There’s a lot I know I need to be grateful for, and Amy is one of those things. It’s just really hard to be grateful when there’s only one thing I want in my life, and I feel like I’m just getting further and further from that.
Ledger returns to the truck with our snow cones. There are sprinkles on mine, and I know that’s a small thing, but I make note of it. Maybe if I acknowledge all the good things, no matter how small, they’ll add up to make the bad thing in my life less painful.
“Do you ever bring Diem here?” I ask him.
He uses his spoon to point down the street. “The dance studio is about a block that way,” he says. “I drop her off and Grace picks her up. She’s hard to say no to, so I’m a regular here.” He sticks his spoon in his mouth and then opens his wallet and pulls out a business card. There are tiny little snow cones hole-punched around it. “Close to getting a free one,” he says, tucking it back in his wallet.
It makes me laugh. “Impressive.” I wish I would have gone up to order with him just so I could see him hand in his snow cone punch card.
“Banana and lemonade.” He looks over at me after taking a bite. “That’s her favorite combination.”
I smile. “Is yellow her favorite color?”
He nods.
I stick my spoon into the yellow part of my snow cone and dig out a bite. These little tidbits he gives me are something else I’m appreciative of. They’re tiny parts of the whole, and maybe if he gives me enough of them, it won’t hurt as bad when I have to leave.
I try to think about something to talk about that isn’t Diem. “What does the house you’re building look like?”
Ledger picks up his phone and checks the time, and then puts his truck in reverse. “I’ll take you to see it. Razi and Roman can cover us for a while.”
I take another bite and don’t say anything, but I don’t think he realizes what his willingness to show me his new house means to me.
The Landrys might have filed a restraining order against me, but at least Ledger trusts me.
I have that to cling to, and I cling to it hard.
Once we’re at least fifteen miles outside of town, we turn into an area with a big wooden entryway that says Cheshire Ridge, and then we begin to make our way up a winding road. The trees cover the road like they’re hugging it. The sides of the road are dotted with mailboxes every quarter to half a mile.
None of the houses can be seen from the road. The mailboxes are the only clues that people even live out here, because the trees are so dense. It’s peaceful and secluded. I can see why he chose this area.
We come to a piece of property that’s so thick with trees you can’t even see most of the driveway from the road. There’s a stake in the ground where I assume the mailbox will eventually go. There are columns that look like they’ll end up being a privacy gate someday.
“Do you have close neighbors out here?”
He shakes his head. “Not for a half mile, at least. The property is on a ten-acre tract.”
We pull onto the property, and eventually, a house begins to take shape through the trees. It isn’t what I expected. This house isn’t your average large manor-style home with a peaked roof. It’s spread out and flat and unique, built of some kind of material I don’t recognize.
I didn’t peg Ledger to want something so modern and unusual. I don’t know why I pictured a log cabin or something more traditional. Maybe because he mentioned he and Roman were building it, and I just expected it to be a little less . . . complicated.
We get out of the truck, and I try to imagine Diem out here, running around this yard, playing on the patio, roasting marshmallows in the firepit out on the back deck.
Ledger shows me around, but I can’t grasp this type of lifestyle, not even for my daughter. The countertops in the outdoor kitchen that overlook the backyard are probably worth more than everything I’ve ever owned in my entire life added up.
There are three bedrooms, but the main bedroom is the highlight for me, with a ridiculous closet almost as big as the bedroom itself.
I admire the house and listen to him talk excitedly about everything he and Roman have done by hand, and while it is impressive, it’s also depressing.
This is a house my daughter will spend time in, which means it’s likely a house I’ll never return to again. As much as I enjoy watching him show off his space, I also don’t want to see it now that I’m here.