Page 44 of Love Wells Kept

The room’s silent except for the droning buzz in my ears that’s been unrelenting since I woke up in the hospital.

“I’ve been trying, but it’s not there. I don’t remember holding her. I don’t know what Kate looked like, or what we said to each other after Odessa was born—and did we always know she’d be named Odessa, or were there other names on the list? Did I cry when I saw her?”

I squeeze the bridge of my nose between my finger and thumb.

“You caught her,” Denny says. “The doctor asked if you wanted to step in and help catch your baby, and you were all about it, apparently. For months, you wouldn’t stop talking about how that was the greatest thing you’d ever done.”

I squeeze my eyes shut again, trying to force an image. I need to see that moment. Feel it. I want the thought of catching my newborn daughter to matter to me the way it’s supposed to.

Yet nothing comes.

It’s like I know the lyrics to the song but can’t hear the music.

“Fuck.” My fist strikes the mattress beside me.

My brother’s hand quickly grabs mine midair as I go for a second strike. “Bud, the memories will come when they come. You can’t force this shit.”

“I can’t even remember meeting Kate,” I admit. “I look at her and the kids, and they feel like…like someone else’s life I got dropped into. And everybody keeps acting like I’m going to wake up one day and be the man I was. What if that doesn’t happen?”

Denny doesn’t hesitate. “Then you’ll make new memories because the people matter more than the stories, and we’re all still here.”

“You’re all out there, and I’m in here.” I suck cool air through my teeth, grappling with the pressure building behind my eyeballs. “Everything fucking hurts, and the drugs make me feel so hopeless and despondent, I want to die. Consider yourself really goddamn lucky you don’t know what this is like and leave me alone.”

I roll to my side, facing the window and the big maple tree. A distant mountain range leaves only a sliver of sky in my field of view, snowcapped and blanketed by the same sun that warms my bed. The brightness exacerbates the throbbing in my skull. I should get up and close the curtains, but I can’t be bothered.

“Leave, Denny.”

The mattress shifts, and a second later the door hinges gently whine.

“You don’t have to be okay, but don’t shut us out while you aren’t,” Denny says before leaving.

The pain climbs until my vision blurs. Unable to make out the leaves or the curtains bracketing the window, I roll to my other side and pray for sleep or death, whichever comes first. Press my face to a pillow and breathe through the searing pain and accompanying nausea. Let the day pass without me, just like all the others.

Kate

I watch Odessa with bittersweet nostalgia hung in my throat. Seems like it was yesterday when she was tucked safely in a baby carrier strapped to my chest while Jackson and I rode. Today she’s riding one of Jackson’s geldings with the seat and technique of someone who’s been working with horses for years, plaited hair bouncing on her back with each step down the narrow, rocky trail back to the ranch.

“You’re a natural,” I say.

She grins over her shoulder. “That’s what Daddy always says.”

“Well, he’s right. And that’s a big compliment coming from someone with as much talent as he has.” I fidget with the reins, staring past her at the house in the distance. There’s no telling whether Jackson will ever get back to being one of the best horse trainers around. People from all over the province sought him out. And now…

“One day I’m gonna train horses just like him,” Odessa says.

“That’s a great pl—”

“Or I’ll be a cat rescue person.”

I laugh, remembering Austin’s exasperation over the thought of Odessa turning the ranch into a cat sanctuary. “You can always be both.”

With a thoughtful nod, she pinches her lips together. “Is Daddy still gonna get me a horse?”

All the emotion in my throat binds together in a hard-to-swallow mass. “Oh…well…yeah. Yeah, we’ll make sure you get a horse, baby. Right now, he just…”

Doesn’t want to leave bed. Barely wants to interact with the kids.

It’s been a month since his accident, and though I know recovery from a traumatic brain injury is a slow process, it’s hard not to feel frustrated watching him refuse to leave the bedroom for days on end. I can’t bear to think this might be our new normal.