Paint My Body Red

by Heidi R. Kling

  Busy quiet.

  If I keep myself busy, I won’t have time to think as much. With my nose in heavy books, reading about characters suffering bigger problems than mine, I won’t have as much room for regret. That’s what I tell myself anyway, as I watch the rain streak across windows that block all the life I’m missing outside. All the time with Dad I’m missing on the ranch, the sunrises and sunsets and everything in between with Jake.

  “What a beautiful horse,” Karen says, looking at a photo I’ve recently added to my bulletin board. “Is she yours?”

  “Used to be,” I say. Anna found the photo in a magazine. Scout has gone on to be a champion with her new rider, just like Jake had prophesized and the greasy new owner had counted on. The fire has gone out of her eyes and she looks content, healthy—like she’s being treated right. It still hurts to look at her, but knowing she’s happy hurts a hell of a lot less. Seeing the return address from Eight Hands Ranch had sent hopeful shivers across my body, which, like always, was met with a lame sense of disappointment when I saw the note wasn’t from Jake.

  I really regret giving him that journal.

  Karen nods. “Meetcha at the cafeteria for lunch? Same place same time?” We sit by ourselves in the corner every meal. I wonder if she’ll tire of me and look for new friends after a while.

  “Sure,” I say.

  As she smiles and slings her backpack over her shoulder, I question if Karen is the Universe’s idea of a gift.

  One day fades into the next until it’s finally the end of crisp November, and I’m in a fluster of nervous excitement, packed and ready to take a cab to the airport for my first trip back to the ranch since I left. I’m ready to see Dad, find Jake—re-enter life—when I get the call from Anna.

  “Honey, I’m so sorry, but they just closed the airport. A freak storm passed through and it’s coming down like crazy out here. We were so looking forward to having you for Thanksgiving.”

  I swallow back the disappointment. “That’s okay,” I say. Though suddenly it’s anything but. I want to be around people who love me who I love back. I didn’t realize how lonely I’ve been, how each day I was just getting through, how much I want to go home. Holidays make it worse.

  “Are you there, Paige?”

  “Yeah.”

  I’m afraid I’ll start crying if I hear her voice another minute. Imagining the smells of roasting turkey wafting from the old oven, the thought of Anna’s homemade gravy on the stove, the snaps of the roaring fire…

  “How is he?”

  “He’s okay, hanging on. Disappointed you can’t be here, of course. Here, talk to him.”

  “Hi, Daddy,” I say. “I’m so sorry about the snow. I really wanted to see you.”

  My voice cracks.

  “He says you’ll be out here soon enough, and ‘Love you, Paige-y.’” Anna responds for him.

  “Love you, too, Daddy.”

  I hang up and flop onto my bed, sobbing like a kid left at camp for the first time, like I haven’t cried since I said goodbye to Jake in my purple wallpaper bedroom.

  When my mom calls—Anna told her about the storm—I tell her I’m going home with Karen. Mom and Phil are going to Hawaii and won’t be home anyway. She says the thought of spending a holiday, Phil’s first without Ty, at home without me would be too depressing.

  Since Karen left yesterday and our dorms are pretty much a ghost ship, I walk through the snow to the 7-11, the only shop open, and after buying saltines and a jar of peanut butter, I eat Thanksgiving dinner in my dorm room, watching movies on my laptop and wishing I were home.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  December moves along swiftly enough. The sky darkens and days shorten. I’m working on my final short story for writing class. I changed all the names, but it’s about Jake. I still haven’t heard from him, and it’s been so long now that I don’t expect to. I guess he decided to move on, and even though it hurts like hell, how can I blame him? But I’m not over him. Not even a little bit. So I write him, or a loosely guised likeness of him, into one of my stories. My creative writing professor, an eloquent, brilliant blonde woman, Professor Diana Klein (we call her Diana), says it feels “real and alive,” which is the best compliment she could give me. In a previous workshop, she asked if I could expand it into a bigger piece. That while she felt “all the bones were intact, it could be fleshed out, deepened.”

