember, told me everything.
“We got this,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.”
“I’m going to be your wife.” I know I made a face at the word wife.
“You’re going to be my family. Legall
y. That means I can protect you. Legally. That’s all we’re doing today.”
“Right.” It was no big deal.
“We’re ready, Judge,” Jake said. Then he took my hand.
“Hookay,” I breathed out. “Let’s get hitched.”
It was short and simple.
Do you?
Yes.
Do you?
Yep.
By the powers invested in the judge by the state of Montana, we were legally a family.
But then the judge said it. The kiss the bride part. Probably out of habit. It wasn’t like he was trying to be lurid or anything. Jake turned and kissed my forehead right in the center.
My dad used to do that. Whenever I was the most upset. Screaming or carrying on about anything. Crying. It didn’t matter. He would hold me by the shoulders until I calmed down, and then kiss my forehead.
He was never going to do that again. He wasn’t just gone. He was dead.
He was dead and he wasn’t coming back ever. I was never going to talk to him or hug him again. I was never going to hear his voice when he called my name. He wasn’t going to be at my real wedding. I wasn’t going to dance with him. He wasn’t going to know my kids.
I could feel this horrible ugly thing rolling around inside me. Like all the air and blood and guts had suddenly been sucked out of me. I was breathing and my lip was wobbling and I couldn’t think hard enough to stop any of it.
“Ellie…”
I was holding on to Jake’s forearms. Squeezing them as hard as I could to stay standing.
“My dad is dead,” I sputtered out even as I felt the tears start pouring out of me. Except I didn’t want to do this here. Not in front of Howard and his secretary, Sue Anne.
Not in front of Jake, because he might think I was weak and he wouldn’t want to be married to a weak person. But I couldn’t stop it. “He’s….really dead…”
As if everyone around me didn’t know that. As if I was offering up new information. They all KNEW. They knew he was dead and they knew I was going to feel this way but none of them told me.
“I can’t… I can’t… breathe.”
I was trying to draw in breaths but the sobs kept pushing them out. I felt snot running down over my lip and I wanted to run away. Only I knew the second I let go of Jake, it was going to happen.
