Stripped Down

J.J. nods as if that’s a foregone conclusion. Hell. Maybe my feelings are written right on my face for everyone to see. “You got a plan?”

Not a good one. Fuck being responsible.

“Yeah,” I lie. “I have a plan.”

ROSE

Angel and I will never work.

I stand on Auntie Dee’s front porch—on our front porch—and watch the sun come up. The yard and the house are shadows at first, comforting shapes that are familiar but indistinct. In the dark, I can’t see the million and one reasons why I can’t keep this place. Even if I had a dollar for each flaw, the money wouldn’t be enough. Some things are too broken to fix.

Some things you just have to tear down.

The sun starts to edge higher, the light grows, and I realize a couple of things. This is my last sunrise here on this porch. I think about taking out my phone, snapping pictures, but then I decide I’ll just go with my memories. I know those memories will blur. Maybe I’ll forget. The details won’t be as crisp and I won’t keep all of them. That’s okay. I’d rather filter them with my head and my heart anyhow.

Some things you just have to let go.

Angel is one of those things. I sink down onto the top step, sitting cross-legged. The wood planks are still cool and slightly damp from the dew underneath my butt and my bare legs. I never expected us to last forever, either. I’ll keep those memories, too. I’ll probably be that old woman in the nursing home who tells story after story to anyone who will listen, reliving her glorious past. She’s lost in her memories but happy, while you’re looking at her and wondering how someone who looks like her lived all these things and yet ended up in a nursing home, alone and talking to you. She’d tell you it’s okay. Some things you let go and some things you remember.

I’ll remember Angel, but I’m also letting him go.

But first there’s something I can do for him. I don’t like accepting help, but Angel refuses it altogether. He’s the steer that won’t go down that chute, no matter what you do—and he belongs out here, running wild and free on his land, bellowing and fighting with the other steer and bossing them around. He’s glorious and a pain in the ass and he makes my heart hurt. He’s going to be one of my good memories, though. The sun climbs a little higher, the yard grows a little clearer, and I let go of the crap.

Angel’s not perfect, but neither am I. Perfect would actually be fucking boring. So I sit there, enjoying our yard for the last time as the sun pops all the way over the horizon and the light spills everywhere. The birds are belting out hellos to each other, or maybe they’re hooking up, finding their mates or their baby daddies, and it’s all good.

Rory wanders out of our RV hours later with a cup of coffee in his hand. He offers it to me silently, and I take it. He sits down on the lower step, resting his head on my knee. Coffee, a good friend, and memories to last a lifetime. Things could be so much worse. I know what I have to do next.

“I’m going into town,” I tell him. He tilts his head back, waiting for me to finish. “I’m signing the papers. I’m selling Angel my half.”

He rests his cheek against my knee for a minute. “You sure, baby girl?”

“Very,” I tell him and it’s true. Angel needs the water. That would be enough for me right there, but Blackhawk also needs the water. There are good men working here, fighting to hang onto a way of life that’s slowly disappeared around them while they were riding the range and wrangling cattle. They’re a different kind of memory and I’m going to hold onto them, too.

He snorts. “Angel’s gonna shit when he realizes you just rode to his rescue.”

I grin and gently push his head off my knee so I can stand up. “That’s the icing on the cupcake.”

Maybe he would have found another way to bring water to Blackhawk—if anyone could work a miracle, it’s Angel—but I like thinking that I’m choosing to make him this gift. He’d presented me with an ultimatum. He’d pointed out that he could force me to sell by taking me to court. That put him in control, which is what he want. I’m giving him what he wants, but on my terms. I’m the one in control, and that’s going to bug the hell out of him. It will be good for him.

I’m still grinning when I drive away from Auntie Dee’s for the last time.

I sign the papers.

Seemingly a hundred times in triplicate, my signature getting looser and lighter as I work my way through the stack of papers the lawyer handed me, I sign over the house and the surrounding ranch land to Angel. I already told Rory that I’m not going back to Auntie Dee’s. I’ve got those good memories stored up in my head like a squirrel preparing for winter, and that’s the note on which I want to end things. After I finish with Mitch—who clearly thinks I’m crazy for selling my share in the ranch for a fraction of what it’s worth when I could stick Angel for a small fortunate—the plan is to get back into my car and drive. Somewhere. Anywhere. We’re just going to pick a direction. Rory will follow me in the RV. He thinks we should head to Vegas, camp for a while in some casino parking garage while we figure out our next step. Maybe they’ll need more tattoo artists in Vegas.