The showin Bozeman was a few days later and I still hadn’t spoken to Horse. Even though Kat wanted me to talk to him, she agreed to coordinate the show in such a way that I wouldn’t have to see him at all. It went off without a hitch. At my set time, I went onstage, performed, and then scurried back to the safety of Kat’s dressing room. Horse didn’t try to see me, so it was obvious that I was making the right choice.
Sean was touching up Kat’s makeup and all my brothers but Bill were piled into her dressing room, splayed all over the furniture like it was the hayloft in our barn. And my father was quietly overseeing us from a chair in the corner.
“I still can’t get over you up there, Sarah,” Luke said.
“Right?” Wyatt said. “She looked grown. Like our baby sister’s not a baby anymore.”
Ever since I came off the stage, my brothers were in a stunned state of realizing I wasn’t eight anymore.
I rolled my eyes and said to Cody, “They never treat you like a baby.”
“I don’t act like one,” he retorted.
“Oh, please.”
Maddie, Luke’s wife, who was sitting on his lap, said, “Y’all are ridiculous. Sarah has been grown as long as I’ve known her.”
Kat interjected, “Trust me, at eight, she was more grown than these fools.”
Luke, who was always a little too intuitive, said, “But was she always sad? Because I’m reading a lot of sad lately.”
I smarted, “Ya know I’m sitting here, right?”
“She does look a little blue,” Wyatt said, inspecting my face like I was a pregnant heifer.
“Again, in the room, y’all.”
Kat threw herself under the bus to rescue me from their inane curiosity.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
All the faces turned to her. But it was my father who stood, already teary.
“A baby?” he asked.
Kat nodded.
“For me?” he said, silly and laughing, his arms spread wide as he moved to hug her.
She nodded again.
“How did you know that’s what I wanted?” he said, jovial.
She shrugged, smiling and standing to fall into his hug.
There was a lot of hugging and kissing and back-slapping because, around my brothers, there is always back-slapping, and then we all heard Bill yelling in the hall.
Wyatt pulled open the door because he’s a busybody and if someone was yelling, he wanted to be a witness.
Bill screamed, “No! You can’t just talk to her for one minute. You can’t ever talk to her again. I trusted you to protect my baby sister and you slept with her. So now you don’t get to see her. Period. You are lucky you have a fucking job. I would have fired you. In fact, I am still arguing for your release, asshole.”
Over the course of Bill’s rant, all my siblings and my father had filtered out the door of Kat’s dressing room and were eyeing up Horse as he absorbed my brother’s wrath. Horse looked how I felt. There were dark circles under his eyes and his pallor was gray. I hated to see him like that, but more than that, I was roaring angry at my brother. Horse’s eyes landed on mine and I could see the sorrow there, the desperation, but also, I could see that nothing was different. He didn’t come here to make it right. He came here still wanting to apologize for taking what wasn’t his. Fuck that.
Kat started to speak, but I stopped her by screaming. I screamed out all the fucking rage I felt in my chest, all the sorrow and pain I’d been feeling, and then when I was done screaming, I said, “Bill, if you interfere in my life one more time, I promise you, I will never speak to you again for as long as I live.”
Next to me, I heard Wyatt whisper, “This is getting good.”
Then I pointed at Horse while I turned to my brothers. “I fell in love with that man right there. He has tattoos and scars and pain, and his life has been fucking complicated. But he was good to me and I had sex with him. Any of you have an issue with that?”
“Nope,” Luke said immediately.
They all looked a little shell-shocked.
“I’m good. I’d like to know a little less, but I’m good,” Cody offered.
“I think he’s cute,” Wyatt joked.
Still spitting mad, I continued. “It’s over now. We both feel bad about it but it’s done. And each and every one of you are going to treat him with kindness.” I turned to Bill. “And no one is getting fired. Got it?”
Bill nodded.
I turned, heading back toward Kat’s dressing room. As I passed my father, I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Sorry, Daddy.”
He shook his head and said, “Proud as ever, baby girl, proud as ever.”