  I’m working on the Fleshing Out and Deepening, which is, essentially, reliving all my moments with Jake, leaving me in this sad, sick, euphoric state of nostalgia as I pound away at my laptop, when I get a frantic phone call from Anna.

  “He’s taken a turn for the worse.”

  “I’m coming,” I say into the phone. “How bad? I mean, how long?”

  “They don’t know, but he’s asking for you.”

  “But he’s been so stable.” We talk or Skype at least once a week, and I email Dad daily. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just…his time.”

  After we discuss travel arrangements and hang up, I run into the bathroom and throw up.

  I’m not ready. I’m not ready to lose my dad.

  Twenty-four hours later, hugging my arms around the pea coat which hardly puts a layer between my skin and a Jackson winter, I’m a chilly island of frost among swarms of heavy-jacket tourists carrying ski gear and meeting relatives. Upbeat Christmas songs pelt us from the airport speakers. It’s a happy, joyful time of year, which makes what we’re about to face that much sadder.

  Shivering, I tug my blue scarf tighter around my neck and pace back and forth on the icy sidewalk, half-expecting Jake’s Jeep like that first day so long ago. No Jeep. I check my phone. No missed calls from Anna. She’s probably on her way, but flakes are falling fast, thick and determined. She’s probably driving slowly. If she doesn’t show up, maybe I’ll call Jake. I stare at his contact.

  No. No. Don’t even think it. If Jake wanted to talk to you, he’d have called.

  It’s been three months since we said goodbye in my ranch bedroom. I never see him in the background of our Skype chats. Anna hadn’t mentioned him at all. I haven’t asked, but it’s the constant bear in the room. Where is he?

  My heart leaps when I see the Eight Hands Ranch van pull up to the curb. When the door opens, I’m stunned to see my dad, who most definitely doesn’t look like he should be out of bed, propped up in his wheelchair. He’s thinner than before, his skin even more sallow and waxy. I’m so happy to see him, though, so I dive inside and cautiously wrap my arms around his neck.

  “He insisted on coming,” Anna says. “And you know your daddy when he sets his mind to something.”

  I hug her, too, and she holds on longer than normal. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says when she finally pulls away, eying me up and down. “Miss Preppy Pants.”

  I grin. “So am I.”

  “You look like you walked off the page of a catalog, doesn’t she, Gus?”

  “Yeah.” I blush, smoothing down my long skirt over thick sweater tights and tall leather boots. “A visit with Mom and her Nordstrom card will do that to a girl.”

  Anna grins. “You look beautiful. Miss College.”

  “A. Y’all are the ones who made me go, and B. they’re just clothes. But yeah, they do fit the part at Wesleyan. Don’t tell me you miss my Cowgirl shirt?”

  “Ha! Never.” She rubs my arms. “Ooh. This sweater is soft as butter!”

  “It’s cashmere.”

  “And here I am suffering in all this scratchy wool.” She glares down at her thick purple sweater with, what else, strawberry decorations weaved into the pocket. “We have it all wrong here, I’ll tell you, Gus.”

  She looks at him and his eyes are smiling.

  Sitting next to Dad so I can hold his hand while we drive, I glance out the window, watching the falling snow against the gray, stormy sky, trying not to wonder how much time he has left.

  I stay for the whole of winter break, and ours is quiet
routine, watching light snow falling on tall pines from the huge windows next to the roaring fire. I tell Anna and Dad all about school, my classes, my dorm. They love the stories about Karen and her rabbits and want me to bring her out to the ranch sometime. I have so much to say now that my life is only about the positive things I’m doing and none of the bad things I was running from last summer.

  They don’t ask about California. That was in the past. Connecticut is my present. And the ranch. Of course, the ranch is my omnipresent center.

  Dad and I watch the whole mini-series of Lonesome Dove. I sit next to his bed and hold his hand while snowflakes fall and fall and fall outside, piling up in soft, untouched pillows.

