by Joanna Bell
"Mommy?"
Hailey snapped out of it. "Yes? Uh, yes. Right. We have to go. Give your daddy a hug, OK? You'll see him soon, don't worry."
Brody turned and reached for me. I knelt down and pulled him close as he nestled his head into my shoulder. He seemed to be holding on a little tighter than usual. And then he pulled away suddenly.
"Daddy!"
"What is it, kid?"
"Is that your heart!?"
It took me a minute to realize that my heart was hammering away in my chest, hard and fast enough for Brody to have felt it as we hugged. I laughed unconvincingly.
"Yeah, I guess it is."
My son then surprised me by bursting into tears and reaching for me once more. He was generally a pretty stoic kid – especially with me. Not the kind who was prone to weeping at temporary goodbyes.
"Come on," Hailey said quickly. "We'll call your daddy as soon as we get home, OK? But we don't want to miss our flight."
Everything felt off. It wasn't like her to react that way to Brody being upset. But the time of parting was definitely upon us. I gave my son one more quick hug and stood up and then there was an awkward moment where I leaned in to kiss Hailey and she turned to offer me her cheek but then seemed to change her mind at the last minute. I ended up kissing her on the chin. And she was reaching for the suitcase before I could try again.
"I'll call you when we land," she said, taking Brody's hand and leading him towards the terminal entrance. I don't think she made eye contact with me once after we left my apartment.
"OK," I called after them. "Have a safe flight!"
Adrenaline surged into my veins as I watched them walking away. The tips of my fingers tingled, the muscles in my legs twitched with energy. The glass doors of the terminal slid open and I watched as the two people I loved most in the world disappeared through them. At the last minute Brody turned and gave me a little wave. I don't think Hailey noticed.
And then the doors closed again and slowly, the world encroached upon me once more. Taxis dropped people off, the kind of conversations people have at airports floated into my ears, happy families emerged through the doors, aglow with the joy of being together again.
I had a vague plan for Christmas. A few ideas. I hadn't settled on anything specific yet. I needed to talk to Lacey. I needed to meet with the jeweler she said would be perfect. I had to get a new truck, too. And sort out just how much of my astronomical medical bills were going to be covered by the medical insurance provided by my job at Sea Vista Ranch. I wasn't very good at things like that. I was going to need to meet with a lawyer. Things needed to be organized. Things needed to be taken care of.
And every second I stood there, Hailey got further away.
Why had she been so quiet during the drive? Why wouldn't she look at me when we were unpacking their things from the truck? Why did she turn away, at first, when I moved in to kiss her? I thought things were good now? Maybe not perfect... but better.
Mostly better. There was still a lot to talk about. A lot of shit I needed to make right.
You know why she wouldn't look at you.
The thought came to me quickly, simply, like a bolt of lightning out of a clear, blue sky.
It was true. I did know why Hailey wouldn't catch my eye.
She was waiting for me. She was still waiting for me, after all those years. Too many years.
When I became a man, I put away childish things...
Who knows what would have happened if I waited until Christmas, if I put everything off again? Maybe nothing. Or maybe the girl who had already given me more than I ever deserved would have a moment of clarity. Maybe she would wake up one morning a couple of days before Christmas and suddenly realize that I wasn't worth even half the trouble I'd caused her.
Hell, maybe she would realize it no matter what I did. Maybe it was already too late. All I knew was I had to let her know. I had to put away childish things. I had to be the man she needed me to be.
Not that night on the phone. Not over Christmas. Not at some unspecified point in the future but right then. That very second.
"Hailey!" I yelled as I ran across the road and through the sliding glass doors. A few people turned to stare at me yelling at no one, but I didn't care. "HAILEY!"
Chapter 51: Hailey
"Six...eight?"
Brody was standing on his tiptoes at the check-in kiosk, having insisted on entering the information himself. I nodded, a little distracted by the strange goodbye with Jackson.
"Uh, yeah. Six, eight, one."
I listened as my son spoke each number out loud as he entered them on the touch screen. "Six... eight... one! Is this the right airplane, Mommy?"
I leaned in closer to the screen to check he'd pulled up the right flight. "Uh-huh. Just hit the big green button at the bottom of the –"
Someone was yelling. A man. I looked up, worried. Airports aren't places you want to hear people yelling. The check-in desk was only a few feet away. It would be easy to grab Brody and get behind it if we needed to.
The yelling was getting closer, though. A few people around me had started to look up, too.
"Confirm the seats," I told Brody nervously, before stepping forward so I could do it myself. "Actually, let me do it. We're in a hurry."
"HAILEY!"
My head snapped up. Jackson. Jackson?! What the hell was he –
"HAILEY!"
It was him. Running down the concourse like he was being chased by a rabid bear, shouting my name. Brody saw him almost as soon as I did.
"Daddy!" He yelled, running to meet his father.
"What the hell?" I whispered as Jackson arrived, out of breath and seemingly unaware that everyone was staring at us. "What is it? Is something wrong? Did we forget something?"
"No!" He replied, panting and grinning like a madman. "No, nothing is wrong. You don't have to worry. OK? You don't have to worry anymore."
