There, my welcome was much more heart-warming. Della intercepted us as Jacob pulled to a stop outside a lovely one-story house drenched in dusky pinks and the last threads of orange from sunset.
She gathered me in a motherly hug, kissed my cheek, made a fuss of my arrival.
Jacob had taken my suitcase inside, leaving me alone with his mother. Two seconds later, he reappeared, smiled at Della, tipped his hat at me, then hopped into the dinged-up truck and drove away.
My eyes tracked him, following the plume of dust as he made his way over a meadow, toward the treeline where a rustic cabin could barely be distinguished amongst the woods.
I worried that the moment he left me, I’d second-guess everything. I feared I’d become embarrassed by how I reacted seeing him again. That the urge to call my dad and request a rescue mission from his crazy surprise would swamp me.
But nothing happened.
I stayed present and focused and happy.
I still couldn’t believe how I’d gone from being in school in Scotland to sleeping in Jacob Wild’s bed. The day after Dad and I had our chat, I’d found an envelope with flight tickets on my dresser and a note that read, ‘Be a farm girl for a few weeks. Try a new character on for size.’
I’d tried to argue. I didn’t want to leave him because I didn’t want him to worry about me. But he’d been adamant.
So here I was.
Sleeping under the same roof as Della Wild. Replacing her son who no longer lived at home with a girl she would never have known if it wasn’t for a book secretly published by her husband.
I didn’t expect to sleep.
I fully expected to stay awake with racing thoughts.
But slowly, surely, my eyes closed, my heart quietened, and for the first time since I’d slept on my own in the stable at Cherry River, I found the place where safety and adventure collided. Where hard work promised great rewards. Where dirt triumphed over clean.
And I slept.
* * * * *
“I was perfectly fine with toast, Mom. Stop your damn fussing.”
I paused in the corridor, tugging on a grey sweater and yanking my ponytail from the neckline. No one had come to wake me, and the sun shone through the skylights and windows as if angry with me for wasting one moment of its brightness.
“I can fuss all I want. You’ve been working since five a.m. Toast isn’t enough when you’re pulling the hours you do. Now shut up, sit down, eat your eggs, and be grateful.”
Once again, my skill at eavesdropping came in handy as I inched toward the end of the corridor and leaned against the wall. I couldn’t see Jacob or Della, but thanks to the open plan space, they sounded so close.
A noise I’d never heard before and one that set fire to all my nerve endings rippled through the living room.
A laugh.
A carefree, indulgent, loving laugh.
Masculine and deep and pure.
I never knew Jacob could sound so…at ease. So content. So…normal.
“Always so bossy.” He chuckled, his mouth full of whatever Della had cooked for him.
“Always a mom,” she replied, pots and pans clanked loudly in the sink as she cleaned up. “If you’re not careful, you’ll starve.”
“Believe me, I won’t starve.”
“You’re right. Not while I’m around to feed you.”
Another chuckle from Jacob, but this one was strained with the thread of pain I was familiar with. Did anyone else hear it? Did his family see how difficult he found being loved? Or was it just me and my fascination with death?
Because it was death that vibrated in Jacob.
Or at least…fear of death.
When I was going through my obsession after Mom passed, I couldn’t stop watching YouTube and the strange and wonderful content people uploaded there. Extremely personal stuff like eulogies at family funerals, burials of beloved pets, and goodbye letters from loved ones.
I’d watched them to see if I could understand where a soul went once it left its mortal shell. I studied each as if they held the answer on how to contact the afterlife and bring my mom back from the grave.
No such answers were revealed.
But an underlying theme existed.
Each video, every tear and hug and goodbye, resonated with the same mistrust of life, the same disillusionment of living—the same fear of loss because that loss would come again and again because we humans didn’t just love one thing. We loved countless things, which meant countless ways of being hurt.
When Mom first killed herself, I felt that way too. I’d shy away when Dad tried to hug me. I’d pull back from a kiss, and close my heart to affection. I was terrified of loving Dad so much that he’d leave me like Mom did.
But that just added emptiness to my loneliness, and I threw myself into loving even harder. I fell in love with Keeko and Dad all over again and promised myself that no matter the pain, I would be strong enough to give them my heart, knowing they’d take a piece when they died.