  When Robert Duvall’s character, Gus, (how did I forget he shared a name with my dad?) visits Clara and they sit under their favorite apple tree, I think that’s me. No matter where I end up, when I’m old and done, the person I’ll want to see most of all will be Jake, and I’ll do like Gus did with Clara. I’ll come to him wherever he is and maybe by then he’ll have forgiven me for dumping my secrets on him like I did. When he tells me about his sweet, sane cowgirl wife and three healthy strapping ranch kids, he’ll thank me for pushing him away, because I gave him a chance at a normal life without a bunch of baggage. Or, maybe he won’t even recognize me. Maybe I’ll be only a distant memory, but he’ll finally remember and maybe, maybe, he’ll hold my hand by the creek and I’ll tell him it was always him. Always.

  I’ll tell him that when it’s time for me to be buried, like Gus, I’ll ask to be brought here, to Eight Hands Ranch, and have my ashes scattered on our camping spot where we watched Scout run with her herd and slept under a million stars. Where I was alive and free.

  Helluva movie, Dad types. Hellava story.

  “The best story,” I say out loud.

  No, Dad types, this is the best story. You and me right here. You gave me my happy ending, Paige-y. Don’t ever forget it.

  “I love you, Daddy,” I say, and I lean into his weak, broken body and tell him he gave me my happy ending, too.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Dad begins to fade quickly. One night, he falls asleep and doesn’t wake up. He’s still alive, but he’s not coherent. The ranch gives way to quiet time of waiting for the inevitable.

  The still quiet of a long grieve.

  I read to Dad, but I’m not sure if he can hear me anymore. I tell him I love him. I sing him Christmas songs. Mostly I just hold his limp, cold hand and cry.

  Outside, I take long walks in the snow. I stare at the empty corral. The horses have moved to warmer land for the winter, and it’s so quiet without them. Quiet without Scout.

  I see Jake everywhere. Everywhere and nowhere. I long for him to climb the porch stairs and sit with me on the swing, or smile at me from the corral, flicking snow off his hat. They’re silly, these fantasies, but they’re what keep me going on the long, sad days of waiting.

  Anna must know where he is, but she doesn’t tell me and I don’t ask. We are kind and careful and gentle with each other. Like two war widows trying to make it through another day, grateful for warm food and a roof to keep the freshly fallen snow off our heads. The denial tactics I use at college don’t work here. Faced with the reality of what I’ve lost and will surely lose soon, I’m dreading it. Dreading the inevitable. I can’t wait to get back to school, and I never want to leave the ranch.

  The only bright spot is an email with an attached photo of a white sand beach with a bright blue sky. It’s from Greece where Mom and Phil are on a month-long cruise.

  “I’m actually relaxing, Paige. It’s a minor miracle. Inspired by you, honey.”

  I write back that dad is in decline, but I’m so happy for her. That I’m happy they made peace with each other, that I hope she has a wonderful trip. (And I mean it.)

  After Anna falls asleep beside Daddy, I snag the spare key out of the kitchen drawer and crunch through thick, icy snow to Jake’s cabin. My shaking hands take a minute to unlock the door, but I do. I press it open and slip inside.

  It’s only when I close the door behind me that it becomes too much. I burst into tears in the bitter cold living room where he once swept me up into his warm arms. Gingerly, I touch the leather chair where I imagined him having his morning coffee, the arm of the couch where I pictured him reading at the end of the day, his feet hanging over the other end. He’d be reading Hemingway or Steinbeck, or like me and Dad, Lonesome Dove.

  It’s wrong on so many levels, invading his privacy like this, but the dusty smell of the air tells me he hasn’t been here for a while. I need to be with Jake, if only among his things. I check the fridge. A chunk of moldy cheese and some condiment bottles are the only contents.

  Where is he? Did he move away? Travel? Neither sounds like Jake. If something happened to him, Anna would tell me. The quiet way she’s acting, I feel in the silence that he’s fine. That his distance is on purpose. And it’s a punch in the gut.

  I open the bedroom door, stalling a bit before I push it open and peek in. I half expect (want) to find him there sleeping.

