914 Bittersweet Ln. (A Cherry Falls Romance)

Holt

The September sun is relentless in that perfect sorta way and I can’t help but smile. Never imagined being back in my hometown, had other plans, that’s for damn sure, but it’s honest work and there’s something to be said for that.

“You coming out tonight?” Austin asks as we leave the livestock barn. I’m headed toward the parking lot, ready to find myself dinner after a long day in the pasture. Austin lives here along with lots of the ranchers who rent rooms at Cherry Blossom Ranch.

“Tipsy Cow?” I ask.

He nods. “Always. Devil in the Highway’s playing tonight. So you best bring your dancing shoes.”

I grin. “Sounds good. I’ll wear my boots.”

Austin laughs, knowing me well. Line dancing at the local dive bar is my favorite way to cut loose after a long week. Dancing has always been easy for me – my mama taught me when I was young. I wish when she looked at me now, she could remember.

In my Chevy, I turn on the ignition and hand crank down the window. This truck's old, older than me. It was my pa's before he passed and he left it to me, which means something.

I don't have a lot from when he was alive. And my ma, with her memory as it is, there's not a lot of stories to tell. There's regret with that, of course, that I shouldn’t have left the moment I turned eighteen, shouldn’t have been so damn determined to make it on my own. I wish I had stayed around a hell of a lot longer, made sure to sit and listen at the table after dinner when I was still a kid instead of always running off with my friends.

Now when I sit with Ma, she looks off in the distance, unable to remember much except the last moment. Her early-onset dementia changed things for her, changed things for me, too.

Not wanting to get lost in too much sadness, I turn on the radio, and Willie Nelson’s “Our Song” comes on. I shake my head. Damn, this song was my ma’s favorite. My pops would play it for her after a long week. They’d dance, hand in hand, in the living room. I wish she could remember. I sure do. With my hand on the tuner, I nearly turn it off, overcome with sadness, but instead, I turn up the volume, leaning into the happy memory.

Life always feels so damn heavy. That's why I like working these fields. This job, it was simple enough to get. I used to do this work when I was in high school. When I wasn't on the baseball field, I'd come out here all summer and fall, rounding up cattle, counting tails and heads, getting livestock ready to go to auction. Now I'm doing it again, just higher on the pay scale.

My stomach grumbles, and I look at the time. I guess it took Austin and I longer today to finish up our duties, which makes sense, considering it's the end of the season. Soon enough, we'll be replanting hay and getting ready for the winter. But now, it's a slow month. Everything's been sold and we're just getting things ready again to turn over.

We're not farmers, and we don't work with the horses. I'm a cattle rancher and the work is honest. That's why I like it. There's no games out there in the pasture. The cattle, they don't lie. And Austin, he's new in town, but he's a good guy. He's a solid one to be working with, and it’s good to have a buddy to meet up with at the Tipsy Cow on Friday nights.

I don't usually go out to eat at restaurants. My ma may not have much of a memory, but she can follow a recipe and the kitchen is usually stocked. While I'm working, she has a nurse who's at the house who walks through recipes with her. It keeps my ma happy, occupied. And even if she doesn't remember me, I know she likes to see me smile as I eat a slice of the apple pie she’s baked or the casserole she's prepared. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes are her specialty. Ma knows how to make her son smile.

But I know she's taken care of tonight. One thing I made sure to do, well, hell, my therapist told me I had to do, was make sure that one night a week I had a night caregiver for her so that I could just think about myself, about the fact I am a 29-year-old man who altered his life plan to make sure his mother is taken care of.

It felt selfish at first, but hell, I figured the therapist went to college and studied this shit, so she probably knew what she was talking about. And, it turns out, it's been good for me.