by Dale Mayer
“No. Carry the crutches,” he said. “We’ll go back to my room and put those away and then head for lunch, if that’s okay with you.”
“Definitely okay with me,” she said. Stan had gone somewhere. She presumed he was still talking with the others, but she knew Iain needed to go relax. “Unless you need to lie down.”
“I’ll have a nap this afternoon,” he said, “but I want to eat out on the deck and watch the horses.”
“That we can do.” They made their way to his room, where she put away his crutches, and then, walking back at his side, headed over to the cafeteria. A noisy crowd was in the center of it. She looked at him and said, “Do you want me to get food for both of us, while you claim a table out in the sun?”
He hesitated.
She looked at him and said, “There’s no need to not accept help again.”
“I seem to be bad at that,” he said. Then he nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he said. “We will have to compete for a table out on the deck.”
“Go,” she said. “Get us one, and I’ll come join you in a few minutes.” She watched as he headed out, completely okay to do that, and realized just how far he’d come. As she got into line, she grabbed two trays. Dennis was once again at the forefront, serving and talking to everybody as they came by.
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “I saw Iain on the horse.”
“Did you see him?” she said with a beaming smile. “That was one happy man.”
“And he should be,” Dennis said. “He’s a good guy.” He looked at the food and said, “But I bet he’s really hungry now, isn’t he?”
“Hungry and very tired,” she said. “Not that he’ll admit to the last part though.”
At that, Dennis chuckled. “No, of course he won’t,” he said. “That would make life too easy. Men are complex.”
“Nah,” she said teasingly. “Women are complex. Men are simple.”
He beamed a grin at her. “You could be right,” he said. “Men just want the basic needs.”
“What’s that?” she asked. “Beer, ribs, and football?” Several of the men around her cracked grins. Dennis waved a finger at her admonishingly.
She laughed and said, “Good food. He definitely needs good food.”
“Well, I’ve got all kinds of it here today. What would you like?”
She quickly made choices for both of them, with Dennis loading up their plates, and knew she couldn’t carry both trays if she loaded them too heavily. So, she put one by the coffee area, carried one out, and then came back and got the other one. By the time she was done, they were both sitting on one side together, the table pushed up against the railing so they could see as much as they could. Iain ate slowly, but his gaze was on the horses.
“I think an awful lot could be done with horses, don’t you?” she asked him.
“Some friends of mine back in New Mexico,” he said, “they formed a new company to help veterans get employed, to find a second career, even to build suitable housing for returning vets. I sent one of them an email a while ago, wondering what all their operation did. I haven’t even checked to see if he has responded yet.”
“And then what?”
“Then,” he said. “I was wondering about setting up something like what they have done—but here.”
She looked at him in surprise, but something warm and caring wrapped around her heart like a hug. “So, you’re thinking about staying close?”
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “That’s where you are, isn’t it?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “That is definitely where I am.”
“In that case,” he said, “yes, I’m looking at staying somewhere close. We still have a ways to go on this journey of ours, but I’m sure not ready to call it quits.” Just then, shouts of laughter came from behind him, interrupting their conversation. He looked at her, smiled, and said, “Eat. We’ll talk later.”
“Sounds good,” she said. And they proceeded to dig into lunch, but her heart was full, and her soul was happy.
Iain shouldn’t have said anything about his plans because he really didn’t have any plans; it was more a vague dream. But he’d been emboldened by the horseback ride. He looked at her and said, “It might not work out.”
“What might not work out?”
“If I do decide to do something like that.”
“It’s an idea,” she said in surprise. “Ideas are just that. I hope something like that does happen for you. I think you would find a great deal of personal satisfaction in helping others get established.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s what I was thinking. I know these guys in New Mexico. They’ve done so much good for other people. I was just thinking it might be nice to do something like that myself.”
“So, work toward it,” she said. “You’re probably not capable of doing it all yet, but that doesn’t mean in a few months you won’t be.”
“After today,” he said, “it does feel like I’ve made some major strides. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting there.”
“Is there anything else that you want to work toward?”
“Unless I wake up tomorrow morning,” he said jokingly, “and I think this is a terrible idea.”
She looked at him steadily. “And, if it is a terrible idea,” she said, “maybe what you need to do is look at why you suddenly feel that way. Because it sure doesn’t sound like a terrible idea to me.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I’ll spend some time with that journal and dig a little deeper.”
She gave him a fat smile. “You do that.”
“And you,” he challenged. “What about your journal?”
“I haven’t even started,” she admitted.
“Well, while I work in mine, you do something for yourself,” he said with a smile. “It’d be nice if we both move forward together.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” she said. “I need to work on a couple things definitely, so maybe I should.”
“No,” he said. “Not maybe. We’ve made a lot of progress together. Let’s keep that up.”
She smiled, then nodded and said, “I can work with that.”
