Page 15 of Rancher's Return

“Yeah. I guess I haven’t been in opposition to the boys much. But that’s a real thing with foster kids... They either test you and try to drive you away, or you end up in a honeymoon phase where they’re trying to be good so they don’t lose you. I would say the boys have been much more on the honeymoon track. So I guess this is kind of my trial by fire. At least, I hope it is.”

He felt silly, and a bit naive, saying that. Because he knew full well that all three of those boys had been in much bigger trouble than being caught in a girl’s bedroom.

“They’ve been through a lot,” he said. “Colton... Listen, Colton’s story is his to tell. He’s a good kid. If I thought he was going to be a danger to your daughter in any way...”

“It’s weird,” Marigold said, taking a step back from him. “I have a hard time looking at you and seeing who you were. But if I think too hard about the Buck Carson I used to know, all of this feels like pretty strange things for you to say.”

“I know. I get that. I don’t exactly know why you would trust me. But I’m not lying to you. He’s a good kid. Twenty years is a long time.”

“Yes it is. It’s a very long time. A lifetime. It’s more years than my brother lived. We might as well address that. Because it is the elephant in the room, whether we want it to be or not.”

“I have no problem hearing you out. If there’s something you need to say.” He hadn’t exactly anticipated having this conversation standing at the edge of this carnival, but whatever needed to happen, he was just going to let it happen.

“I’m not angry at you. At least, I didn’t think I was. But... I guess theoretical forgiveness is a lot easier when the person isn’t around. But here you are. My brother is gone and you’ve had twenty more years on this earth.” She shook her head. “So have I. And... I can’t say that I feel entirely neutral about you. But I have a better appreciation now for how young you were. When I was thirteen you seemed like a grown man. But now my daughter is seventeen, and I know that eighteen is not grown. And I don’t think you should have to suffer for something that happened all those years ago.”

“But Jason did,” Buck replied. “Jason, Ryan and Joey did. That’s what it comes down to. We made a mistake. A youthful mistake. And because of that mistake they died, and I got a second chance. It was all a matter of being in a different car. Choosing to drive myself because I didn’t want to sit in the back seat. Or whatever the reason was, I don’t really remember. But I do know that what happened was not fair. You are right about that. There is nothing at all fair about the fact that a mistake for them was final, while for me it wasn’t.”

“You really have changed.”

“I have. Because in the aftermath of their deaths, when you came and yelled at me in the street, it confirmed what I already thought about myself. And if I was the bad guy, then it meant I got to go off and continue to be the bad guy. I got to go off and continue to serve myself. Which was what I did. For a number of years, Marigold, I’m not going to lie about that. But one night I picked myself up, and I decided to change the way I was doing things. I decided to make living matter. I needed living to matter. I needed their lives to matter. I needed their deaths to matter. That’s why I’m here now. That’s why I have the boys.”

“Three boys.”

He nodded. “That’s why.”

“It feels so complicated.”

“It is. But I came back because I thought it was all right for me to be back here now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“When I left, it was because I thought staying meant visiting hardship on my family that I didn’t want them to go through. At least that’s the story I tell myself to try and make it seem like I’m not totally selfish. But the truth is, there was an element of selfishness to it. Of course there was. I wanted to lick my wounds. And leaving allowed me to do it in a place where there was no accountability. I didn’t want to come back until I knew I wasn’t using my family simply as accountability. If that makes sense.”

“It does,” she said.

There. He had gone and vented his guts out after having been back for five seconds. “None of that is your responsibility,” he said. “You don’t have to forgive me, no matter what you said before.”

“All right. I’ll remember that. But I think we might have to be cordial because it seems our children like each other an awful lot.”

“Yeah. They do. Colton was pretty mad at me for lecturing him. My one concern, and I am going to be really honest with you, is that Colton is not a small-town kid. He was not as well protected as I assume your daughter is.”

She nodded slowly. Not for the first time, he looked down at her left hand. She didn’t have a ring. He looked back up, and she was studying him.

“I’m not married,” she said.

His mouth quirked upward. “You must be used to men looking at your left hand.”

“I am. At least, enough that I know to recognize the question when it’s being nonverbally asked. Her dad has never been in the picture.”

“I see.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I should work harder at reaching out to him again. Because he went off to college. Or rather, he went back to college. I did let him know, but of course at the time...he didn’t want to be a dad. It just seemed easier to let it go. So, from that standpoint, I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes it does seem easier to just let go completely.”

“Yeah. That’s it exactly.” He paused. “I don’t have the whole world to offer those boys. I do have a trust fund from my father and a whole mess of extended family, and that seemed like something. Seemed like a good offering. A real offering. So I decided to come back. I’m not sure that I’m loving all the connections, though.”

She laughed. “I imagine not.”

“We can agree that this is not a comfortable situation.”

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