He looked half-crazed. "About what?" I asked, still very conscious that people were looking.
Suddenly, he was on his knees in front of me. He had definitely lost his mind.
"Anything," he replied, taking my hands in his own. "Anything, Hailey. You don't have to worry about anything anymore. Alright? That's why I was running. You – you look scared. I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to catch you before –"
I frowned. He seemed so sane just a few minutes ago, outside the terminal.
"What's gotten into you?" I asked. "Stand up, Jackson. People are watching us. I –"
"I don't give a fuck if people are watching us."
"Daddy," Brody cut in at once. "You said f–"
Jackson looked down at his son. "Yes Brody, I said 'fuck.' Sometimes in life, people say fuck. Sometimes there's just nothing else to say."
"Jackson –" I started, checking the time on my phone.
He squeezed my hands. "I just need five minutes. OK? Five minutes."
"For what?!" I replied, baffled. "We have a flight to catch! Can't this wait until –"
"I love you."
That shut me up. He'd said the words before – even recently. I thought I knew they were true. But something about the tone in his voice that afternoon suddenly made everything inside me very still.
"I love you," he repeated, looking up into my eyes. "I've always loved you, Hailey. Even when it seemed like I didn't. Even when it must have seemed like I hated you."
Tears stung my eyes and I blinked them away, embarrassed. "No," I replied. "It didn't seem like –"
It was a lie. He knew it was a lie. So did I. I was just so used to caring for Jackson at that point. All those weeks in the hospital, all of that worry and fear that he was going to die. For so long I'd just been on a kind of autopilot.
"Don't," he implored. "Don't. Just – let me finish, OK? If you decide I'm full of shit – and believe me, I won't blame you if you do – I'll let you go. But hear me out. Please, Hailey."
I glanced around. People weren't staring anymore.
Well, a few of them were. But it somehow didn't matter so much then.
"OK," I replied quietly. "OK, I'll hear you out."
For a few seconds before he spoke again, we just looked at each other. I wanted to trust him so badly.
"I love you," he repeated, after taking a deep breath. "But I want you to know that I understand that those are just words. You've loved me with more than words. You've loved me better than I loved you."
"No –"
But he held up his hand, stopping me.
"Don't deny it. Don't try to make me feel better. This is what I mean. This is what I'm talking about. I treated you badly. I took things out on you that were not your fault. I blamed you for – everything. I knew I was wrong. Even that day at the art gallery, when we went back to my apartment and I acted like an asshole, even then I knew I was wrong! And I did it all anyway. I acted like a child, lashed out like a child."
An unhappy memory floated to the surface of my mind. The feeling of shocked betrayal after we made love on the day of my L.A. show. The realization that Jackson still believed it was my fault he didn't know about Brody, even after I thought it was clear neither of us were really to blame, that his father had set out from the very beginning to ruin things between us. My head dropped low.
"I'm sorry," Jackson continued, seeing that I was finally listening. "I'm so sorry, Hailey. For all of it. For everything I put you through. And even as I'm saying all this to you I'm aware that it's still just words. The thing is, I don't want it to be just words! It won't be just words. I'm going to make it up to you. Will you give me that chance? Will you let me make it up to you?"
I looked up at him, taking in the familiar slopes and angles of his face, searching those cold blue eyes for some sign that he was joking. There didn't seem to be any.
There was a time – many years before that conversation at the airport – when things were fresh between Jackson Devlin and me. When there was no water under the bridge. A time when there was nothing to forgive.
Part of me wanted to say it even then, to throw myself into his arms and tell him there was nothing to forgive. But that would have been a lie.
"You hurt me," I said, slowly and quietly, as if the truth might be something scary. "So much, Jackson. You hurt me so much. I –" I stopped, swallowing hard, trying to regain my composure. Beside me, Brody put his arms around me and silently leant his head against my hip. But he didn't say a thing.
"I know," Jackson whispered. "I know. I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault. None of it was your fault. I did what I swore I would never do. I did what my dad used to do to my mom – I took out my self-loathing on you. I made it your problem. I blamed you for what I couldn't face in myself."
And there it was. After all those years of waiting, suddenly the words I barely allowed myself to admit I longed to hear came out of Jackson's mouth.
"I want to believe you," I told him. "I want to believe you more than anything. You don't know how long I waited for this. You don't know how much –" I broke off, finally unable to control my emotions any longer, and covered my face with my hands.
Chapter 52: Jackson
She was scared. She didn't have to say it, it was obvious.
"You're afraid," I said gently, brushing a lock of hair off her tear-stained face. "I don't want you to be afraid anymore. I don't want to be the one making you afraid. Please let me make it right. Not right now, not just by saying it. I know now that's not how it works. Let me show you, Hailey. Let me show you how much I love you."
She gulped and wiped her eyes on her sleeves. And then she looked at me, her dark eyes pleading. "What do you think I'm going to say? Do you think I'm going to say no? I can't say no to you. I never could. I –"
Before she could continue I took her by the shoulders and held her in front of me, keeping my gaze steady on hers. "You're stronger than that," I told her. "You're the strongest person I ever met, Hailey Nickerson. And I believe you're perfectly capable of saying no to me if you think it's for the best. It's not your job to make me feel better, to assuage my ego anymore. You're fired. Tell me the truth. Whatever it is, I'll accept it."