“Good,” he said. “Now, I hate to ask, but how do you feel about getting us some coffee?”
She chuckled. “I can do that too.”
Chapter 15
Robin was happy that, for the next few weeks, it seemed like there was steady progress. At least on his part. She tried to open that journal because it had been her idea after all. But, every time she did, that blank page just stared back at her, daring her to mark it up. If she really wanted this relationship with Iain to work, she knew she had garbage she should let go of. Everybody did, right?
She could feel the frustration building inside her. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do about it and went through the day’s motions with a smile plastered on her face. But inside, she held this knowing worry that just maybe, maybe Iain was better off to go forward and to leave her because she hadn’t done her work. Maybe she didn’t have any pressing work to do, but it just meant that he was that much more progressive about his life, and she felt like she needed to at least have something to offer of herself.
The days were busy and packed with animals coming and going, and, at the end of Wednesday, when she collapsed on her back on the grass outside the vet clinic, propped up on her elbows, and just stared at the pastures and the horses, it seemed like the weekend with the show horses was a long time ago. It had only been two days long, yet still one of the major events that Iain talked about. And she was so happy for him. At the same time though, it left her feeling empty on the inside. She groaned out loud.
“That doesn’t sound very positive,” Dani’s cheerful voice broke through her reverie.
Robin sat up slowly and looked at her. “It’s been a rough couple days,” she admitted.
Dani nodded. “I hear you. It’s been busy upstairs too.”
“Still,” she said, “what
you did for Iain was huge.”
“And yet you appear bothered, like something is not quite right,” Dani said. She slipped the halter off Midnight, plunked the saddle down on the ground in such a way that it seemed to rest upon air, and walked over closer. “Everything okay between the two of you?”
“Yes,” Robin said. “It’s just that I feel like he’s doing so much and making progress in leaps and bounds …”
“And you feel like you’re supposed to be doing something to keep up with him?”
She shrugged. “When you put it that way, it sounds stupid.”
“It is stupid,” Dani said. “It’s not a competition.”
“I know that,” she said. “I don’t feel competitive. That feels wrong. But it also feels like I should be doing some prep work myself.”
Dani looked at her for a long moment. “Where’s this coming from?”
“Inside,” Robin said instantly. “It was my idea to buy the journals. I thought that maybe I had some issues to work on.”
“Remember that you can only work on things when you’re ready to work on them,” Dani said slowly. “No good can come from pushing something like that.”
“But what if I don’t quite get there?” she asked. “Or are we back to the fact that things have to happen in the right time?”
“What makes you think anything’s broken inside?” Dani asked. She squatted in front of Robin. “You seem well-adjusted. You’re healthy. You haven’t been tossing yourself at every man who comes by. You’ve picked somebody stable and steady and who has a wonderful spirit,” she said warmly. “Why is it you feel like you need to be working on you?”
“Because everybody has something to work on,” she said.
“I get that,” Dani said. “We all have issues. We all have childhood traumas. We all have resentments, and we all feel guilty for something. But again, those aren’t things that you can just pull out and say, Today I’ll deal with this. A trigger usually happens, that sets off something, and then you grab it and say, Okay, now that you’ve shown me the light, I’m dealing with it.”
“And in the meantime?”
“Maybe you should be asking yourself why you feel like you need to do this.”
“You’re right. I need to be doing something for myself.”
“Or what?” Dani asked, still prodding.
She took a deep breath and said, “Or I’m not as good as him.”
Dani’s eyebrows shot up. “So, it’s not a case of being in a competition but suffering a judgment?”
“No,” Robin said, shaking her head. Then she stopped and said, “Well, kind of.” Confusion filtered through her. “I don’t know what I’m saying,” she cried out.
“And that’s the issue facing you right now,” Dani said. “Forget about all your history. What you need to work out is why you feel that you need to be working on you in order to catch up to or to be as good as Iain.”
And, with that, she grabbed her saddle and walked toward the barn, leaving Robin sitting in the grass, staring out at the pastures all around her. Is that what this was all about? Because, in her logical mind, she knew that was garbage. But, inside her heart of hearts, she did wonder if maybe, maybe she wasn’t as good as him. She wasn’t applying herself as hard or as effectively as he was. He hadn’t seen any progress and figured there wasn’t any to have, and then, all of a sudden, he’d come up with all kinds of progress. Would it be the same for her? And why is it that she felt like she needed to have that same kind of progress? She hadn’t been through anywhere near the trauma he had.
Confused and wearing herself out emotionally, she got up and slowly walked to her apartment. She had a shower to help relieve some of the stress still settling on her shoulders, and, rather than going out and grabbing food, she grabbed her journal and sat outside in her small rear patio. She opened a bottle of sparkling water and sat in the shade and wrote down some of the words that Dani had said. As she started, her pen picked up and moved faster and faster and faster. By the time she finally drained her brain of whatever rolled around in there, she had to shake her hand out from cramping.
