Page 2 of The CEO and the Mountain Man

That didn’t happen.

His last semester of high school was a total loss. Rather than going to summer school or enduring another semester in thefall, he begged me to let him take the GED. I agreed, thinking it would help him turn a corner. More crazy wishful thinking on my part.

All I had left of Monica was a son with a hole blown right through the middle of his chest. My bright, shiny boy, who used to like pink, had painted like an artist, and wanted to marry the weatherman, now only dressed in black. His hair, my exact boring brown, traded for a dark, iridescent raven. His favorite pink sparkle lip gloss, swapped for plain onyx nails.

We went to grief counseling, of course. Together, separately. His therapist thought I should let him set the timeline and lead the way. My therapist thought I was too hung up on my son’s new, black aesthetic. She wanted me to treat it like a new phase of adolescence. Growth pains of the worst kind.

Deep in my soul, however, I knew something was happening that was bigger than our heartbreak and sorrow.

I was losing him. Not even bit by bit or chunk by chunk. This wasn’t the same as puberty, where every parent struggled to keep up with the small, daily shifts because of hormones and socialization.

No, I knew my boy. Essential parts of his soul had been sheared off. It reminded me of the last family trip we took together. A cruise to Alaska to see the glaciers. Awe-inspiring in their size and yet sobering as massive blocks of ice broke off and dramatically plunged into the water.

Too late, I realized River had become that glacier. Reshaping from one minute to the next. Losing parts of himself he wasn’t meant to lose.

To say I was desperate was an understatement.

Therapy was a Band-Aid. His friends didn’t know how to be there for a sad boy who’d lost something they’d never thought a kid could lose. I could hardly blame them; even my own friends struggled to connect with me.

After months of silent dinners and sullen walks down Michigan Avenue, I would’ve tried anything. Paid any amount of money.

My one friend who’d lost her sister when they were teens sent me a social media link for Snow Creek Ranch in Colorado. It was queer-owned and had a dedicated activities coordinator for teenagers. According to the gorgeous photos on Insta, the coordinator was a huge mountain of a man with gentle eyes and a nice smile. Gay, with a cowboy hat. And a degree in Adolescent Developmental Psychology from CU Boulder. Maybe he’d be someone River could talk to.

Added bonus: the ranch had private, comfy cabins out by a creek. My friend knew I’d need amenities to make it all work.

I grimaced when I thought about what this heads-up from her meant. I suspected she was interested, but the idea of dating, let alone romance … no. I couldn’t bear the thought of it while my boy suffered.

Her suggestion, though, landed. I clicked on the link, saw the mountains and the horses, and thought maybe we could use something out of our comfort zone. And, hey. Maybe he’d find a cute cowboy to … uh ... Actually, I didn’t want to think about my son’s sex life.

I knew he had one, made sure he had the supplies he needed to be safe, and left it at that.

Either way, I didn’t consult with River. I didn’t for one second consider that we were both city boys with no real desire to be at one with nature. I simply booked our stay, and that was that.

Not happy to stop there, I decided that instead of flying into Denver and renting a car to get to the ranch, we’d drive in. I was surprised when River agreed to it.

In retrospect, I wondered if he’d just stopped caring enough to push back.

While the decision to bring my son to a dude ranch had been a questionable one, deciding that what we really needed was to be trapped in a car for two days haddefinitelybeen a mistake.

After an entire day of forced conversation, I decided to stop trying. I’d let him lead the way on the second day—pretty sure that’s what my therapist would want me to do, anyway.

This resulted in hours of absolute silence, punctuated only by bathroom stop requests and drive-through orders. Nothing was said about the towering Rocky Mountains, or the gorgeous high mountain plains, or the blue sky that seemed to go on forever, or the magenta and orange sunset that sent fractals of light into puffy clouds.

I had high hopes for our trip to the grocery store in Fort Collins, but he stayed in the car. Even as we crossed onto Snow Creek Ranch, dotted with horses and cowboys and a stunning expanse of nature … not one word was uttered.

Despite the fact that money hadn’t been an issue for us for a long time, my first thought as I parked at the main house was that I’d wasted a significant amount of cash on a venture that was probably going to do the opposite of whatever I was trying to accomplish. I was a clueless, aimless father, bound to be a cautionary tale. Destined to be yet another parent whose child couldn’t stand to talk to him.

Having just spent a thousand miles on the road in near silence, we were already practically no contact.

When the owners, a city boy-slash-country boy odd couple if ever there was one, came out to greet us, my son grunted his answers. Lucas and Jesse were only briefly taken aback. I was thankful that at least they maintained a kind exterior.

“To get to your rental, go back to the main road and turn left,” Jesse said, handing me a paper map and the key fob to the cabin. “Take the bridge over Snow Creek and follow the road around the bend. Yours is the third cabin.”

I perused the map and identified where we were. Our cabin was just across the swollen creek that ran next to the building where we were parked. Meanwhile, River looked at me like I was the most cringeworthy human being on the planet.

“What?” I asked, still a little salty from hundreds of miles of sullen silence.

“You don’t need the map, Dad. It’s on their website,” he said, shaking his phone at me, “and there are signs everywhere.”