Hailey always had this way of looking at me. It's the way you look at someone you admire. Someone whose opinion you care about. That's how she was looking at me that afternoon. Even though I didn't understand how she could be, after everything I'd done.
She opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it again without saying anything. She looked down at Brody, wrapped protectively around his mother as he always was when she was upset, and ran her fingers through his hair. She was really thinking about her answer. I steeled myself, aware there was no guarantee it was going to go my way.
Finally, she straightened slightly. And then she reached up and put her hand on my cheek. Something about the gesture felt like a goodbye.
"I was telling you the truth," she replied, her voice clear. "I can't say no to you – that is the truth. I love you, Jackson. I've always loved you. Even when I was that self-conscious little girl with a sketchbook, trying to pretend that I didn't care what you thought of my drawings. And I never stopped, you know. Do you know that – that I never stopped? Even when you blamed me for everything?"
It wasn't an attack. She wasn't trying to score a point. She was just asking.
"Yeah," I nodded, my face hot with shame and guilt. "I know."
"Well if you know that," she replied, "then you already know my answer."
"You'll let me make it right?"
"Yes. It's all I ever wanted, Jackson. You to love me the way I love you."
That was the moment I broke. That was the specific sentence that cracked me open. The instant of understanding. I knew I loved her the whole time. I always knew it, even when I was acting otherwise. I always had the safety of that knowledge. She didn't.
And she still did all the things she did for you.
"Thank you," I whispered, wrapping my arms around her. "Thank you, Hailey. I love you. I won't let you down again. I promise. I promise."
We clung to each other like shipwreck survivors who suddenly find themselves washed up safe on the beach after countless hours spent lost and drowning in dark, storm-tossed seas.
When we finally loosened our grip on each other Hailey took out her phone, wiped her eyes and looked up at me.
"Our flight left 5 minutes ago."
She was smiling. A smile as big and open as a prairie sky. "Good," I replied.
I knew it was going to take work. It felt new and strange to stand in front of her the way I stood in front of her in that moment, fully inhabiting my own vulnerability, my own need for her. But I knew I could do it. I knew if I had her, I could do anything.
"You know I can't live without you, don't you?" I asked.
Hailey gazed up at me. I had never felt closer to another person in my life.
Instead of answering, she slipped her arms around my neck and kissed me. She was mine. I didn't deserve her and I was going to have to work hard to make it so I did. But she was mine.
Chapter 53: Hailey
10 months later...
I closed my eyes as I stood at the canyon's edge, alive to the feeling of the breeze on my face, the dry rustling of the cottonwoods. Beside me, the rental car's engine hissed and popped as it cooled off.
A rush of nostalgia made my heart ache for the past, for the place I'd left 7 years before and had only just returned to. In the distance, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. Jackson. I turned and watched him pull off the main road.
When he got out of his rental truck he paused for a few seconds, looking at me. Neither of us spoke. We didn't have to.
Look at us, his eyes said, shining proudly. Look how far we've come.
"I love you, Hailey Nickerson." He said simply, looking up at the cottonwoods and shoving his hands into his pockets.
"I love you too, Jackson Devlin," I replied, smiling.
Jackson kept his promises. After that afternoon at LAX he barely mentioned it again. He di
dn't have to. He just took care of me. He stepped up in every possible way, putting me first and never once asking for praise or thanks. There were no more dramatic scenes, no more overwrought verbal apologies. There was just his solid, steady presence in my life, always there, always available.
The sun caught the blue of his eyes as we looked out over the river valley.
"You look like you belong here," I told him.
We had talked a lot about moving back to Montana. We missed it, the way you only ever miss the place where you grew up. That's why we were out there, to try to get some idea of whether or not returning could be on the cards. I wasn't sure, before I flew out from New York, that it could. What if Sweetgrass Ridge was different? What if it felt different? What if it was full of rich newcomers? What if it had moved on without us?
Then I saw Jackson in the golden late afternoon sunshine and somehow I just knew.
"So do you," he replied, pulling me against his chest and resting his chin on top of my head. I breathed him in for a few seconds and then looked up.
"So what does that mean?"
Jackson's gaze wandered, out over the Yellowhead river and the trees on the opposite bank and then right back to me. "It means we belong here. I feel it, don't you? Don't you feel how right it is, now we're here again? It almost feels like we never left. Like if we drive back into town right now your shift will just be starting at the Super Mart."
I turned around to face the river and leaned back against him. "And you'll be heading back to that shitty trailer."
Jackson chuckled. "It wasn't so bad. Not if I knew you were coming over after work."
"Candy thinks I'm crazy," I commented, lifting his fire-scarred right hand to my lips and kissing it gently. "She can't understand how anyone would want to live anywhere but New York City."
"Of course she can't," Jackson replied. "New York is her Sweetgrass Ridge. It's where she belongs. But you belong here. We belong here."
