Page 56 of Everything You Hate
“Yeah, you were.” He picks up the bucket and jerks his chin toward the barn. “He’s on a call till eleven, so you’ve got forty minutes to kill and I’ve got sheep to feed. Come on.”
“I can wait in the car.”
“You could.” He’s already walking. “Nobody’s ever done it, but you could.”
I follow him because following Colter Haven is what you do. He moves through the world like water moves downhill---no hesitation, no calculation, just forward momentum and the certainty that whatever’s at the bottom is worth the trip.
The barn is bigger inside than it looks. Warm, hay-scented, shafts of light cutting through high windows onto a floor swept clean. A radio plays quietly from somewhere---classic rock, turned low. Colter leads me down a center aisle past stalls and tools and the organized chaos of a place where useful things live within reach.
“Most of the livestock is out pasture this time of year. Got a few boarders in the back---neighbor’s horse, couple of goats that belong to Hazel’s friend’s family. The sheep are out except for Dot, who follows people around like a furry therapist and has opinions about pacing.” He sets the bucket on a hook. “Dot! Customer!”
Something shuffles in the back corner. A sheep ambles into the light. Not large, not small, just a sheep---wool the color of dirty snow, dark eyes, a face that expresses nothing and everything at once. She stops three feet from me and stands there, perfectly still, and watches.
“Dot,” Colter says. “This is Scarlett. She’s having A Day. Be nice.”
Dot doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stands there with the patient immobility of something that has never hurried in its life and doesn’t plan to start now.
I crouch. Dot allows this. Her wool is coarse under my fingers, warm from the barn air, and she smells like hay and animal and something earthy I can’t name. I scratch behind her ear the way I would a dog, and she leans into it, just barely, the way a boulder might consent to being touched if it were feeling generous.
“She’s our emotional support livestock,” Colter says. “Showed up one day, no tags, no owner, just walked into the barn like she’d been here forever. Dad says it was Lana. Mom always wanted sheep. Dot’s her way of checking in.” He shrugs. “Could be true. Could be I’m making it up to impress you. Hard to say with Havens. We’re all a little nuts about the people we’ve lost.”
My chest loosens. Just a fraction. A knot giving because somebody stopped pulling.
“Your mom would have liked you,” Colter says. He’s filling a water trough, not looking at me. “She had a thing for strays. Human ones especially. Mimi says that’s why she married Dad. He was the biggest stray on the island, and she couldn’t help herself.”
“Your dad doesn’t strike me as a stray.”
“Wasn’t always a Haven. Changed his name when he married Mom. Kinsella before that. Dock family. Hard workers, not much else. Dad was different. Mom saw it. Married him anyway, which pissed off her mother so thoroughly that Alexandria didn’t speak to her for two years.” He grins. “Worth it, though. They were stupid about each other. The kind of stupid that makeseveryone else uncomfortable because it’s so obvious they’d rather be nowhere else.”
I think of Dean. The only Kinsella left at the dinner table. The one who didn’t get the choice.
“Dean’s like that,” Colter says, like he’s reading my mind. “The stubborn kind. Holds onto things until his hands bleed, then pretends the blood isn’t his.” He sets the bucket down. “He’s been worse since you showed up. Grumpier. More present, which is its own kind of alarming. Usually he’s on the boat or on the dock or somewhere we can’t find him. Last three days he’s been everywhere. Fixing things that aren’t broken. Checking weather reports every ten minutes. Captain’s picked up seven new phrases, all of them variations onfuck this.”
I stare at the floor. The barn dust is fine and golden in the light.
“He didn’t mean it,” Colter says. “Whatever he said. He says things he doesn’t mean when he’s scared, and he’s been scared since the day you fell in the harbor.”
“Your uncle is many things, Colter. Scared isn’t one of them.”
“Dean?” Colter laughs. The sound bounces off the barn walls. “Dean’s the most terrified person I know. He’s just better at hiding it than most. Coast Guard’ll do that to you. Teaches you to look calm while everything’s coming apart.” He sobers. “Something happened out there. Nobody knows what. He came home different. Won’t talk about it. Won’t let anyone help. Carries it around like it’s his to carry alone, and the weight of it is killing him by inches, and the worst part is he thinks he deserves it.”
The barn goes quiet. Dot shifts her weight. The radio plays something with too much guitar.
“I shouldn’t have told you that.” Colter scratches the back of his neck. “Forget I said it. Family habit. We overshare. Drives Bodhi insane.”
“It’s okay.” My throat is tight. “I already knew most of it. Mimi talks.”
“Mimi talks because Dean doesn’t. Somebody has to.” He picks up the bucket again. “Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the place before I take you to see the CEO. Fair warning: he’s in a mood. Dock permits got denied again. Malcolm’s playing hardball.”
We walk the property. Colter points out the vegetable garden Henry tends, the greenhouse where Shea grows herbs for the resort kitchen, the treehouse Bodhi built when he was sixteen that’s now Hazel’s domain. He talks about his siblings the way people talk about weather---as facts, as forces, as things that simply are. Bodhi, carrying the weight. Shea, holding the center. Piper, building her quiet kingdom of books. Wren, figuring it out one mistake at a time. Zade, gone so long he’s half ghost. Knox, fighting fires somewhere in Montana and calling when he can.
It’s the most anyone has ever told me about themselves without being asked, and Colter does it like he’s describing the furniture.
We’re crossing the yard toward the shed when a massive shape detaches itself from the porch shadows and lumbers toward us. A Newfoundland mix, black as oil. She knows exactly how big she is and does not care whether I’m ready for it.
“Babuska.” Colter crouches. The dog walks into his chest and leans, hard, until Colter braces himself against her weight. “Family therapy dog. Unofficial. She showed up the same week Dot did. Coincidence, probably. Or Mom’s running a relocation service for displaced animals from beyond the grave. Hard to say.”
Babuska turns her enormous head and looks at me. Her eyes are dark and calm and older than they have any right to be. She doesn’t bark. Doesn’t wag. Just looks, the way Dot looked, like she’s taking inventory.