But inside, she was elated. Because this was what she had wanted. She had had her breakthrough. However, somewhere in her stream of consciousness rambling was the something underneath that consequently had to be worked on. She glanced through her writing, hoping to read whatever were the important parts, hoping she could still decipher her own writing done so fast and so sloppily.
The main question was, Why did she feel not good enough?
Granted, her ex made her feel less than, but even now, not a full year later, she already knew that their relationship was not healthy, was not right, was not good for either of them. So she felt like she had a handle on that event. Yet the same thing was coming up now with Iain. Why did she think she was not good enough for him? Why this recurring judgment?
Robin had previously thought something in her present situation was the trigger, which trigger issue Dani had brought up earlier today.
It wasn’t Robin’s present situation at issue at all. It was her past. Her response just kept recurring, like with her ex, like now with Iain. That was her underlying problem that she needed to address right now. Because she knew one thing for sure. Iain would be quite unhappy if he thought his breakthroughs and recent successes were the trigger to finding where her current problem issue lay.
But the fact of the matter was, she had been working on the exact same issue inside her that Iain had been dealing with here at Hathaway House: feeling the pressure to succeed, seeing others’ successes, and not having some of it and yet wanting it.
Instead, for Robin, a whole other issue lay beyond that had to be reopened and dealt with.
As she stared at the words on the page, she realized how absolutely incredibly stupid it all was. Iain would be angry to think that she was feeling less than him because he’d finally started to make progress. To Iain, there was no downside to his recent successes. He would be hurt to hear that from her. From her, who was standing beside him in so many ways, but … wasn’t really happy for him? Even she ached when she thought that.
But she knew that wasn’t the truth. She didn’t want to derail him, and she sure didn’t want to disappoint him. She had to fix this. Now.
Right now.
And, in fact, it was almost conceited, arrogant of herself. He’d been through so much and had survived and done so well, something that she knew she couldn’t have done even half as well as he had. And she’d been sympathetic and wanting him to get that same breakthrough. So was this all talk and no real heartfelt sentiment?
Then, as soon as he made major strides at really healing himself, she had immediately felt less than him. She shook her head, wondering where all this came from. Then she had reached back, far back into her life, pinpointing a couple times in her childhood where a judgment, then a grief—or was it vice versa?—had overwhelmed her senses.
She found it in her rambling writings. Like when her mother had passed away. Like when her brother had been kicked out of the house at sixteen, leaving Robin alone with her father and his new wife.
At the time, Robin’s grief had warred with her anger and her judgment and had left Robin feeling like Robin wasn’t important enough for her mother to stick around. It made no sense. Not to the adult and grown-up Robin. Her mother didn’t choose to die. Her mother didn’t choose to leave Robin and Keith. Yet her mother’s death felt that way to Robin back then as a child—and maybe to an extent still did. How sad was that?
Her brother and father had never got along, and she knew Keith had been just as devastated when their mother had passed away. Her father had turned to alcohol to handle his sorrows, then to a much younger woman, much to her and Keith’s disgust. She had tried so hard to stay in Keith’s life, refusing to let him go too, even when she knew that he had nothing to do with the rest of the family.
Then, when Keith had joined the military, she’d moved out of her father’s house into K
eith’s place. Maybe to be closer to him. And that helped distance her from the rough homelife of her father’s new family, where she was not accepted once more, where she didn’t belong either. And it was hard to look back to all those long-ago years and realize how much of that little girl still remained inside Robin and how much these memories triggered her right now because she’d felt less than good enough way back then and still felt the same way right now.
It was all so stupid.
She sighed, leaned back, and said, “I wonder if we ever grow up fully.” Because really, she wasn’t sure that there was any such thing. It’s like people took steps forward and then fell back into old childhood patterns. She was thinking she was doing okay but had a few things to deal with, and look at what popped out.
But now she felt more at peace inside. She wasn’t done yet, but she was getting there.
She let out a big sigh. This wasn’t about Iain. She had never been jealous of his successes. Not in any way. She just wanted to be the best Robin she could be for a worthy man who was giving his all to be the best Iain he could be. He deserved no less. And she now knew that she was plenty good enough for him. She smiled as the tears gathered.
This was the tough part, facing down her demons. The rest is easier. Just look at Iain. She wiped away her tears, but her smile remained.
She put down the journal, threw back the last of her sparkling water, and walked out for dinner. And realized it was almost the end of the dinner hour. She shook her head in surprise and quickened her pace.
As soon as she got to the cafeteria, Dennis raised his eyebrows. “And here I thought you’d be with Iain.”
“I was delayed,” she explained. She looked at the little bit of food left. Most people had eaten and were now sitting and talking. “Wow,” she said. “Did all those horse people from the weekend come back here and clean us out?”