  But the bed is made neatly. I press my palm on the quilt and it’s cold. So unlike Jake and his constant warmth. I go back into the living room and light a fire. Jake has a little basket with kindling, newspaper, and matches on his mantel place. I wrap myself up in the blanket that smells like him, lie back on the couch, and watch the flames dance.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  If this were a novel instead of real life, I’d end it like this: I’d be hiking along on the mountaintop and I’d see Scout’s herd, with Scout in the center of it all. I’d call for Jake who would be unpacking our gear. From within the warmth and safety of his arms, I’d watch her frolic in the snow with her family.

  In the city, they’d discover a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease, and by next Christmas, Dad would be walking again, telling jokes with his real voice, wearing jeans and eating steak. He and Anna would ride off into the sunset, the back of their covered wagon reading JUST MARRIED. Jake would squeeze my hand, and we’d exchange a look, knowing we’re next.

  Ty wouldn’t have died. And he wouldn’t have raped me or raped that girl in Brooklyn. Wouldn’t have stalked me or blamed me for his screwed up life. Maybe his mom wouldn’t have left his family at all. Maybe Phil would never have met my mom and maybe my dad wouldn’t have been an alcoholic and Mom wouldn’t have left him. Maybe Jake’s dad would have lived and his mom never left him and he’d never have needed Dad.

  If all of these things fell into place as fate, I never would’ve met Ty.

  But this isn’t fiction.

  And Dad died the night before Christmas.

  I was by his bedside, holding his hand as he took his last, shallow breath, and so was Anna. By that time, he’d withered away into no more than a wax doll of himself, just skin and bones, light as feathers. I kissed his cool skin and, later, we had him cremated.

  Just when we were about to leave on our mounts and head up the mountain to scatter his ashes, I hear a truck rumble up the driveway.

  The conditions are nowhere near perfect—in fact, they’re downright fucking tragic—but the truck rumbling up the driveway is Jake.

  We don’t talk on the ride up the snowy mountain, Anna, Jake, and me.

  When he climbed out of his truck, he’d greeted us, gave me a hug, and said he was sorry about my father’s passing. I clung to him, desperate for him to wrap me in his warmth and let me yell and cry and fall apart. It broke me to look at him. It broke me to hear his voice. More than that, I was angry. Angry that he not only left me, but Dad, too.

  When he let me go, eyes averted and a pained expression on his face, I wanted to slug him. He might think the worst of me—he might find me vile and reprehensible—but the fact that he left Dad without saying goodbye was unforgiveable. Had his years with my dad meant nothing to him?

  We’d had three days to get used to the idea of Dad being gone. Anna folded up his wheelchair and tucked it away, bu
t his stuff was still everywhere and we both missed him so intensely it was like a crack ran through the wood floor, so deep and cragged we were both about to fall into the grief of it all. Jake showing up is at least an emotional distraction, and I find the anger comforting.

  I try my best not to dwell on Jake, but it’s hard not to as I watch him in his brown duster on horseback in front of me, his horse stomping through the thick snow. Fortunately, it isn’t storming. It’s all blue sky and fresh powder—a blue bird, the skiers called it.

  “Here we are,” Anna says when we come to the top of the hill. “You guys ready?”

  Not unlike scattering Ty’s ashes over the side of the boat into the open sea, we, per his request, are set to scatter Dad’s over the snowy mountain cliff where Jake and I once sat on that warm, summer night ages ago.

  The three of us stand side-by-side staring out at the frozen lake, the place where Jake and I found Scout running with her herd. I glance at him and find him watching me. This was Dad’s place, this was our place—it’s the best place.

  “This was your spot.”

  Anna nods. “We came up here all the time moving the cattle.”

  “The second I saw it I knew it was special.”

  “You can just feel it,” she says. “We felt it.”

  I squeeze her gloved hand. “I’m so glad he had you,” I say.

  “You coming back to him made him the happiest of all,” she says to me, her voice firm and true. The toughest woman I know has the softest heart.

  As Anna slips the ashes over the icy cliff, I worry the tears will freeze to our faces.