Page 62 of A Taste of Whiskey
“The same way you do with people. You give them access to each other and make sure there’s no aggressive behavior. Dream was a doll with her tonight. After you left, I put them in special adjoining stalls that have welded wire between them instead of a wooden panel. There are no sharp edges, so Posey can’t hurt herself, but she can put her nose against it to feel closer to Dream. Horses are herd animals, and I’m hoping that’ll help her feel safe.”
“That makes sense. But then what? Will she be able to go out in the pasture with other horses?”
“There’s no reason she can’t have a full, happy life. As far as being pastured with the herd goes, we’ll probably keep her closer to home with Dream and eventually maybe another horse or two. We want to protect her from being bullied. We’ll see how she progresses, like you would with a kid.”
“That makes sense.” He started massaging her other foot.
“Godthat feels good. I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this skill from me for all these years.”
He worked his way up her calf. “We haven’t exactly had a hands-on relationship until recently.”
She took another drink and set her mug on the end table. “I’m glad we have one now.” She cocked her head with a curious expression. “I had you pegged as an acts-of-service love-language guy, but now I’m thinking physical touch might be your love language.”
“My love language? Have you been reading Birdie’s magazines again?”
She laughed. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
“You made everyone at the dinner table take a quiz called How Single Are You?”
She rolled her eyes. “That was at least three years ago. Let it go.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Consider it gone…for now.”
“Whatever. Have you always been a touchy person? I know you’ve always loved on Gus, but I mean with other people?”
“Not really. You know how my dad is. He loves me, but there’s never been a lot of outward affection there.”
“What about your mom? Was she a hugger?”
“I think she was when I was little. I have memories of being hugged and told she loved me, but after things got bad between her and my dad, I think it changed.”
“When did that start changing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe when I was ten or eleven. After she left, a lot of those happier feelings got buried beneath hurt and anger.”
“That’s understandable. I know you don’t have a relationship with her now, but did she ever try after she left?”
“Not really.” He met her gaze, glad his hands were busy. “She reached out six months after she moved to tell us she’d gone to Greece and was staying with her parents. Honestly, I didn’t want anything to do with her at that point. It wasn’t until a few years later, when I went through therapy with your mom, that I started to deal with those emotions.”
“I’m glad my mom was able to help.”
“Me too. She changed the way I viewed everything. She helped me see that people are flawed and that I had a right to be hurt and angry, but if I didn’t want to carry that into future relationships, I needed to deal with it. And I did. It was tough, and it took a while, but we got through it.”
She shifted her feet off his lap and scooted closer, taking his hand. “Is this too hard to talk about?”
“It’s a little uncomfortable, but given our relationship, you should know what I’ve been through.”
“Thank you for trusting me. How did you deal with it? I mean, other than talking to my mom.”
“She got me writing letters to my parents that I never sent, to get all those bad feelings out of my system. There was so much fury and vitriol on those early pages, it’s no wonder I was a mess.”
“You weren’t a mess. You were brokenhearted, and rightly so. I’ve known enough people who have gone through that to understand how it affects everything else in your life.”
“That’s true, but I was still a mess, and I’m okay with admitting that. Hurt, anger, confusion, feelings of not being worthy of my mother’s love. That’s pretty fucking messy, babe. I’m sure it bothers you to hear it, but let’s deal with reality.”
“It doesn’t bother me. It makes me sad that you felt that way and mad that your parents put you through it.”
“See?Messy.” He leaned in and kissed her. “But over time I crawled out of the mess. I began to understand my feelings better, and what I wrote shifted from blame to seeking answers.”
